Auto Erotica

It’s not what you think. This is a story about cars. Cars in my teenage years when a little cash or a little barter bought us transportation at a price that could easily be spent today on a Starbucks coffee break. Cars that rattled and smoked. Sometimes hard to start and often hard to stop. Yet, these cars were the fabric of our youth, our raison d’ etre, where we learned about tools, girls, joy, money, heartbreak, girls, and sometimes tragedy and the loss of friends.

Television was in its infancy. So we were not subject to the malicious advertisement that now regularly tells us that without horsepower, big tires, polymer bodies, a booming sound system, and lots of electronic accessories—“you ain’t shit.” One kid in our neighborhood paid the outrageous sum of $100 for his car, a 1936 La Salle sedan, but he was clearly the exception. Also, since he had quit school and had a full-time job, he could afford the gas for that boat. Gasoline at that time hovered around twenty cents a gallon.

My first car was a 1929 Ford Model A Coupe. It cost me fifty bucks, but that was only because the previous owner, son of the local Pontiac dealer, had done a lot of work on it. He had removed the fenders, removed the roof, chopped the windshield frame to about ten inches above the cowl, and installed a piece of plate glass. That’s the kind that could easily shatter if hit by a stone. But, of course, there were no inspections in those days.

The mechanical brakes were operated by a lever at the driver’s right side. The shifter was cut down close to the floor level just in front of that. Of course, there was no solid floor, that’s why I got it so cheap. A board was bolted across the frame with two boat cushions nailed to it, and another board was bolted where the feet went so they wouldn’t drag on the street. With the firewall removed, you could look directly at the back of the motor. The hood, the kind that lifted up on hinges from each side, had been removed, the muffler, and the exhaust pipe were replaced by a piece of flexible metal hose.

It was loud, dangerous, and gave the illusion of high speed. I had to have it. I worked pretty hard for a kid with a paper route, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, or whatever I could do to make money for a car. Now, I had one; the problem was, I was only fifteen years old and couldn’t drive on the roads. Fortunately, I lived in the tenement next to the Socony gas station with a large parking lot. The owner let me drive it behind the building. Each day after school, I could be found there in reverse, forward, turn left, brake, back up, turn right, go ahead, stop, repeat, for an hour or so before I had to deliver papers.

I saw my first “Hot Rod” about three months before I bought this car. I was sitting on our front steps and heard a rumbling noise coming up the street. It was a ’39 Ford Coupe that a guy named Eddie Perkins brought back from California. Eddie was a local legend who quit school and hitched rides to the Golden State two years ago. He was in traffic behind a bus, rumbling and goosing the motor. Until he got a clear shot just in front of our house then blasted around that bus with screaming tires and a roaring exhaust that changed my young life. I must have a car like that.

I subscribed to HOT ROD magazine and spent hours poring over the pages. I was always anxious for the next issue cutting out pictures and taping them to my bedroom wall. I ate, drank, slept, hot rods, so when finally getting that chopped and stripped Model A that I was too young to drive, I needed to take it apart.

My Grandfather had always been a mechanic, so when he died, my father brought back all his tools from New Jersey, and I was on my way. The only problem was these tools were from the ’20s, open-end, short pattern wrenches appropriately named “knuckle busters,” and they did. My young hands bore the marks of my stubborn attempts to take apart the engine, why I have no idea. I think it was the frustration of not being able to legally drive on the road.

The good news was, there’s always a sucker more gullible than me, and Joey D. wanted the car and box of engine parts in the worst way. He had no money, but he did have a 1938 Indian “Chief” motorcycle. It had a few problems, but if I did nothing but put it away for all these years until now, it would be worth many thousands of dollars to a collector. So what I did do was come home from school each day, change my clothes, and try starting it. And tried…and tried, I set a goal of a hundred kicks to the starter pedal, at which point my right leg felt like it would fall off, and I’d come back the next day to try again. I traded it and thirty dollars for a lovely ’31 Model A coupe.

I was now old enough to legally drive and took full advantage of that. The ’31 served me well until I blew the engine drag racing out by the reservoir. We had a spot of straight, smooth, blacktop road in a rural area with little traffic and no established police force. So, we put our car enthusiasm pedal to the metal, usually on weekend nights laying out a quarter-mile run with the odometer, which in those days read in tenths. Start and finish lines were marked either with chalk or dirt.

This may seem like a dangerous adventure, but these old four-banger engines would only get up to about forty m.p.h. in the quarter-mile run. The long run-out beyond the finish was easily handled by the less-than-perfect brakes. We had a lot of fun, and the girls thought we were pretty special, even more so for the guys with convertibles.

