This Nostalgic Life #27
That New (Old) Car Smell
This Nostalgic Life is a free weekly publication rich with nostalgia brought to you by co-creators Eric Vardeman and Mick Lee. If this is your first time reading, you can subscribe using the button below so you don’t miss receiving any future issues delivered straight to your inbox.
Welcome to issue #27 of This Nostalgic Life. We’ve just passed Thanksgiving, and the countdown is on to Christmas. Before we get into full-blown Christmas mode around here, we thought we’d put a little space between the holiday-themed content with some more traditional nostalgia that we know everyone can relate to.
In this issue, we’re relating the stories of our very first rides. Everyone has a story about their first, and these are ours. When you’re done reading, please be sure to drop us a line in the comments about your very first ride, as we’d love to hear your story too.
The Red Hornet
An essay by Mick Lee
For my generation, there were several benchmark events we counted down to in life. Getting your first bike, having your first girlfriend/boyfriend, getting to high school, getting your driver’s license, and owning your first vehicle. These were milestones that we lived for, or at least I did, and I have stories to tell about all of them, but for now, we’re just focusing on the story of how I came to own my first ride that would become known as “The Red Hornet”.
The Red Hornet was a 1987 Nissan SE V6 extended cab hardbody pickup trip. I don’t know a lot about its early history, but it came into my life when my brother bought it from Popsicle Sweat, who had a little used car lot back in the country here in Southwest Virginia, back in 1991. He rode it around for two years before deciding there was another truck he’d rather have and was going to sell the Hornet to get the money he needed.
The Nissan had proven to be a dependable workhorse of a vehicle and my dad knowing a good truck when he’s seen one, bought it from him in a cash deal. My dad owned numerous vehicles due to having a business, and none of them got a lot of use since he was constantly rotating which one he drove around.
After a year of owning it, Dad was also in the market to sell the Nissan if a good offer came around. At this point in 1993, I was a year away from getting my license and knew I was going to be in the market for a ride of my own soon. I really liked the truck, and since family was involved I thought I could get a good deal on it if I were the one to buy it. To my surprise though, Dad asked the same amount from me that he was asking everyone else…$1200.
For most fifteen-year-olds, this would be a huge sum of money, but I wasn’t normal. I was lucky in the fact that my dad owned his own business, and even more fortunate that he gave me a job when I was just 14. He didn’t pay me much, but I had income. I offered to work for free until the truck was paid for. An idea that he shot down. He wanted cash.
In a strange way of handling the deal, he went to the bank and took out a personal loan for the $1200 with the truck itself being collateral. He then gave me the payment book, and I had to make the payment each month. Once the loan was paid back, he would sign the title over to me. With this kind of goal and expectation in mind, I worked my butt off for him throughout 1993 and even did odd jobs for other people to raise even more money. It was probably the most determined to accomplish something that I’ve ever been in my life.
Some months I made two payments instead of one, and had cut the payments down from 12 months to just 8. On January 30, 1994, I turned 16 years old. I had my learner’s permit, so I drove the Hornet with Dad tagging along to the DMV and got my official driver’s license. We left there and went to the bank where I made the final two payments on the truck and he got the title back. He signed it, and we headed back to the DMV to change ownership.
On my 16th birthday, I became the proud owner of my very own vehicle that I had worked a year for. It was a feeling of pride that I’ve rarely been able to match in the years since.
Since it was my birthday, my brother bought for me, and installed, a Pioneer CD player. I considered this a major upgrade being that having an in-dash CD player in 1994 was still a bit on the rare side. I also took it the following week and had the chrome tip exhaust pipes put on it which you can see in the picture. Those tips made the truck sound like an angry bee or hornet, and that’s how it came to be known as the Red Hornet.
Having that truck of my very own meant the world to me. I was now able to stop riding the bus and start driving to school which upped my coolness factor quite a bit. More friends wanted to hang out with me since I could drive us places. More girls were willing to say yes when I asked them on a date since I could drive us there. Owning that truck was one of the greatest feelings in the world, and a whole host of memories was made in that truck through the years.
