If you were a teen-aged boy growing up in the 1960's, chances are your second favorite fantasy was to own a muscle car. If you were the blue-blooded heir to a burgeoning retail furniture empire, chances are your indulgent parents would buy you one.
It wasn't my first car. No, I initially took flight at the wheel of a slightly-used 1962 baby-blue Falcon, Ford's misnomered compact car posing as a bird of prey and the precurser to its expansive stable of equestrian vehicles: the sporty Mustang, serviceable Maverick, and forgettable Pinto. It was a boxy two-door coupe with Ford's signature round taillights, a bench seat upholstered in a two-tone blue-and-white checked vinyl, and barely enough energy to climb the Langhorne Road hill every morning on the way to E. C. Glass High School.
You would think such a nondescript, unobtrusive set of wheels could be easily concealed -- but you would be wrong. Back in 1965, when I matriculated at Washington and Lee University, freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus, nor within the town or county environs, a policy strictly monitored by the school's stocky round-faced security officer, Bill Murray, aka Murph, although an appellation more appropriate to his appearance and profession would have been Sam Ketchem, Dick Tracy's omnipresent sidekick. I heeded the rule my first semester, but upon returning to school in January, with my father's silent blessing, I saw no harm in surreptitiously stashing the car behind the Schewel store on Main Street in Lexington and reserving it for weekend road trips, until Murph approached me one afternoon and casually informed me that my little blue Falcon needed new front tires.
It almost wasn't my second car, either. After completing that first year and becoming legally eligible to maintain an automobile at W&L, I convinced my father that my well-worn Falcon was inadequate for traversing the mountainous course between Lynchburg and Lexington on a regular basis, in response to which he brought home for my inspection one summer afternoon the most beautiful car I had ever seen: a stunning 1963 or 1964 forest green Thunderbird, with a white vinyl top and leather interior. Why he did it remains a mystery, because, after shifting my salivatory glands into overdrive and inflaming my desires to a fever pitch, he ignominously jerked that masterpiece on wheels out from under me, apparently deciding that it was too flashy, too powerful, and too sumptuous for a college sophomore, thus igniting a grossly immature fit of rage for an eighteen-year-old.
He must have experienced a guilty conscience, because, shortly thereafter, he dispatched me, along with a Schewel employee who presumably possessed some car-buying acumen and negotiating skills, to the now defunct Virginian Motors on Twelfth and Church Streets to scope out a brand new 1966 Fairlane GT -- Ford's version of the muscle car. (If you haven't figured it out by now, my father was a Ford disciple and the happy owner of a 1963 white Galaxie convertible which he drove for at least ten years.) It almost made me forget that Thunderbird. It was coated in a deep, rich, wine-dark burgundy finish, the perfect complement to its crisp, clean, aggressive styling, and featured a rakish horizontal split grill framed by stacked chrome headlights, an elongated hood flowing straight back through a slight bubble to rectangular taillights, a distinctive white racing stripe stretching from fender to fender, and a masculine four-speed gear shift protruding between two black leather bucket seats.
What really defined the muscle car were its mechanics: the powerful, throaty, 390-hp V-8 engine, four-barrel carburetor, dual exhausts, heavy-duty suspension, and disc brakes, all designed to propel the vehicle into rapid acceleration (providing you could shift through the gears fast enough) and speeds far in excess of all legal limits, and the proud driver into the eager clutches of attractive young women. This Fairlane was no exception, as Ford had raced it into production to compete with GM's already popular models: the Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, the Olds Cutlass 4-4-2, and the classic Pontiac GTO, variations of which could be seen cruising the Lexington campus, the envy of every student except for a rare one or two whose parents were well-heeled enough to spoil him with a true sports car: the Chevrolet Corvette.
A necessary prerequisite to owning and operating a muscle car was the ability to manipulate a manual transmission with reasonable dexterity, although editions were available with automatics, which in my mind merely served to relegate them to the status of pseudo-muscular. Keeping the dream alive, I taught myself how to use a clutch and shift gears in a company pickup truck while working at Schewels one summer -- during my lunch hours, of course. I practiced in the sloping parking lot behind the Downtown store, violently shaking the truck, often losing control entirely, and repeatedly bouncing it off the rear wall of the building before realizing that it would smoothly accelerate if I gently depressed the gas pedal, held it, and then eased up on the clutch until it engaged.