That blown engine brought me to a ’32 Model B roadster. And that car brought me to Betsy, the girl of my dreams. We dated for three months and got a little beyond kissing while making out with the top down on a warm summer evening parked by Manton Pond. But, unfortunately, this car also broke us apart. So when it stopped running, Jerry B., Ralph, and I towed the broken car back to my next-door parking lot using a chain borrowed from the garage owner. Five miles of towing and jerking and swerving, which would probably bring a life sentence if we were caught doing that shit today.

I was determined to fix that car, attacked it with my knuckle buster wrenches, and got most of it apart. On a Saturday, I had just enough time to clean up, change my clothes to pick up Betsy using my father’s car, and take her to the annual DeMolay Ball. I stood at her front door, corsage box in hand. I suddenly realized that my quick shower and change of clothes did nothing for my fingernails under crusted with greasy dirt. Her father opened the door and extended a greeting hand which I avoided by feigning a coughing spell to get by him into the house. I kept my hands curled into fists and gave the corsage to Betsy in the manner of seal flippers. When her mother suggested I pin it on the gown, I begged off, saying I needed to use the bathroom, and heard her say, “What a strange boy,” as I went down the hall. I tried to scrub out the dirt with little success and finally mushed some soap under the nails and crevices and rubbed bath powder into that. I walked back to the living room and confronted the questioning parents with my hands in my pockets. The rest of the evening didn’t go much better. Betsy gave up on me, and I gave up on the ’32 Ford.

I had no wheels. The ’32 was parked behind the garage, where I had given it to the mechanic for whatever parts he could use. Then, at least, I had friends with cars and became a passenger for several months, providing gas and, in one case, a car wash in exchange for transportation.

By the end of summer, I had saved enough money and looked at enough cars to ensure that the ’41 Ford convertible had “me” written all over it. This car had been sitting in the driveway of one of the bigger houses on my paper route. All I had to do was ask. The guy wanted a hundred bucks; I had seventy-two, so we made the difference with future snow shoveling his sidewalk and driveway. By January, I realized I’d been screwed.

But, this car had a radio. An AM Delco that could get as many as four stations on a good day. And with music becoming more of our teenage focus, it played well with the girls. So I didn’t give the lost Betsy another thought. But, there was a slight problem with the brakes compounded by the lack of a horn. So, one day, returning from school with three friends, top-down radio blasting, we got caught by the red light at the bottom of Spruce St. Hill. I had downshifted and stood on the brakes to sufficiently stop before hitting the car in front of me. We stayed there with the mechanical parking brake yanked up while a cop at the intersection was directing delayed traffic around some road construction.

When the light turned green, the impatient guy in front of me blew his horn, and the cop saw red. He also saw a shitbox Ford convertible with four teenage wise guys laughing at something. He marched up to the car and started yelling at me for blowing the horn. I tried to tell him I didn’t do that. He insisted and reached in the vehicle to pound on the steering wheel horn button. No sound. He did it again. No sound. He barked at me, “Get this piece of shit outta here and don’t let me see you again!”

“Yes, sir.” As I said, there were no inspections in those days.

That wasn’t the only adventure with that car. I fixed it up a little, glued a patch over the top rips to be reasonably watertight, and brushed painted it with green house paint.

Driving home from school a few days later with the three buddies from the horn incident, the right rear leaf spring broke and forced one end of it down into the pavement. We all thought it was funny with the screeching, scraping noise drawing a lot of attention. As we crossed the Central River Bridge, it hooked the rubber traffic counter hose and stretched that until it broke. The problem came when we got to the Broad St. railroad tracks and got caught in the rails, which began to control our direction of travel. I had enough. We managed to bounce the spring out of the track and leave the car at the side of the road. Better to come back at night.

My father drove me back there, and my kid sister came along for the ride. I had no problem driving the damaged car, but it was a different story for my Dad. Apparently, the metal to pavement contact produced a stream of sparks that shot out underneath the gas tank like a giant holiday sparkler in the dark. It was two blocks before my father caught up to me and frantically hand signaled me to stop. My sister was crying hysterically. It all worked out. I left the car at a nearby gas station without further trouble, and my Dad told the guy to fix it, and he would pay. I thought that was a nice thing for him to do.

With the spring replaced and the car running well, I decided to get rid of it and came up with the idea for a raffle. I would sell one hundred tickets at one dollar each (six for five dollars) to my friends at school. You wouldn’t think that was a problem, but what happened destroyed a friendship. One best friend (I won’t say his name) kept bragging about winning the car. Another best friend kept hoping he would win. Finally, on the day of the drawing, you know who won. To this day, I feel sorry about the results and can still see the hoping friend going through the raffle slips to make sure all of his were included. A friendship of years was significantly diminished by the luck of the draw.