The Red Hornet was my ride for four years…right up until I bought a Mustang. The changes in life that happened once I made the switch from the Red Hornet to the Mustang are stories for another time though. But to own the Mustang, I had to sell the truck. It had held its value quite well in the four years I owned it, and I sold it back to my Dad for $1000. So I got four years of driving it and all it really cost me was $200. That’s a pretty good deal.
The Red Hornet stayed in the family until about 2004 when my Dad finally sold it outside of the family. A few years after that I saw it heading down the road, still being loud, still sounding like a pissed-off hornet, and with a pimply-faced teenager behind the wheel. I hope he was aware of what that truck represented as I was in the days when I sat behind that wheel and cruised the open road of freedom.
The Big Red Machine
By Eric Vardeman
If you’ve read any or all our past issues, you know that I spent the summer of 1985 in the panhandle of Texas. Not a lot of good came out of that summer for me save one thing: my very first car.
As I mentioned a couple of issues back, around the start of junior high school guys my age were starting to exchange their BMX bikes for motorcycles. In an effort to keep me off motorcycles, my parents told me on my fourteenth birthday that if I never asked for one, they’d buy my first car for me when I turned sixteen.
DEAL.
Fast forward 15 months and, while we were in Texas that fateful summer, my dad happened upon a car in the newspaper classifieds. It was a 1971 Chevelle Malibu with relatively low mileage that was owned by an older woman whose husband had bought it brand new but had since passed away. My dad paid $1000 for it (roughly the equivalent of buying a 2010 vehicle for $2500 today). I was still only fifteen at the time and didn’t even have a learner’s permit, so it sat in the apartment complex parking lot. My parents trusted me with moving it around the parking lot daily so that it wasn’t just sitting. Not an amazing amount of driving but driving, nonetheless and I would often go out and just sit in it. It was my car. When we did finally move back home a month or so later, my dad towed it behind the U-Haul.
Once we got it back to Oklahoma, the first thing we did was get it painted. It was originally Candy Apple Red, but the paint was faded and had multiple blemishes, so I spent $100 on an Earl Sheib special. The shop owner suggested we go with Matador Red instead of a straight repaint and we did. After seeing it post paint job, I was in love with it. The car came with a stock AM/FM radio and an 8-track tape deck installed under the dash. Neither of those were going to meet my audio listening needs but I was broke as a joke so replacements were going to have to wait a bit. In the interim, I purchased a cassette adapter for the 8-track. Beggars can’t be choosers, huh?
The car came with a set of Crager 5-spoke aluminum wheels, so with those and it’s new paint job it LOOKED tough. It also came with a short block, V8 307 engine that was supposed to have 165hp but was way more pedestrian than that. However, it did have dual exhaust so it had a very throaty sound to it. My father chipped in money and had glass pack mufflers installed for me. After that? The car sounded like a friggin’ animal. I couldn’t sneak up on anyone because it roared anytime I stepped on the gas. It may not have been fast but it looked and sounded the part!
I made two more major upgrades. First, I replaced the front bench seat with two bucket seats. Sounds way easier than that job actually was. These days, I could hop online and check parts and salvage sites for the seats I needed then set up alerts for when those parts became available. In 1986, I can’t remember how many salvage yards I had to cold call (and call and call) to find bucket seats that would work in my car. Not to mention I then had to go pull those seats out of their current car, pull my bench seat out and install the buckets in the Chevelle. I learned a lot, though, through the entire process. Funny story: I kept the bench seat, bolted it to a piece of plywood and used it as a couch in my first dorm room a couple of years later as a college freshman.
The last major upgrade I made was the most important: the sound system. It took me a while to save up enough money to buy what I wanted but I was NOT going to skimp on this part. I installed ALL Pioneer hardware. Tape deck, equalizer, 6.5 inch two-way door speakers, three-way 6x9’s in the back deck and a small amp. Man, it sounded so amazing in there.
My friends and I took to calling her the big red machine because most of my friends drove smaller cars and the Chevelle was a big heavy tank. I drove that car for almost five years. I got my first ticket in that car (the same day I got my license, in fact), experienced my first fender bender in that car, hauled many an amp and drum in that car. I was in that car when I ran from the police one night, and I kissed more than a couple of girls in that car. But those are all stories for a different day…
We’re pleased to be joined in this issue by John Toma from Nostalgia Nation. Nostalgia Nation is another great publication that you would certainly enjoy if you like what we do here at This Nostalgic Life. Go check it out, and if you like it, go ahead and subscribe. It’s free too! Now, enjoy his essay below.