My Fairlane GT did not garner me any girls -- its striking good looks and forceful personality could not entirely substitute for my own -- but it did win me a few friends, most of whom wanted to test drive it or borrow it for a road trip to a neighboring female institution -- Southern Seminary, Randolph-Macon, Hollins, or Sweet Briar. Although now a sophomore living in a fraternity house and eager to ingratiate myself with my Greek brothers, I staunchly withstood their entreaties -- for a while. At heart, however, I was a generous, trusting soul, and finally there came the day when my sympathetic temperament overcame my better judgment -- and I could resist no longer.
Of all the supplicants I could have loaned my car to, the one I chose was the worst. Tony B. was an awkward, brash, irresponsible Yankee classmate of mine who had flunked out of school as a freshman, taken a year off, and rematriculated. He wanted to go to medical school, but never seemed to crack a book, and spent most of his time at the fraternity house laughing at his own stories, chain-smoking, and playing bridge. He even looked the part of a ne'er-do-well, with tight curly hair and a visage that was all black glasses and teeth. I was so taken aback at hearing he had actually secured a date in Lynchburg -- and only needed a ride to consummate it -- that I meekly surrendered to his pleadings and reluctantly handed over the keys.
When you consider Tony B.'s reputation and routine misbehavior, the outcome of this foolish act is hardly surprising. You would think I would remember where I was, what I was doing -- but I don't -- when I received that fateful telephone call informing me that Terrible Tony had been involved in a single-vehicle accident on Rt. 501 -- and not a simple fender-bender, either. No, he had ripped up the entire driver's side from stem to stern, squashing it like an empty beer can, while, fortunately, I guess, harming not one curly hair on his bony skull. Cursing Tony, angry at myself, fearful of the consequences, I had no choice but to inform my father of this woeful situation.
He was more lenient and understanding than I deserved. He came to Lexington, took me to the Ford dealership, assessed the damage while I stood nearby, silently weeping, and decided that, since it was covered by insurance, we should authorize this Humpty Dumpty to be put back together again. Without complaint, I walked and hitched rides for the next four weeks, until summoned to the body shop, where I was presented with my vehicle reborn -- immaculate, unblemished, complete in every detail, down to the white racing stripe.
I had learned one bitter lesson: don't let anyone borrow your car. Is it possible that another even more painful one lay before me?
I usually parked my car on a narrow cross street that bordered the north side of the fraternity house, out of sight of the southwest corner where my second-floor room was located -- but not out of mind. Was I dreaming three months later when, about two in the morning, restless and semi-awake, I rolled over in bed and heard a growl eerily similar to that produced by the sudden acceleration of my muscle car? Alas, if only it were so, for what was to greet me as I blithely exited the dining hall and crossed the parking lot that Sunday morning but a bewildering nakedness, a pregnant vacancy, a profound emptiness, devoid even of the imaginary ticking of a silenced V-8 engine. My car was gone -- obviously stolen.
And how, your natural curiosity might prompt you to ask. Let's just put it this way: I made it easy for him; I left the keys in the starter. Whether this was habitual stupidity on my part or some temporary impulsive death wish is as irrelevant today as it was then. Since I was willing to loan my car to Tony B., you might justfiably conclude that I would place a similar level of trust in the general lot of humanity, inducing me to install, figuratively, an invitation on the dashboard of my dearest possession: take me.
But other people's faith in human nature was not quite so naive, especially if said individuals were employed in law enforcement. Fourteen hours after reporting my car stolen, I was ceremoniously shepherded to Police Headquarters, ushered into the type of green-walled isolation chamber you read about in formulaic detective novels, and grilled unmercifully by two of Lexington's finest as to the locus and range of my activities since the previous night.
The devious motive behind their threatening line of interrogation became abundantly clear when one officer leaned forward, peered into my eyes, and spewed forth this disturbing question: "And just why did you leave your wrecked car out in the country and report it stolen, Mr. Schewel?" using the polite form of address favored by Washington and Lee gentlemen.
Mentally bruised and battered, I stared back, swallowed, and spoke softly: "Did you say wrecked?" While an oddly familiar shiver coursed through my body, I knew then that they had found my car, indeed wrecked again, and were accusing me -- a lying W&L mink -- of abandoning it in a drunken stupor and concocting this wretched tale to absolve myself of all responsibility. In other words, I had stolen my own car.