I was old enough now to go big time, get some meaningful wheels with some style. I took a giant leap forward and paid nine hundred bucks for a ’49 Ford Custom convertible. A guy had mildly customized it by removing the chrome trim, filling the holes, and painting candy apple red. Not only was it sharp-looking, but the engine had been modified with 8:1 finned aluminum heads, triple cards, a reworked cam, and an exhaust system to die for. The sound from this exhaust was a severe head turner. I often lied to people who didn’t know me and told them I did all the work myself.

This car was a babe magnet, but in the end, she was killed by the force of Carol. I need to give you some background about this. My parents had rented a waterfront summer cottage on a small island. Since the ferry to the island could only handle one car at a time, only at certain tides by reservation, it was impossible to commute by car. So, I had also bought a car on the island and to date was probably the best car I ever bought. Unfortunately, it, too, would come to a tragic end.

In 1932, the three Penner sisters purchased a new Ford rumble seat coupe and brought it to the island. The amount of travel was limited to the few miles of gravel roads that traversed the island, and when I bought it for thirty-five dollars, it had less than eight thousand miles on it. They kept it in a garage and, in winter, when they left, covered it completely. It was so unused that there was a roller shade on the back window with little yarn tassels along the bottom edge. The sisters decided they were too old to continue driving on the island, and I wasn’t about to argue that. I only had the car a week when a monsoon left deep puddles on the roads. One of our neighbors hit a puddle too fast and stalled out his heavy 1936 Hudson hearse. On the island, people help people. I came along with the little Ford, pushed him down the road until he started, and as he pulled away from me, the Ford began to falter. My best guess was that I had ‘jumped time, ’ and the timing gear had lost a tooth.

Back to the candy apple dreamboat and the girl I met at a roller rink in Massachusetts. She liked the car and wanted me well enough that after a few dates, I offered that she stay a week on the island with my mother and me before we returned for our senior year in high school. My Dad was on the mainland all week working, so it would just be the three of us with plenty of room. My Mom and her Mom discussed this by phone, and the deal was done.

I picked her up at her home in ‘candy apple,' top-down, mufflers booming, radio on full, and we drove to the ferry landing with her snuggled against me on the bench seat. No seat belts in those days. I was lucky enough to get a parking space on Water St. close to the ferry landing. On the boat trip to the island, we found a vacant bench behind the wheelhouse and continued the closeness of the car seat. This was definitely going to be a big evening.

Mom had a nice dinner ready. After that, I showed my girlfriend the island sights. This meant a trip around the outer circle road and the old steamship pier on the west side. A favorite ‘parking’ spot for all the teenage couples. The sunsets were spectacular.

I got the Ford started, but it did not run well, sputtering badly with the mistimed ignition. I managed to get to the pier and park, unsure whether it would start again, but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Later, I got it started but did not have enough power to get up the hill, rolled it back onto the pier, and left it there. We walked about a half mile before someone came along and picked us up. We were happy kids, and this was just another adventure. I’ll get someone to tow me tomorrow. Island people help each other. After that, I never saw the car again.

The weather forecasts the following day was spotty, and uncertain about the possibility of a hurricane. Then, starting at 7 a.m., the news talked about possible adverse weather by noon. Finally, at 9, the trees were lying over, and the surf was pounding against the raised bank across the narrow road from the cottage. By noon we were seeing rooftops of destroyed houses bobbing by in the waves as the full force of Hurricane Carol relentlessly slammed into us. I wondered about the Ford on the pier and the Ford in town.

The pier car disappeared along with the parking surface and probably looks more like the Titanic remains than a car. Unfortunately, there was no phone service, so I could only guess the outcome for my in-town, waterfront, candy apple beauty.

After the storm had passed, the island residents reappeared dazed, tired, and completely uncertain of their next move. The following day, a Coast Guard Cutter made it to the island along with a few small boats that had survived in the mainland harbor and began to evacuate the summer residents. We got on a small boat and made it to town, coming into a scene of impressive destruction. The Coast Guard station at the harbor's head had contained a yard full of large navigational buoys. These had floated loose with the high, fierce storm surge and skipped through the lower part of the waterfront area like Goliath’s footsteps, trashing buildings into kindling.

When we landed near the ferry dock, my first thought was for my car. As I rounded the corner of the brick warehouse along water street where it was parked, my next thought was, “Holy shit, it’s OK!” I ran to it like a father to a lost child. My next thought was, “Why is there seaweed hanging off the steering wheel?”

A man came from the stone-faced house across the street and said, “I watched it bobbing back and forth with the waves. At one point, it was almost in my yard, but it settled back when the tide turned.” The car was sitting parallel to the curb, inches from where I parked it, but now I knew it was a swimmer. Two inches of mud on the floor confirmed that.

