Heavy Metal

What Made America Great

July 12, 2024

It was nighttime, returning home on the new section of Interstate 66 West.  We had a gold 1971 Delta 88 with green brocade seats, and I was about eight years old, camped out as usual in the center of the back seat so that I could look out the windshield while Dad drove.  My mother and younger brother were both asleep, and we were the only car on the road.  

“Son,” Dad said softly, leaning back his head a bit so I would hear, “look at the speedometer.”

I leaned forward to see over his shoulder at the gauges, and we were going 110 mph.  Double the new speed limit.  The big Oldsmobile was smooth as silk, 4,300 lbs. or so of Detroit iron, and the 455 pulled that car like a toy.  He had slowly crept up to speed without any of us noticing.  I just kind of smiled proudly and thought how awesome it was.

Dad was always a V8 man, but he was brand agnostic.  In the early years it was Mustangs and Fairlanes.  By the time my baby brother came along he had upgraded to a sweet Olds Cutlass Supreme, a pale yellow coupe with factory chrome Magnum wheels.  He also switched cars pretty frequently, which did not get many points with my mother.  Working at parts stores and a car dealership must have only fed his urge to try out different rides. 

One day he came home with a ’63 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, and a ’62 parts car for it that just sat in the driveway.  That Caddy was the coolest thing ever.  It had power windows, and self-dimming headlights, even an electric antenna.  The wipers swept in opposing directions.  I used to roll my matchbox cars across the swoopy flanks of the ’62 while Dad was at work.  They were already ‘old’ cars by then, which is how we considered anything with more than ten years on it.

But we did not have the Caddy very long, and the memory stuck in my noggin is driving to Great-Grandmother’s burial at the family cemetery.  It was absolutely pouring rain as we followed the hearse, which was also a Cadillac with the same body style.  Looking over the back seat as always, the wipers on high speed, I could just barely make out the little tail lights of the hearse and I wondered how my Dad even managed to stay on the road.  When we arrived at the cemetery the sun came out.

Real Cars, circa late ‘50s to late ‘70s, tended to have full frames and eight cylinders.  The high-beam switch was always on the floor, where God intended it to be.  Many times the gas filler would be hidden behind a license plate, or cleverly integrated into the rear fascia or a tail light.  With a front bench seat Real Cars could hold six adults, but I held out eternal hope that Dad would eventually get something with bucket seats and a floor console.

They were also simple to work on.  A lot of the electrical items were common across the industry, for example.  There were no ‘modules’ or integrated circuits, only wires.  Simple was good for a young father like my Dad, who changed his own oil and rotated his own tires.  He would be out under the car laying on gravel, fitting new mufflers or flushing the radiator, things which most men seemed to do for themselves back then.  As a junior enthusiast I loved to learn about all the inner workings under the hood, which he was happy to explain.  I don’t know if that kind of bonding is possible today, but it sure mattered to me.

Maintenance was also made simpler then by the availability of used parts.  A replacement radiator could often be found at the junkyard rather than a parts store.  Gas stations would often have a literal pile of wheels and tires next to the building.  It was common to look for a single used tire, or get a set of re-treads rather than new.  I even remember used batteries being available at gas stations.  Does any of that happen today? 

Sometimes I would ride my bike down to the NAPA store when Dad was working just to look at the cars in the parking lot, or to wander around and see the parts on the shelves.  Customers would roll in with a loud Chevelle or a jacked-up Mach 1, and he would banter with them at the counter about what they needed.  Many times he knew the part-numbers from memory.  Try that with the college girl working at AutoZone.  NAPA also had a full-service machine shop, and sponsored some local drag racers.  Customers were not there for neon valve stems and air fresheners, they were serious backyard mechanics.   

My uncles were a lot like my Dad, and every time we would get together at family events there would be different cars showing up.  As a wee, wee lad I remember walking in the rear floor area of an uncle’s ’65 Pontiac Bonneville.  Like, that is how much leg room there was, and I must have been about four years old.  Another uncle who we had not seen in a long while showed up from out West, driving a white ’65 or ’66 Thunderbird.  I can still smell that car.  My cousin and I sat in the driveway playing with the power windows and seats until the battery was dead; cars didn’t need the key in the ignition then for the electricals to work.

