Life Perspectives - New Car Smell & Other Scents of Autumn

Ah autumn. Falling leaves, jack o'lanterns, and car buying.

Car buying?

When I was a kid, my dad always bought cars in the fall, working a clearance deal on last year's models as new models flooded the showrooms.

However nostalgia may cloud our memories, indisputably automobiles are better-made now than then. When I was growing up, most car loans ran 36 months which is about how long the cars ran. Dad would stretch built-in obsolescence another twelve to eighteen months. One time he left his trade-in running outside the car dealership for fear that he might not get the car started again if he turned off the engine.

Anything built after 1990 looks like a Honda to me. But walking to Garfield School, our neighborhood pack could identify every car's make and year. I can still spot a '56 DeSoto at fifty paces. We turned new model spotting into an autumn ritual. "Man, did you see the grill on the new Buick Special?"

I remember when I first spotted the totally-redesigned 1958 Chevy. It was white with blue interior. What a beaut. But I knew a '58 Chevy would never sit in front of our house. Dad was a Ford man. Later in life after the kids had flown the nest he bought a couple of Oldsmobiles and even a Chrysler New Yorker. But when we were kids he drove Fords on Shell gasoline.

Dad slogged through those years as a junior manager with a stay-at-home wife, three kids, and night school twice a week. Car payments were part of life's struggle. Forget car radios-a radio meant another month's payment. Money that might have gone to white walls went to piano lessons instead.

Then came 1959. Dad's career took a jump. In what may have been the last time in his life that he put the clutch down, he coaxed the '54 Ford into the dealership and came home with not just a new car but a top-of-the-line Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxy. White walls, power steering, power brakes, automatic transmission, and AM radio. The trunk looked like an empty swimming pool and its V-8 could have pinch hit for the local power plant. Four doors meant no more climbing over Mom's seat. The Galaxy was a rich, almost metallic, bronze that contrasted beautifully with the whitewalls. Man it looked sharp then and if you spot one at a car show, you'll see it still does. No wonder it was named "The World's Most Beautifully Proportioned Car" at the Brussels World Fair.

The leap to air conditioning came with the '63 Mercury as Dad continued to scale the automobile hierarchy. Add cruise control with the sporty but lemony'67 Mercury that even Dad would dump after two years. (Lemon or not, put wings on that car and it would fly.) Eventually Dad pretty much had all the accoutrements that mattered to him. But they were all minor compared to 1959-his "BC/AD" year in car-buying when he cruised home in that Galaxy.

W.E. Reinka may be reached at wereinka@ix.netcom.com

This article appeared in the September 2007 issue of Northwest Prime Time, the Puget Sound region’s monthly publication celebrating life after 50.