My mother was one of those unrealistic optimist persons who always saw a silver lining. I suppose my girlfriend and I helped make one. We made our way uphill to Main Street and the Armory, where Civil Defense had set up their command post. Hoping to get a phone call through to Massachusetts. When I inquired about that, the harried person said, “We can’t do that now. We have too many people without phone service. I responded with, “That’s nothing. We don’t even have a water supply.”

“What! Where?”

When I explained about the devastation on the island, that we had no water, no power, no phone, nothing, the incredible force of the United States Government sprang into action with a vitality that looked like a giant sugar high. C. D. workers mobilized, and categorized, and analyzed the situation and proceeded to order, literally, tons of supplies to be sent to the island immediately. When asked how many people were on the island, I guessed four or five hundred. I forgot to say that was the summer count. The result, the silver lining, was fifty or so, permanent residents enjoyed tons of government largesse that lasted for years. All the canned goods, military parkas, boots, blankets, toilet paper, bottled water, medical supplies, etc., were gratefully received and hoarded. No one ever said, “Thanks, Jimmy,” to me.

Again, I was without wheels. My Dad was kind enough to let me use his car on limited occasions, a ‘49 Caddy Coupe De Ville. Sometimes, these opportunities were when I was cruising with friends. There was no air conditioning in this model. Still, we drove around with the windows up, sweating in the late summer heat. So we could pull to the curb and let down the power windows with that distinctive motorized whine to chat up some cute girls. That was before I got married.

Before Bev and I got married, we spent some time looking for an affordable car, finally settling on a ’46 Plymouth sedan with new tires and an oil leak. It wasn’t a bad car, at least in our eyes, and it was cheap. Dad let us take the Caddy for our honeymoon, and he would drive our Plymouth to work. At least that was the plan. When we returned from our week-long trip, and I went to pick up my car, it was not at the house. It was at a gas station where my father stashed it, refusing to drive another mile, “In that piece of shit.” I didn’t think it was that bad.

We settled in a small third-floor apartment in a waterfront community. The car was parked on the street with the keys always left in the ignition. Those were the days. We had spruced up the Plymouth with a coat of the same green house paint I had used on the ‘41Ford. It looked pretty good, considering. The one thing I had forgotten about was anti-freeze. Because the radiator leaked, I had drained it, refilled it with water and “leak stop,” and forgot about it. Winters can be cruel in New England, and that sucker froze up while driving to work on the very first cold day.

The good news was that the engine stopped across the street from a Shell garage that also sold used cars. I had been there before and, sort of, knew the owner, nice guy. So I asked, “What do you have in cheap cars?”

He was busy with something on his desk and didn’t look up but said, “We just got a ’49 Ford in this morning. I don’t know anything about it. Go out back and take a look. Fifty bucks if you want it.”

How much for my trade? The Plymouth over there.” I pointed across the street.

He finally looked up and asked. “Running?”

“It’s got a little freeze-up problem.”

He was staring down at his desk again. “I’ll knock fifteen bucks off.”

“Deal.” I didn’t have the rest of the cash with me, but in those days, it was OK to say, “I’ll bring you the rest tomorrow.”

I got the keys and went to the lot behind the garage. It was sitting in the second row next to a Studebaker. It started right up. Not bad. I left the motor running and walked around the car. A little tappet noise, a little smoke. I opened the trunk and made my money back. Someone had left a pile of tools in the trunk, easily worth more than I paid for the car. I grabbed a screwdriver and took the plates off the Plymouth, still parked across the street. I left there in the Ford, turning the radio on, which worked perfectly.

I kept that car for about a year, finally trading it for an old International truck that I planned to use in the woods for pulpwood cutting. But, of course, that went nowhere, and again, I needed a car.

We decided to upgrade, especially with a child soon to arrive. Upgrade meant a loan, and I had to borrow money for the first time in my life. The manager at the finance company said we had “honest faces,” and we bought a decent ’51 Plymouth coupe at a used car lot in Massachusetts. We were both working at marginal jobs but managed to make the payments. However, we had to trade back down again after the baby was born, down to one income and the Plymouth engine starting to knock loudly. We settled on a ’49 Pontiac Chieftain two-door sedan, black and white two-tone with a sun visor. A real sharp car with a lot of tailpipe smoke. To this day, I remember the sales pitch, probably said in jest, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Maybe that was the “fire” I needed to be lit under my ass to get a real job. But, sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you also, hopefully, get some maturity, especially with a new baby. As the years passed and the first new car was purchased, and another child was born. I often thought about the parade of vehicles and what each meant in my life. How the simple things like a fifty-dollar car were lost forever, and the overwhelming burden of high priced, high maintenance, high insurance, and high hopes were manifested in the automotive market of our present society. A time when, if you didn’t have the latest wheels, “You ain’t shit!”