Then there was an uncle who migrated from an AMC Hornet, to a Ford pickup, to a ’65 GTO with a Hurst 4-speed.  Talk about an upgrade.  It made a huge impression on me with its white bucket seats, chrome shifter, and 389 4-barrel.  Just.... ooh.  The original color was Iris Mist, a kind of lavender metallic.  But it looked plenty righteous with dark gray metallic paint and Cragar SS when he had it.  The sound it would make while he would run it up through the gears was electrifying.

Not all our cars were great.  The object of my deepest scorn was a red ’74 Plymouth Satellite.  Compared to our GM’s it was hard to start, and it was a 4-door with a small 318 and vinyl seats.  But we had that car longer than most, until the vinyl roof began to split, and Dad had the practical idea to strip it off and paint it with beige enamel spray cans.  I was horrified, being at an age when anything could make me self-conscious, like weird haircuts or poverty-spec cars. 

Sometimes old Red would die in the middle of an intersection, and my Mom would be literally praying to Jesus that she could get it re-started, as I would shrink down into the seat in disbelief.  I was not a very grateful son during those years.  But I was super-grateful the day Dad bought her a ’76 Buick Century, a low mileage trade-in only about four years old.  It was a similar cream yellow to the Cutlass she had loved, and also had chrome Magnum wheels.  Sadly it did not boast a V8 under the hood, just a shy little 231 V6.   

My best friend and I would sneak out of church during the Sunday service and take the Buick for a joyride before either of us had a license.  Once we had to park it in a different spot, and Mom never noticed.  Another time I ran it out of gas in the middle of the night, far off the road while parking with my girlfriend.  We hiked to a payphone and called another best friend to bring a gallon of gas.  My parents owned that car all through high school and beyond, and I think my brother even drove it after I was off to the Air Force.    

Real Cars seemed to be made for vacations, and a stand out feature of most of them were oversized trunks.  Dad could pack an unbelievable amount of stuff in them, and I guess we never needed a station wagon.  Mom would keep bringing out little bags and other items that were not in the suitcases, and he would get more and more angry.  Folding chairs, tents, coolers, frisbees.  A lamp?  He would somehow manage to orchestrate it all in there so the trunk lid would close, then he wouldn’t talk for two hours while we headed on down the road. 

Real Cars were also driven differently.  We didn’t need to slow down very much for railroad tracks, or work hard to avoid pot holes.  They had such long travel suspension, and were so isolated by the frame that jolts and bumps were rare.  Bumpers were BUMPERS, mounted on collapsible shocks.  As in, it was normal and expected to gently bump another car when parking with no harm done.  We didn’t get door dings or hail damage, because the sheet metal was just thicker.  American steel from Bethlehem, PA no doubt.

About the time I was learning to drive, we finally got a semi-cool car with bucket seats and a floor shift; a ’77 Chrysler Cordoba with real Corinthian leather.  It wasn’t a muscle car, but at least it was a two-door, and it had a 400 under the hood.  It was also cursed with the infamous Chrysler Lean Burn system, one of the first computer modules for controlling spark and fuel mixture.  Dad was always replacing the catalytic converter or the odd carburetor it had.  But when it ran right, it was awesome.  Big and heavy, and rock steady at 120+ mph.  I learned to power slide in that car, but don’t tell him that. 

By the time I graduated high school in ‘86, everything had downsized a step, and the big cars were really like the mid-size cars of the ‘70s.  My Dad had a front-drive Chevy Celebrity as a company car, which was about as boxy and average as some of you may remember.  It was comfy enough, efficient, and started every time.  Six passengers was not its forté.  With unibody construction, McPherson suspension, and a beam rear axle it felt like every other pedestrian sedan would for the next thirty years.  Cars were never really the same after that, but then neither was America.

The world for me was opening up however, and I’ll close with the one that got away.  Among the fondest memories I have of a Real Car came just a few years after high school.  I had shipped out to California to fix F-4E Phantoms on the flight line; which were from the same era as the cars of my youth, and were being phased-out in the same way.  Our squadron had a role in training German pilots, who rotated in for about six months at a time.  The first thing they would do is buy an old Cadillac convertible, or a Camaro SS, or some other cheap car they had always dreamed about.  They would enjoy it for six months, then sell it to the next guy rotating in.