For once, justice was served, not only because I steadfastly defended my innocence, but also because these insolent investigators knew all along that mine was only one of a rash of car thefts occurring in the neighborhood, more of which were to ensue before the perpetrator was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted, on testimony that included your narrator's.
After two hours of relentless verbal fencing, the officers accepted my story and decided to take me to see what was left of my car, disheartened at losing their suspect, but silently smug at the thought of inflicting more torment on this spoiled rich kid. In the dead of night, they escorted me into the bowels of Rockbridge County, where, along some deserted, winding roadway, the thief -- or thieves -- had run the car off the pavement and ripped the entire left side -- crushing it like an empty beer can -- a depressingly familiar sight, exactly replicating what I had wept over six months ago in a Ford body shop. The front and back seats and floorboards were littered with trash and real beer cans, the telltale evidence, according to the cops, of this cunning student's culpability.
Needless to say, my insurance company didn't look too favorably upon my driving -- or non-driving -- habits. On the other hand, the local Ford dealer thought I was the second coming of Robert E. Lee, based on my contributions to the local economy, and expressed his sincere desire that I enroll for the seven-year Law School plan. He put my car back together -- again -- and I guess if you were to put a positive spin on this dual calamity, you could say that, since it was the same driver's side that was twice destroyed, at least one-half of the car was still brand new and all muscle.
I did manage to graduate from college two years later without further automotive incidents, my Fairlane GT remaining intact -- except for a cracked steering wheel, a stark reminder of its storied past -- until I traded it for a more sedate Pontiac Tempest. Even though I came to realize just how superfluous all that power and flash really were, and despite my trials and tribulations, my affection for the muscle car never died. One-half of the Fairlane GT's manufactured by Ford must have been burgundy, because, in later years, it seemed that every one I passed displayed that rich, wine-dark color -- accented by a distinctive white racing stripe. I would gaze with nostalgia at each sighting, reliving the fantasies of my teenage years, when I yearned to own a muscle car, and whisper to myself, "It's mine. Why did I ever let it go?"
It wasn't my first car. No, I initially took flight at the wheel of a slightly-used 1962 baby-blue Falcon, Ford's misnomered compact car posing as a bird of prey and the precurser to its expansive stable of equestrian vehicles: the sporty Mustang, serviceable Maverick, and forgettable Pinto. It was a boxy two-door coupe with Ford's signature round taillights, a bench seat upholstered in a two-tone blue-and-white checked vinyl, and barely enough energy to climb the Langhorne Road hill every morning on the way to E. C. Glass High School.
You would think such a nondescript, unobtrusive set of wheels could be easily concealed -- but you would be wrong. Back in 1965, when I matriculated at Washington and Lee University, freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus, nor within the town or county environs, a policy strictly monitored by the school's stocky round-faced security officer, Bill Murray, aka Murph, although an appellation more appropriate to his appearance and profession would have been Sam Ketchem, Dick Tracy's omnipresent sidekick. I heeded the rule my first semester, but upon returning to school in January, with my father's silent blessing, I saw no harm in surreptitiously stashing the car behind the Schewel store on Main Street in Lexington and reserving it for weekend road trips, until Murph approached me one afternoon and casually informed me that my little blue Falcon needed new front tires.
It almost wasn't my second car, either. After completing that first year and becoming legally eligible to maintain an automobile at W&L, I convinced my father that my well-worn Falcon was inadequate for traversing the mountainous course between Lynchburg and Lexington on a regular basis, in response to which he brought home for my inspection one summer afternoon the most beautiful car I had ever seen: a stunning 1963 or 1964 forest green Thunderbird, with a white vinyl top and leather interior. Why he did it remains a mystery, because, after shifting my salivatory glands into overdrive and inflaming my desires to a fever pitch, he ignominously jerked that masterpiece on wheels out from under me, apparently deciding that it was too flashy, too powerful, and too sumptuous for a college sophomore, thus igniting a grossly immature fit of rage for an eighteen-year-old.
