Relating to the story about automobiles below my old friend Chris responded with a comment about my old 1972 Chevy Vega. It was my first new car. I had a lot of fun with it. But the Vega was a poorly engineered vehicle. Mine looked like this one without the stripes and spoiler.
The Vega four piston engine block was aluminum. Aluminum engine blocks were new in those days. I can't remember what the problem was but they burned oil early in their life. After reading the Vega entry on wiki I discovered that the burning oil problem was due to bad valves.
At 60,000 miles I had enough. I drove it over to my parents house and put a for sale sign on it. They lived on a very busy street while I was recently married and living in an apartment.
It wasn't long before my dad called and told me I had a buyer. The buyer was a guy named Gary who lived two doors down. He was about three years younger than me and came home during spring break. I went over to meet with him.
He looked at it, gave it a walk around, sat in it and said,"let's go over to my place and talk price.
Once at his place he offered to pay what I was asking...in marajuana. He had pounds of stuff in the garage. His parents approved of his dealing drugs. The entire family was into drugs because the parents were hippies. This is in 1977.
I flat out told him no. He insisted that if I sold the pot the profit would be more than double what the cash value was. Again I told him no. After a long one-sided debate on his part I walked out of his garage. No deal I said.
He followed me back to the Vega and begged me to take less cash than I wanted. Being in the mood to dump that thing and after listening to him grovel I gave in. I asked Gary if he wanted to take it for a test drive. He explained that he and a friend were in a big hurry to drive to Florida (his reason for buying the car) that afternoon to partake in spring break sheenannagans. He didn't need to take a test drive saying that it looked good or words to that effect. He didn't even bother to look under the hood. I know a sucker with money when I see one (he was stoned) so I took the cash, signed over the title, gave him the keys and split.
Months later I found out that somewhere in Georgia on the way to Florida the Vega engine blew on Gary and his buddy. The head became totally separated from the engine block. The block was aluminum and warped, the head was iron and didn't. The engine violated a law too, the law of physics. It not only ruined his trip being stuck in Georgia for the week but I think he had to ditch all the drugs he was carrying. He had to pay for a new engine, which probably cost as much if not more than the car was worth. It was a lose-lose situation for a genuine hippie fool.
I heard about the engine story from a friend who was attending Indiana University studying for his masters. He knew Gary along with others from my home town living in Bloomington. Gary told them all that I screwed him by selling him that POS. My friend accused me of deliberately screwing poor Gary, as if I knew the engine would blow. When I visited Bloomington later that year all my friends there were pissed at me as if I screwed a brother even after I told them the truth. I believe they had become Gary's loyal customers.
Oh well, win some friends, lose some friends. Most of them I never saw again. People like that aren't worth my time.
7 comments:
haha awesome story
martchi
Oh yeah, Gary. We played on the same Little League team, in, I think 1966.
Speaking of funny car stories. I was riding my Schwinn Varsity, when I saw you and the future wife, and Mike H in the back seat in the Tempest with the top down, crossing Ridge Road. As you were in the middle of the intersection, your bride-to-be stood up and dropped her drawers. I almost fell of the Schwinn I was laughing so hard. When we talked a few days later, I found out that the ash on Mike H's 'cigarette' had fallen down in your loved one's butt crack, and her immediate reaction was to drop her shorts.
Then there was the time that Greg A and I were going to drive from Indiana to Colorado in the summer of 1975. We barely crossed the Illinois state line when the exhaust pipe on my Corolla broke about a foot from the muffler. We kept going, and for the next thousand miles (only stopping for gas), the noise was so loud, we couldn't even hear each other talk, and had to scream in order to communicate.
I was saving that true Tempest story for a later date. We were all in the front seat and the hot ash fell between her legs. She was wearing very short Daisy Duke style jeans. Yes, she did stand up and drop her shorts. Every car was honking.
And, I just recalled that I sold that Corolla to Mike H. He asked if I would knock $50 off because the speedometer and odometer didn't work (stop working after I had the car airborne once).
A green '71 Vega was my first car!
The back side window was held in place with red duct tape, the passenger door wouldn't lock, and the starter was so bad, you didn't need keys to turn it over.
But I paid $400 bucks cash for it and put a Pioneer system in it that was probably worth more than the dang car!
I drove it alone from FL back to IN alone when I was 17 and gave my mother a worry fit.
Somewhere in the black Tennessee night, the bolt fell off my alternator and I had to rig it to stay on with a squished pull-tab that I found on the floor.
Good times. Good times.
I had a bmw 7 series that I sold to a mormon guy to drive back to utah and it, too, died on the way. I think I am likely in some sort of mormon purgatory as a result but as is means as is. He had some idea of what he was getting into early 1990s 7 series were rolling mechanical time bombs.
This is carl I am working on an overseas computer and can't access the 'at' sign so I can't sign in...
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