Rick Minerd - Life Is A Jukebox

I have been a Car Guy for as long as I can remember.  Guys that fall into this category can be obsessed with what has become known as The Hobby.

I don't think I am, but what ever is in second place to car appreciation is a few laps behind. I do love cars. And I've owned way too many. but like most of us, I wish I had them all back.

Some of my personal favorites that I've owned , in no particular order are, a 1964 Mercury Marauder, 1964 Mercury Comet, 1966 Ford Fairlane, 1965 Ford Falcon, 1959 Ford Custom, 1959 Edsel Ranger, 1973 Mercury Capri, 1966 Mustang, 1958 Simca, 1974 Ford Torino, 1969 Ford Torino, 1976 Ford Mustang-Cobra ll and my all-time favorite, a 1960 Ford Falcon. All in all I've owned ten Falcons. But that 1960 was my first car, and like many of us, our first set of wheels turns out to be our favorite.

There were so many reasons this one was so special. With $150.00 of my dads money I got it when I was a few months shy of my sixteenth birthday. Today the glove compartment door for that car would cost $150.00.

In 1968 it was pristine. No rust, beautiful white paint and immaculate interior. The car had a 144 cubic inch six cylinder engine, eighty horsepower, three speed on the column and to me was the fastest ride in the south end. Okay it wasn't exactly a rocket, but by the time I turned seventeen it looked like one. Blue tinted windows, chrome wheels and anything else I could buy from my one dollar an hour job at Schmidts Sausage House.

After I crashed it on Rt. 315 my dad and I rebuilt it with new fenders, a new grille, headlights and a hood, then I took it out and blew the engine. My dad taught me how to work on motors as he rebuilt that little six.

I got laid in that car, I lived out the Beach Boys song "I get Around" with my friends, and I got my first ticket in it. Then proving that youth is wasted on the young I traded it for the '58 Simca. If you aren't a car guy you might not know what that was. Simcas back then looked something like a '54 Chevy Bel Air, only about half the size. It was a French car that got about a million miles per gallon. The engine resembled something built by Briggs and Stratton. I had to remove the back seat to get laid in it. By taking out the back seat two people could lie comfortably on the floor with their feet in the trunk. The biggest problem with that was kicking the tail-light wiring loose.

Anyway, it was only one of two foreign cars I ever owned. The other was a 1960 Simca. I can't explain why.  I am a Ford man.

And the cars I've mentioned here are just some of the more than 70 rides I've had titles to. Among them there have been a few Chevrolets, a couple of Chrysler products, a Buick, and Oldsmobile and numerous other Fords. Driving GM and Chrysler products always embarrassed me but I tried to keep an open mind if the price was right. In every case, if it wasn't FoMoCo I didn't hang on to it very long.

I used to think that any car not built by Ford was just transportation for hillbillies.

But I became more open minded on this subject when car buyers turned their shameless backs on the American auto industry and littered the streets with Toyotas, Hondas and all of that other crap that carries a Jap, Korean, or any other name-plate from countries who were once hell bent on destroying the good old USA. Aside from some of the exotics like Jaguar, Lotus and some others with rich racing heritage, I abhor foreign cars. Especially silver foreign cars.

The other day I was a guest on Eddie Powell's weekly television show and I got into a discussion with his producer who saw nothing wrong with the collapse of the  U.S. auto industry. He argued that it's okay to let the foreigners take over because it keeps them friendly. I argued that I didn't mind them monopolizing the electronics world. They make most of the cameras, computers, televisions, telephones and all things high tech, but the auto industry belongs to us.

Anyway, because there are so many of these urban blights running around now, I have found a new appreciation for GM and Chrysler products.

Especially the old ones. Show me anything made in Japan that  can  rival the beauty of a 1959 Cadilac with all of it's chrome appointments and yards of sleek lines. And a grille that could swallow a Corrola whole. Even if you painted a  Jap car something other than that ugly, drab silver. A candy apple, metal flake red  Honda Accord is still a guy wearing checkered pants, a bow tie and horn rimmed glasses at a Hells Angels rally when parked next to an American Muscle Car.

This text isn't written to bash the little boxy sedans from across the pond. Although it's hard not to do that. No, my intent is to remind others to appreciate old American made cars. Compared to what's been produced in the past 30 years the old cars are works of art. They are a key fabric in the quilt that makes up American history. At no other time could that have been considered.

In the 1950s when every street was a car show no one could have known that some day we would relish these cars. When I got a 1960 Falcon for $150.00 I could have had a 1957 Chevy or a '59 T-bird for the same money. No one knew.

And I think the reason we took these cars for granted is because the auto world was still relatively young. But here we are in 2007 and the companies started by Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet and the Dodge Brothers are more than 100 years old.

Cars in this sense are like the music industry. Now that most of the founding fathers and key performers of the record industry are either dead or have long retired, our music is in the history books. Back in the '50s the radio stations that introduced us to our most beloved tunes were only about 30 years old.

Who would have thought Bing to the Beatles would be historic?

Some colleges offer an entire course of study on the Beatles. Maybe some schools should develop a curriculum on the American auto industry. I'd pay that  tuition. Well maybe not. I've been paying attention to and  loving cars all of my life. I could probably teach that course.

No matter what your opinion is, even if you don't have any interest in cars, I think if  you were honest about it you'd  admit that pre-1976 American cars are pieces of art. Especially when people save them from the crusher and either restore them back to their original glory, or customize them to personal taste.

I believe that we are starting to know that some of them are more priceless than other treasured art forms. Revere Picasso, Van Gogh or any other artist you want. An  original Carrol Shelby recently sold for five and a half million.

That's right, a little two seat American sports car with a Ford V-8. and that's only one example. 1960s Mopars with hemi engines routinely sell for over a million, GTO's, Chevelles and other muscle cars are bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars every day across the country. And these buyers aren't buying them to drive fast. They're buying rolling art. These machines are finding homes in museums to be appreciated by this and future generations of  Kia  buyers.

Sadly time is running down for some of us to have the opportunity to buy such American history. Because of beauty and rarity they are fast becoming far out of reach in price.

I wonder if someday someone will look at a 2007 Nissan Sentra and say, "Boy, those were the days."  No.     Rick 

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