He must have experienced a guilty conscience, because, shortly thereafter, he dispatched me, along with a Schewel employee who presumably possessed some car-buying acumen and negotiating skills, to the now defunct Virginian Motors on Twelfth and Church Streets to scope out a brand new 1966 Fairlane GT -- Ford's version of the muscle car. (If you haven't figured it out by now, my father was a Ford disciple and the happy owner of a 1963 white Galaxie convertible which he drove for at least ten years.) It almost made me forget that Thunderbird. It was coated in a deep, rich, wine-dark burgundy finish, the perfect complement to its crisp, clean, aggressive styling, and featured a rakish horizontal split grill framed by stacked chrome headlights, an elongated hood flowing straight back through a slight bubble to rectangular taillights, a distinctive white racing stripe stretching from fender to fender, and a masculine four-speed gear shift protruding between two black leather bucket seats.
What really defined the muscle car were its mechanics: the powerful, throaty, 390-hp V-8 engine, four-barrel carburetor, dual exhausts, heavy-duty suspension, and disc brakes, all designed to propel the vehicle into rapid acceleration (providing you could shift through the gears fast enough) and speeds far in excess of all legal limits, and the proud driver into the eager clutches of attractive young women. This Fairlane was no exception, as Ford had raced it into production to compete with GM's already popular models: the Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, the Olds Cutlass 4-4-2, and the classic Pontiac GTO, variations of which could be seen cruising the Lexington campus, the envy of every student except for a rare one or two whose parents were well-heeled enough to spoil him with a true sports car: the Chevrolet Corvette.
A necessary prerequisite to owning and operating a muscle car was the ability to manipulate a manual transmission with reasonable dexterity, although editions were available with automatics, which in my mind merely served to relegate them to the status of pseudo-muscular. Keeping the dream alive, I taught myself how to use a clutch and shift gears in a company pickup truck while working at Schewels one summer -- during my lunch hours, of course. I practiced in the sloping parking lot behind the Downtown store, violently shaking the truck, often losing control entirely, and repeatedly bouncing it off the rear wall of the building before realizing that it would smoothly accelerate if I gently depressed the gas pedal, held it, and then eased up on the clutch until it engaged.
My Fairlane GT did not garner me any girls -- its striking good looks and forceful personality could not entirely substitute for my own -- but it did win me a few friends, most of whom wanted to test drive it or borrow it for a road trip to a neighboring female institution -- Southern Seminary, Randolph-Macon, Hollins, or Sweet Briar. Although now a sophomore living in a fraternity house and eager to ingratiate myself with my Greek brothers, I staunchly withstood their entreaties -- for a while. At heart, however, I was a generous, trusting soul, and finally there came the day when my sympathetic temperament overcame my better judgment -- and I could resist no longer.
Of all the supplicants I could have loaned my car to, the one I chose was the worst. Tony B. was an awkward, brash, irresponsible Yankee classmate of mine who had flunked out of school as a freshman, taken a year off, and rematriculated. He wanted to go to medical school, but never seemed to crack a book, and spent most of his time at the fraternity house laughing at his own stories, chain-smoking, and playing bridge. He even looked the part of a ne'er-do-well, with tight curly hair and a visage that was all black glasses and teeth. I was so taken aback at hearing he had actually secured a date in Lynchburg -- and only needed a ride to consummate it -- that I meekly surrendered to his pleadings and reluctantly handed over the keys.
When you consider Tony B.'s reputation and routine misbehavior, the outcome of this foolish act is hardly surprising. You would think I would remember where I was, what I was doing -- but I don't -- when I received that fateful telephone call informing me that Terrible Tony had been involved in a single-vehicle accident on Rt. 501 -- and not a simple fender-bender, either. No, he had ripped up the entire driver's side from stem to stern, squashing it like an empty beer can, while, fortunately, I guess, harming not one curly hair on his bony skull. Cursing Tony, angry at myself, fearful of the consequences, I had no choice but to inform my father of this woeful situation.
He was more lenient and understanding than I deserved. He came to Lexington, took me to the Ford dealership, assessed the damage while I stood nearby, silently weeping, and decided that, since it was covered by insurance, we should authorize this Humpty Dumpty to be put back together again. Without complaint, I walked and hitched rides for the next four weeks, until summoned to the body shop, where I was presented with my vehicle reborn -- immaculate, unblemished, complete in every detail, down to the white racing stripe.
I had learned one bitter lesson: don't let anyone borrow your car. Is it possible that another even more painful one lay before me?