My '85 Chevy Camaro Berlinetta
An essay by John Toma
Freedom smelled like leather seats and Armor All in the summer of ‘95. My chariot? A 1985 Chevy Camaro Berlinetta— all angles and attitude, purchased with two years worth of minimum wage savings and a prayer that the transmission wouldn't drop out on the test drive. I’d dreamed about the day I could get around on my own in a car that was uniquely me. It was independence wrapped in metal and an interior “so 80s” it would make you smile from ear to ear.
The Berlinetta was Chevy's attempt at making a "luxury" Camaro, which is like putting a tuxedo on a wrestler. It had these ridiculously futuristic digital gauges that worked about 60% of the time, and a steering wheel that looked like it belonged in Knight Rider. I rocked a Casio Data Bank watch, so you better believe I played Michael Knight whenever I got in!
The previous owner had installed a Pioneer stereo that I promptly connected to my Sony Discman via one of those cassette adapters that somehow survived being ejected a thousand times.
Now picture this: cruising down Mission Blvd., windows rolled down, hair whipping in the wind, while carefully holding the Discman steady on the passenger seat to prevent it from skipping. One pothole and Guns N' Roses would stutter like Max Headroom. The solution? An elaborate system of foam cushion padding glued inside a custom box I made so I could access the Discman buttons easily, creating the world's most sophisticated shock absorption system. In hind-sight, I should have patented that concept!
My ‘85 Camaro had personality quirks that would make a therapist rich. The power windows operated on their own mysterious schedule. The driver's seat had a sweet spot that, once found, you never adjusted for fear of breaking whatever precarious balance kept it functional. And don't get me started on the digital dash display that occasionally went full disco light show for no apparent reason.
But man, when that 305 V8 roared to life, none of that mattered. Every time I turned the key, it felt like the opening credits of my own movie. The Berlinetta might not have been the fastest Camaro ever built— it was more highway cruiser than street racer— but try telling that to my 18-year-old self, burning through gas money I couldn't afford, living for those Friday night cruises by the beach.
My mobile music collection lived in those zip-up CD cases, packed with carefully curated mix CDs labeled with Sharpie artwork. The case rode shotgun like a loyal companion, ready to provide the perfect soundtrack for any mood or misadventure.
Looking back, I experienced glorious moments because of the freedom that Camaro provided me. One night, while out with my girlfriend, I parked along the east side of Mission Bay beach in San Diego (Mission Point Park). Let’s just say that I also experienced glorious moments inside my Camaro. We were out so late that night that we were locked inside the parking lot. I had to knock on beach resident doors until I found one that let me use their phone to call a friend. My best friend came to pick us up so I could get my girlfriend back home. That experience will always be imprinted in my mind, because he showed up in HIS first car, a Toyota MR2. We somehow fit in the passenger seat. She had to ride on my lap the entire forty-minute ride home. But what a night it was!
Sure, my Camaro drank gas like a fish, the A/C was more theoretical than functional, and it had more rattles than a newborn’s toy. But it was mine. Every oil stain on the driveway, every mysterious noise that I turned up the music to drown out, every late-night cruise with nowhere particular to go - it was all part of the story.
Sometimes I wonder if kids today get the same feeling from their first cars. There's something special about a vehicle that's old enough to have a personality, young enough to still run, and just unreliable enough to teach you basic mechanics whether you wanted to learn them or not. My ‘85 Camaro was a life coach with a V8 engine, flashy interior, and an attitude problem.
I sold it three years later when I blew out the transmission a second time racing it. I just couldn’t afford all the work I was putting into it, but I regret not holding on to that car. I drive a Jeep today, and on certain nights when I’m cruisin’ and the stars align, I swear I can still hear that Camaro engine rumble, usually right when I start a Pearl Jam track. My ‘85 Camaro might be long gone, but the memories, freedom, youth, and questionable mechanical decisions will always live on.
From time to time friends of This Nostalgic Life like to weigh in with their thoughts and stories. Here is what they currently have to say.
