[TR] cars for kids

[Jerry Van Vlack]

I need to add to all of this as well.
In my case it was a 1937 Chevy 4 door that was my Grandfathers car. It was 
handed down from my brother Bill to me when Bill bought a 1955 100-4 Austin 
Healy. My Grandfather only owned 2 cars in his life. A 1928 Dodge and this 
37 Chevy. Bill got the Chevy in 1960 and I got it in 1962. It still had the 
new tires on it that were put on in 1949 before the Grandparents summer trip 
to California from Pittsburgh. I loved that car because it was his as well 
as it was the coolest car that anyone in my school had. Lots liked it more 
than a few of my friends who had 55, 56 and 57 Chevy's. I liked those cars 
too. The 37 could not go very fast and overheated in the morning and never 
cooled off until retired at night. It was so heavy that if I ever hit 
anything I'd have gone thru it. I did get rear ended once by an early 60's 
Chevy PU Truck. The spring steel rear bumper absorbed most of the hit and 
bounced back almost as it was before I got hit. It pushed the panel under 
the trunk in about 2" and broke a tail light. The front of the PU was pretty 
smashed. As I recall the estimate to repair everything was maybe $43.00 
bucks.What memories.
Our daughter got the 86 Pontiac Sunbird when my wife got a new car. What a 
piece of crap that car was. So many things went wrong with it that I quit 
keeping track of them. The Odometer was electrically driven and had a habit 
of going backwards and took miles off some days. The daughters friend had 
one that did the same thing. Next for the kids was a Honda Civic. That was a 
good car but for the rust. It was a 5 speed and to this day my kids only 
want stick shifts. Both of them amaze their friends that they can drive a 
stick. I can't imagine that there are so many folks who don't know how to do 
so.They both have VW Jetta's now. Those are great cars but a bit of a 
maintenance nightmare as the Germans have to do everything differently than 
anyone else, little things like wheel bolts rather than studs and lug nuts 
as an example.

There's a lot more stories that can be told about the 37 but those are for 
another day, nice memories.

JVV