I usually parked my car on a narrow cross street that bordered the north side of the fraternity house, out of sight of the southwest corner where my second-floor room was located -- but not out of mind. Was I dreaming three months later when, about two in the morning, restless and semi-awake, I rolled over in bed and heard a growl eerily similar to that produced by the sudden acceleration of my muscle car? Alas, if only it were so, for what was to greet me as I blithely exited the dining hall and crossed the parking lot that Sunday morning but a bewildering nakedness, a pregnant vacancy, a profound emptiness, devoid even of the imaginary ticking of a silenced V-8 engine. My car was gone -- obviously stolen.
And how, your natural curiosity might prompt you to ask. Let's just put it this way: I made it easy for him; I left the keys in the starter. Whether this was habitual stupidity on my part or some temporary impulsive death wish is as irrelevant today as it was then. Since I was willing to loan my car to Tony B., you might justfiably conclude that I would place a similar level of trust in the general lot of humanity, inducing me to install, figuratively, an invitation on the dashboard of my dearest possession: take me.
But other people's faith in human nature was not quite so naive, especially if said individuals were employed in law enforcement. Fourteen hours after reporting my car stolen, I was ceremoniously shepherded to Police Headquarters, ushered into the type of green-walled isolation chamber you read about in formulaic detective novels, and grilled unmercifully by two of Lexington's finest as to the locus and range of my activities since the previous night.
The devious motive behind their threatening line of interrogation became abundantly clear when one officer leaned forward, peered into my eyes, and spewed forth this disturbing question: "And just why did you leave your wrecked car out in the country and report it stolen, Mr. Schewel?" using the polite form of address favored by Washington and Lee gentlemen.
Mentally bruised and battered, I stared back, swallowed, and spoke softly: "Did you say wrecked?" While an oddly familiar shiver coursed through my body, I knew then that they had found my car, indeed wrecked again, and were accusing me -- a lying W&L mink -- of abandoning it in a drunken stupor and concocting this wretched tale to absolve myself of all responsibility. In other words, I had stolen my own car.
For once, justice was served, not only because I steadfastly defended my innocence, but also because these insolent investigators knew all along that mine was only one of a rash of car thefts occurring in the neighborhood, more of which were to ensue before the perpetrator was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted, on testimony that included your narrator's.
After two hours of relentless verbal fencing, the officers accepted my story and decided to take me to see what was left of my car, disheartened at losing their suspect, but silently smug at the thought of inflicting more torment on this spoiled rich kid. In the dead of night, they escorted me into the bowels of Rockbridge County, where, along some deserted, winding roadway, the thief -- or thieves -- had run the car off the pavement and ripped the entire left side -- crushing it like an empty beer can -- a depressingly familiar sight, exactly replicating what I had wept over six months ago in a Ford body shop. The front and back seats and floorboards were littered with trash and real beer cans, the telltale evidence, according to the cops, of this cunning student's culpability.
Needless to say, my insurance company didn't look too favorably upon my driving -- or non-driving -- habits. On the other hand, the local Ford dealer thought I was the second coming of Robert E. Lee, based on my contributions to the local economy, and expressed his sincere desire that I enroll for the seven-year Law School plan. He put my car back together -- again -- and I guess if you were to put a positive spin on this dual calamity, you could say that, since it was the same driver's side that was twice destroyed, at least one-half of the car was still brand new and all muscle.
I did manage to graduate from college two years later without further automotive incidents, my Fairlane GT remaining intact -- except for a cracked steering wheel, a stark reminder of its storied past -- until I traded it for a more sedate Pontiac Tempest. Even though I came to realize just how superfluous all that power and flash really were, and despite my trials and tribulations, my affection for the muscle car never died. One-half of the Fairlane GT's manufactured by Ford must have been burgundy, because, in later years, it seemed that every one I passed displayed that rich, wine-dark color -- accented by a distinctive white racing stripe. I would gaze with nostalgia at each sighting, reliving the fantasies of my teenage years, when I yearned to own a muscle car, and whisper to myself, "It's mine. Why did I ever let it go?"
4 comments:
I never pictured you as the muscle car type...
mom told me you also hit a drunk guy who walked into the back of the car.
why wasn't that included?
what happened to telling the whole story? is there no accountability in the blogosphere?
I, for one, am eager to learn what event or events changed you from flashy muscle car enthusiast to nondescript mid-size sedan driver
http://picasaweb.google.com/
dschewel/TheLastMuscleCar/photo#5117530261713502818
Post a Comment