To all those boys of summer and cars

Victor Geminiani

So I can’t let this opportunity close on me having spent the last 3 weeks trying to figure out what was worthy of the collection of stories. I have 3 brief stories of my special experiences related to my favorite cars.

1. My first very own car was a red 1958 MGA. Until then I had been relegated to driving my father’s Renault Dauphine … I had worked all summer long at the village DPW collecting garbage and had saved up $1000. I fell in love with the car when I first saw it for sale at a local gas station. 

   
   My father OKed the deal (he was paying for the insurance) and I drove the car home to a distinct pounding in the bottom of the engine. Confirmed it had a bad bearing or two, my father told me to take the car back to the station. I did that but the owner said no to any repairs. I called my father with the bad news and he said just leave the car with him and walk away insisting he either return my money or fix the car. I was sure that was the dumbest idea I ever heard of and I had just lost my $995. To my shock he fixed the car.

    

2. Fast forward 8 months and I heard a definite pop when I tried to put the car in gear. Turned out the throw out bearing had worn right through. I had no clutch. Back at our house, I asked my father what I should do. He asked me if I had any money left to fix the clutch and of course I did not. At that point he explained I had 2 options remaining. Sell the car “as is” and suffer a big loss … or fix the clutch myself.

   
   In panic I asked how you did that kind of complicated work and he told me to buy a shop manual (which I still have today) and come to him when I had questions. It was a life changing experience when the car actually ran again. The confidence I had developed helped me rebuild the engine twice and the transmission once before I sold the car years later. I thought I was on a never ending up hill curve until computers entered the modern car.

    

3. I developed a love for XKEs early in life when my father drove up in a sensuous 1957 XK140.

   
   My first being a totally trashed 1962 I bought when I had first graduated from law school. I drove it 5 months before the clutch failed and it never made it out of the garage again in Atlanta, Georgia. But those 5 months were a spiritual conversion to the concept if not the reality of an E Type owner.

My next was a yellow 1967 coupe I found deserted in a barn in Northern California. I slowly nurtured the car back to becoming a daily driver for 8 years in and around California. I loved that car more than I ever thought capable.

I featured myself an adequately competent driver but have never driven her over 90 MPH. Driving one late night up I-5 from LA to Sacramento I slowly gathered courage and drove the car to 120 MHP … and kept that speed up for 2 hours slashing the ETA by 2 1/2 hours. I never repeated that adventure again.

Once was enough but what a ride I remember.

Warm aloha to all those boys of summer and cars.

When speed and luck meet

Terry Tusher

It was the mid 1970s. I was spending over 50% of my time in Southern California designing several projects for a client with headquarters in Los Angeles. Projects, mostly in and around San Diego, required a lot of commuting back and forth along Southern California’s notorious freeways. Suffering Hawaiʻi withdrawal and lured by the opportunity to drive long distances, I indulged myself in a 1964 Mercedes 220SE convertible (named Sherman, as in the tank) to make frequent commutes between LA & SD more palatable.

There was one particularly lengthy job site meeting at a large Shopping Center Project, University Towne Centre (now Westfield UTC - time changes things), NE of La Jolla. As the meeting kept going, I noticed my client was getting increasingly restless. Finally, he stood up and said he had a meeting in Los Angeles that couldn’t be missed and his flight to LA was leaving in 45 minutes. He turned to me and asked “Can you get me there?”

The challenge was set. The route required traversing the project’s dirt roads (+/- 2 miles) to the freeway, heading south on Interstate 5 (+/- 15miles), then +/- 3 miles of city stop light littered streets to the terminal. We jumped into my car and sped down the dirt roads to the freeway on-ramp. Fortunately, freeway traffic was light so speed soon reached 80-90 mph. Things were looking good until the Highway Patrol lights started flashing in my rear view mirror. Oops! The motorcycle officer climbed off his bike and asked “What’s the hurry?” I explained my passenger’s dilemma until the officer suddenly stopped my blabber and said “Follow me!”

In short, rather than having a very unhappy client sitting in my car watching his plane disappear overhead, we had a police escort to the airport!

My client made his flight (no TSA security in those days). I had a nice conversation with the officer. He said he was expecting an interesting story when he stopped two guys blatantly speeding down the State’s major north/south freeway in a Mercedes with the top down, understood my desperate attempt to help my client, and anyway it was the end of his shift. No ticket, just a hand shake and a suggestion that next time I might not be so lucky.

Could it have been my California Drivers’ License with a Hawaiʻi home address? That’s another story.

Post script

After a time in Hawaiʻi, Sherman found its way back to California and had a less than deserved end. Stored in North Oakland, it became a victim of the October 1991 Oakland/Berkeley Hills Firestorm, the first of the devastating Northern California fires. Nothing was left, except a blob of melted metal. So even tanks aren’t indestructible.

I’m no motor-head

Terry Savage

I’m no motor-head nor was I blessed with a “need for speed,” but I’m happy to share two episodes from back in the “mists of time” (late teens/early 20s) that were definite teachable moments:

TM #1
On a snowy, very late February night foray to repo a car (that’s another story) I was driving my 1963 Rambler American, equipped with 3 on the tree trans and worn bias tires, down a long sloping stretch of the Garden State Parkway. My buddy Joe, a much better driver and true car guy, pointed out the Rambler’s light rear end and nearly non-existent traction and urged me to drop our speed to below 20 mph, seeing as we were fishtailing in the slick wet slop that was turning to ice.

Alas I reacted too late and we began a spin; akin to doing the fandango on skates. After several 360s while sliding across the macadam, the car finally stopped when the right front fender slammed into a guard rail. I gladly relinquished the driving duties to Joe, but not before we peered over the guardrail at the 50+ foot drop below the overpass upon which we were perched. Whew!

TM #2
In the mid-1970s I had a pretty well-used 1964 B which was still quite a step up from the battered VWs I’d previously owned. One night in the wee hours on H1 heading Ewa-bound through Kaimuki I thought it might be fun to see what the old blue bucket could do (especially going downhill) and got it to 110 mph.

Fast approaching the University Avenue exit, I abruptly took my foot off the gas—resulting in a loud explosion and a blown out muffler. The next day I was treated to a stern lecture from my mechanic (an avuncular British car guy) on safe driving, as well as the perils of back firing.

Thanks for sharing your and other folks’ stories, and stay well.

It happened in the fast lane

Gail Caveney

The memory of when this happened is vague but it doesn’t matter. I was in my 1955 Chrysler on a Los Angeles freeway … in the fast lane, when all of a sudden my hood opened and slammed against the windshield so that suddenly I had zero visibility. To say I was terrified would be an understatement.

The busy freeway was full of 18 wheelers and I guess people around me realized there was indeed a BIG problem. I managed to inch myself over very slowly to the slow lane, certain I was going to die! It felt like an hour, or more, but I managed to get stopped, and from there on, everything is a blur in my memory.

The hood had to be left open a few inches since it wouldn’t lock closed. I got lots of attention from that. Guys thought there was a big hot engine underneath the partially raised hood. Obviously I lived to tell the story … a memory in my brain forever.

Mitch Bednarsh

I’ve been enjoying the top speed stories and other recollections. Mine is nothing to write home about (actually, my mother would prefer not to know).

My 1974 Lotus Europa Special, about 100 mph before lift off, I thought I’d go airborne if any faster; my 1984 Corvette, 110; my 1979 Triumph Spitfire, 80?

But my fastest is on 2 wheels, Kawasaki Ninja 1000, 150 mph, on the road from Hilo to Honokaa. That was insane. or was it irresponsible and stupid? I just hope my son never does it.