When I think back to my first ride, well how far back do I go? Do I go back to the baby photo of me sitting atop my grandfather's knee on the riding lawn tractor; does that count? What about when I had my hands on the wheel of my 1978 Dodge Truck at the age of about 7 years old, driving to my grandparent's house along US Route 219 in Central Pennsylvania? All of those may count as my first ride, I suppose, however I imagine that what we are looking for here in this article is my first owned ride.
Repairing my dad's former day-to-day commuter car, I was handed the title and keys to a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix LJ. This X-framed cousin which shared many GM cousin-vehicles was my first ride. A two-door coupe with A/C, a humble 4-cylindar 151 cu. in. engine nicknamed the Iron Duke and equally shared amongst countless postal service vehicles, coupled with an automatic transmission was a fun and fond vehicle that still lingers in the treasure troves of my memories. Although it met an early demise within my ownership, it was one of my fondest vehicles I've had the privilege of owning.
Wyatt Bloom of Rediscover the 80s
The first car I was given to drive, was originally my grandparent’s car. It was a 1973 Chrysler Newport in metallic green. It was nicknamed by my friends as "The Big Kahuna" and it was a beast. We fit 21 people in it one night. Had an AM-only radio and had a slew of other interesting quirks.
My very first car was a 1990 Ford Tempo. I turned 16 in 2000, and in New York at the time, at 16, you could get your license as long as you didn't drive after 9PM. 2000 would make the car ten years old when I got it, and it had previously been owned by a neighbor across the street who was an auto mechanic. I bought it from him for $500, and I can't remember how many miles were on it, but it was well over 100,000. My neighbor Doug gave me a large piece of cardboard to go with the car since it dripped oil onto wherever it was parked. I should have used that cardboard more, since several of my friend's parents would complain I got oil on their driveway. It's color was gold, but calling it "gold" somehow makes it seem grander than it was. It was more of a dirty, rusty, brownish grey. There was a large circular rust spot on the driver door that I was often embarrassed about, and that didn't make the "gold" look any better. This Tempo had the fancy seatbelts of the time that would move when you opened the door, but the driver side was stuck in the back position. The first time I took it for a ride without my parents, my friend Chris and I went for a joyride on some of my town's backroads. I hit a jump so fast that we got a little air, and we landed so hard the headlights turned off and wouldn't come back on until I reset the on/off switch a few times. The alternator belt broke on me so many times in the two years I owned it that I carried a spare. It once broke after midnight an hour from home and I had to borrow tools from guys at a rest area to change it so I could get home.
Man, I loved that car. I was sad to see it go, but when I went away to college in 2002, I needed something more reliable. So I traded up... to a 1999 Ford Contour. My college girlfriend, now my wife, called it "a reliable family car," and I was mortified. It too was "gold."
In 1984: It’s the last week on the chart for Sammy Hagar and “I Can’t Drive 55” after peaking at #36. In about a year and a half we’ll see Sammy back on the chart again as the lead singer of Van Halen. Also this week, U2 makes their very first ever appearance in the Top 40 with “Pride (In The Name of Love)”. It’ll peak out in a couple of weeks at #33 then we won’t see them again until they release a little album named The Joshua Tree. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
In 1990: Whitney Houston scores her eighth #1 song this week with “I’m Your Baby Tonight”. She had seven in the 80’s and this is the first of four she’ll score in the 90’s.
Playlist: This Week In 1984
Playlist: This Week In 1990
In every edition of This Nostalgic Life, we like to share a curated list of nostalgia-themed articles, stories, and posts that we’ve come across recently. It gives you a chance to discover great content and remember things from your past that you may have forgotten. With that in mind, here are some things we wanted to share with you this week. (All links will open in a new tab.)
5 Forgotten Cars of the 80s (Rediscover the 80s)
Top 50 Cars and Trucks From ‘80s Movies and TV Shows (The Retro Network)
Thank you for reading this issue of This Nostalgic Life. We hope you’ve found something that resonated with you. If you did, please leave us a comment below. If you have enjoyed this issue, please consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague that you think would enjoy it as well. We’ll be back next week with another nostalgia-filled issue.
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My dudes! Absolutely loved this, and love the updated look as well, so choice! Thanks for including me in this in this post, greatly appreciated. Restacking!