Family heirloom ‘Esmerelda,’ a ’92 Dodge Dynasty, has a new owner
The old car with a lot of ‘quirky quirks’ has been passed down from teenage cousin to cousin
Her name is Esmerelda.
She’s a 1992 Dodge Dynasty with God knows how many miles on her. The car’s odometer hasn’t worked for many of her nearly 30 years in operation. She’s rusty, her paint is chipping, air conditioning doesn’t work, driver window doesn’t budge, stereo system is mute, and dashboard is warped from summers in the hot Florida sun.
“But gosh darn this girl starts up every single day,” said Susie Gebhardt, of Valparaiso, the car’s owner.
Gebhardt’s 20-year-old son, Ben, drove Esmerelda during his high school years, following in the trailblazing tire tracks of his cousins who also drove Esmerelda during their high school years.
“She has been driven by five cousins in three families … parked at the high school for the last 12 years,” Gebhardt said.
Gebhardt’s 22-year-old daughter, Olivia, was the last of the cousins to drive Esmerelda this past summer. Her new (used) car doesn’t have the same charm, eye appeal or colorful history as Esmerelda.
“It’s a boring gray,” said Olivia, who recently graduated from college.
Esmerelda is anything but boring. Her original baby blue exterior was repainted by Gebhardt’s father, Scott Brown, to properly represent the colors of Valparaiso High School — a two-tone green and white.
The paint job was done when Gebhardt’s nephew, Nick Coryell, a VHS football player, passed it down to his cousins, Garrett Brown and Sam Coryell.
“My dad had it painted green and white, with my son’s football number on one side and my nephew’s number on the other side,” said Carla Coryell, Gebhardt’s sister. “It became known as the green and white, spotted at VHS or at Valpo Velvet Ice Cream Shoppe where most of our kids had their first jobs.”
“It’s taught the kids how to be humble, that’s for sure,” Gebhardt said.
Esmerelda has escorted dozens of teenagers to proms, parades and the pomp and circumstance of graduation ceremonies.
“It seems like every kid in Valpo has been inside this car,” Gebhardt joked. “It’s a very
smooth, comfortable ride in that back seat.”
Esmerelda’s history is as colorful as her green hood and trunk.
“It’s a great story that started with my grandmother,” Gebhardt’s other sister, Cathy Brown, whose family owns Valpo Velvet in town, said.
Esmerelda was originally purchased by Gebhardt’s late grandmother, Mary Brown, who lived in Florida. After she could no longer drive it, in 2008, Carla Coryell and her family flew down to Florida in pick up the car.
“My son, Nick, paid his grandma $1 for Esmerelda and we drove her home,” Coryell said. “With no A/C, it was a long sweaty drive.”
Esmerelda has a lot of “quirky quirks,” Olivia said while cleaning it Thursday afternoon in the family’s driveway. “For starters, she used to do a thing when going through a puddle, she would just turn off. I’d get stranded on my way to school and have to call my dad to pick me up.”
Another charming quirk: Esmerelda’s battery would die if the interior light was turned on. And she could be seen coming down the road from a mile away. (Watch a video of Esmerelda on my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/JerDavich/)
“Ben didn’t like all the attention it brought,” Gebhardt said about her son.
“And I didn’t drive it through any drive-thru lanes because the driver-side window doesn’t work. So I’d just walk inside instead,” Ben told me before hopping onto Esmerelda’s roof for one last time.
The family no longer has a use for the car. Or the space in its driveway.
“We just don’t have room anymore,” Gebhardt said as she waited for Esmerelda’s new owner to show up.
Last week, she posted on Facebook that the family’s beloved relative on four wheels was up for sale, for the traditional sticker price of $1.
“What I would like is for some high school kid with no car who is sick of taking the school bus ‘cuz it comes too damn early,” she wrote. “She could last a week. She could last two years. She’s very well loved.”
Graham Collins, a VHS senior, was chosen to be Esmerelda’s new owner. On Thursday, he paid for it with cash, handing a single dollar bill to Olivia, making the transaction official. One condition to the sale is that Collins will occasionally park Esmerelda at Valpo Velvet, where she has been a fixture for more than a dozen years.
“It’s bittersweet because she has a high sentimental value in our family,” Gebhardt said.
In a stroke of gas-powered serendipity, Collins said he plans to attend Ivy Tech Community College to study car mechanics.
“Enjoy her, Graham,” Gebhardt told him after handing him the keys. “I hope she brings you as much joy as she has brought us. And I hope she lasts more than a week.”
As Collins drove away, Gebhardt asked her daughter, “Does the horn work?”
Seconds later — honk, honk! For the record, the horn works.