The making of a classic
My second car was a 1964 Plymouth Valiant that was picked out for me by my uncle, which was sort of a tradition in my family. He was an automobile mechanic and, as such, he “knew cars.” My Valiant was a nice, dependable four-door car with vinyl seats, an AM radio, and a sensible six-cylinder motor. It had a three-speed manual transmission operated by a columnmounted shifter. It was brown with a beige vinyl top and it sported a set of whitewall tires. I gave $400 for that car. Adjusted for inflation, that is equivalent to about a million dollars today.
It had belonged to a schoolteacher who had never driven it at night, in the rain, into the wind, or in the direction of any activity that might have even accidentally been considered fun. My uncle specialized in the schoolteacher automobile trade, and the poor dears would bring their sensible cars to him from far and wide for repair, and when they were ready to trade, he bought their old cars at a fair price and then found them new ones. He also fixed and sold cars that had once been driven by Bible salesmen, preachers’ wives, and bachelor farmers.
The first day I owned the car, I handwashed it, waxed it twice, polished the interior, rubbed kerosene on the tires to make them shine, adjusted the AM radio buttons to rock-and-roll stations, and hung a raccoon tail on the antenna because that was a pretty cool thing to do. After about a week of ownership, I named the car The Chick Repellant. No, I’m not joking. For the six months I owned that car, I tried everything I could think of to get an actual girl to ride in it with me, and I never had the first bit of luck. My mama wouldn’t even ride with me. Perhaps it was the faint odor of mothballs that drifted from the interior. It was well known among schoolteachers, Bible salesmen, preachers’ wives, and bachelor farmers that mothballs under a car seat would prevent moths from eating the vinyl.
In various attempts to acquire female passengers, I put food in the passenger seat and parked by hungry girls, and they would not get in. I put money in the passenger seat and parked by broke girls, and they would not get in. I put completed homework in the passenger seat and parked by girls with poor grades, and they would not get in. As far as I know, the only women ever to get into any Plymouth Valiant were schoolteachers, preachers’ wives, and the occasional female Bible salesperson.
I did what I could to sexy that car up, but a Valiant was a difficult car to sexy up. I took the trailer hitch off of it to reduce the wind drag. I cut the power steering belt to increase the horsepower. I poured a bottle of Casite Motor Honey into the engine to give it a throaty purr. I dismounted the tires and remounted them with the black walls facing out because only old fogeys ran whitewall tires, and I bought a set of Baby Moon hubcaps to give it that classic look.
I drove short pieces of two-by-four lumber between the coils of the rear springs to jack it up and make it look like a hot rod. I cut the exhaust system off of the car with a hacksaw and installed a Cherry Bomb muffler using flexible pipe and some wire coat hangers so it would sound like it had a more powerful motor. I applied STP stickers to the back windows because all the really cool cars sported these. I bought some nice shag carpet at the outlet store and epoxied it to the vinyl floor mats in an attempt to turn my plain interior into something plush.
Alas, all of these foolproof techniques failed, and after six months I gave up and sold the Valiant to a schoolteacher who was engaged to be married to an enterprising Bible salesman. It was a win/win situation if I ever saw one.