[Spridgets] OT - and cars of youth...

Rick Bastedo rbastedo at gmail.com
Sat Feb 26 10:35:20 MST 2011


1960 Desoto
Big-ass Hemi.
Push putton automatic.
I had this car when I was 18.
My dad gave it to me for high school graduation.
It could cruise all day at 120+ mph if you had the road for it!!
He should have kept the car. it might have survived a little better.
It was pretty much in the condition you see in the picture here, and it was
the same color:

http://mustangattitude.com/graphics/sample/desoto196042539.jpg

Unfortunately I was 18 and stupid.
The car was doing fine until I let my (at the time) pretty little 18 year
old blond haired blue eyed girlfriend drive it.
We were on an unpaved road that was wide enough for at least 2 and a half
cars if not three.
However when an oncoming car approached she felt the need to move far to the
right, hitting a fence post at the front tip of the front passenger side
fender and then proceeded to cave in the whole 18 feet of the passenger side
of the car all the way back to the tail fin. Me sitting there in the
passenger seat watching the whole agonizing thing.

The drive back to her parents place to drop her off was in total silence.

Now I tell my boys that "NO girlfriend is worth your car".
I don't think for a moment that they will heed this piece of wisdom, but
after that first time their girlfriend ruins their prize vehicle they will
understand the old man.

Rick (that Desoto had a big back seat though...) Bastedo  ;-)


<original message>
From: BJNoSHOV8 <bjshov8 at tx.rr.com>

> Subject: Re: [Spridgets] Off topic posts
>


> I grew up shortly after the musclecar era, and I worked in my dad's shop
> after school and in the summers.  One of our customers was a used car lot
> and one day they sent us an El Camino to work on.  OK, at the height of the
> musclecar era Chebbie came out with the 454 Chevelle!  I don't have to say
> anything about how great the Chevelle was.  The 454 started with the 396,
> evolved to the mighty 427 (which I was driving at the time) and then on to
> the 454.  And they had the soft versions of the engines with hydraulic
> lifters and so forth on to the high compression versions with radical
> mechanical lifter cams and more performance oriented heads.  Well this
> Camino had the LS6 454- mechanical lifters and all.  I put a clutch in it
> and wanted to keep it but my dad couldn't understand it.  Well in my eyes it
> wasn't equal to a 454 Chevelle but it was still something special.  If
> someone had that vehicle today they would really have something.  I don't
> kid myself that I could hold onto a vehicle like that through all of the
> misfortunes of life over the past 35 years but it is still fun to dream
> about it.
>
>  Rancheros, yes.  Them ugly chebbie things, hell no.


More information about the Spridgets mailing list