Taunus times

Brown gravel road. Spruce tops. Summer cottages carefully converted into cramped suburban villas, far from the nearest village. In that environment, teenage melancholia struck. Me and one of the other guys who got stranded in that environment were both depressed, but in different ways.

My childhood friend from the area was a couple of years older, and when he got his driver’s license, we found a new routine.

Just in time for his 18th birthday, he had gotten hold of a bronzecoloured Taunus 17M, built in Cologne in 1970. Ten years old, but with an engine in good shape.

For him the car became a kind of costume for a new persona - the motorhead — and together we started making trips to town, some 15 miles away.

The Taunus roared like a bronzed rifle shot through the countryside. Dangerous rides, but the general depression made me kind of disconnected from any thoughts of risks. I was tired of life, and my friend did not seem to feel much better.

Inside his Taunus he had mounted red lights, which created a slight feeling of discomfort. A few years later, when I finally started to travel abroad, the red light thing took on a new meaning in passages through shabby quarters, but none of what I saw at those places could kill the joy of being in real urban settings. Despite the misery, I felt much better there than on the gravel roads back home.

At the time we began our travels in the Ford, the other guy and I had already started to grow apart. We did not have much in common anymore, after leaving the building of forest huts and soft airgun wars behind us. The car rides were like a gloomy funeral ceremony over our childhood.

The only thing that was really good about the crazy trips was the car itself. It looked like a scaled- down version of an American, gangster ride. And that cool bronze paint.

Thomas Drakenfors

Sweden