Within a short time, I scored a bronze-colored 1970 Ford XL with a 351, from a used-car lot near the Base.  It was a one-owner with original miles, hideaway headlights, and a sportsroof.  It had cold AC, white interior, and I only paid $1,800 for it.  I was fanatical about keeping the XL maintained and upgraded in every way I could, and we drove it all over the place for a few years.  Down the valley to LA, out to Las Vegas, sometimes up to Big Bear.  We even drove it cross-country towing a VW Beetle, with a winter snowstorm over us most of the way. 

But like my father before me, cars tended to come and go.  So when I went to college, my first wife and I decided we needed something economical.  If you can imagine selling that beautiful machine and buying a Ford Tempo, then you can sense the depth of remorse I felt for many years afterward.  It may have just been a car, a two-ton assemblage of metal and glass, but to me it was an icon.  It was an era and a car that never left my heart.

It is impossible to summarize those big sedans and coupes, but SUBSTANTIAL is about right... in ways that no modern car could ever be.  Simple, rugged, stylish, memorable.  They didn’t have faux-metal finishes, or sound pipes to give the illusion of a V8 rumble.  They were not stuffed with electronics doomed to fail, and chances were good that many years later the parts store would still have what you needed in stock.  There was a sense of design flair and proportion that is impossible today, the way everything is shrink-wrapped and stress-analyzed and wind-tunnel-tested.

It has been said, but I don’t know by who, that the best car ever made was the 1966 Chevy Impala.  Not the Model-A Ford or VW Beetle, but the Chevy was the most-reliable, most practical, longest-lasting and best value for American family.  Who knows if that is true, but it is easy to believe.  I should ask Derek at Vice Grip Garage.      

Heavy Metal.  Real Cars representing honesty and optimism, like America herself.  Like the working men who made them.  Cars that could be fixed with basic know-how, and were uniquely American.  It is no wonder they are loved the world-over today, and collected even outside the US.  They remain as a testament to what America once was and what she could produce, and I wonder if it is ever coming back.

Crumbling American industry was on naked display even in the early ‘90s while I was going to college in Detroit.  By the time I had a corporate job in my later 20’s our company was already building factories in Mexico and China.  Such changes started well before then, but it was painful to witness factories relocating, or downsizing, and selling off equipment. 

America had cut her teeth on heavy industry, and massive projects.  Her workforce was her pride, and factories her backbone.  Over the years I frequently had the feeling of being born too late for the era that I loved.  But that is the siren song of nostalgia, and I suppose that if we keep looking at the past then we will never look toward the future.

Ecclesiastes 7:10

Do not say “Why were the old days better than these?”  For it is not wise to ask such questions.  

Nostalgia aside, it is not a return to yesterday that we need.  Greatness is elusive, and to be hopeful and optimistic about the future, America needs a serious act of Repentance.  That is to say, changing of the mind, changing of direction.  Let us understand that we allowed our government to be hijacked, and commit to claiming it back by any means.  Let us recognize that we have shaken our fist at God for 50 years, and then humble ourselves before Him.

If America survives the next few years, I hope and pray it will be because we decided to bring all our manufacturing back home -- and our soldiers too.  Firm up the borders, shut down the CIA and their drug cartels, the DHS, the ATF and other government thugs that have no place in a free America.  We could rebuild American industry using the same know-how, and become world leaders in high-tech manufacturing and other industries once again. 

We could create the systems and products that our grandchildren will look back on with wonder, and that other countries would want to emulate.  Legacy companies and industries may have sold their souls to the devil but there are plenty of startups with can-do American spirit.  Do we have the will to embrace them?  Do we have the will to change direction?   

Thank you for your indulgence today, Readers.  I hope some car guys will enjoy this and forward it around.  Subscriptions to VisayasOutpost are free, and I follow occasional side tracks like this when the inspiration strikes. 

Peace be upon you in Christ, from across the waves,

VisayasOutpost

2 Chron. 7:14

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.