When Your Car is Infamous
When I was young, I wanted to be famous. I had a lot to say to the world, and I thought that if I could just get my message out there, it would be well-received. Some of the things I had to say were brilliant and impossible, others were easy, but impossibly naïve through the lens of time. But none of that matters because I never got famous. Instead, I got a liberal arts degree, the lion’s share of $100k in debt, and a real estate license. Oh yeah, I was also the proud owner of a succession of ancient and woebegone automobiles.
I got a liberal arts degree, the lion’s share of $100k in debt, and a real estate license.
First up was the Lincoln Towncar, a former airport door-to-door service vehicle that had been through a flood that my family picked up for a song from a neighbor. That one got shuffled off to a used car lot for next to nothing with a bad wiring harness and a KwikWeld radiator repair, after way too much money over the course of a year or two. They say a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, but I think that car ran on dollars and cents.
After, I had a 90s era Chevy Lumina with bad paint. Great car, backseat like a couch, well designed. If I were going to own a classic car, a Chevy Lumina Euro with the alloy wheels, the funny little spoiler, and the blocky 80s aesthetics definitely comes to mind. The V6 had enough oomph to make the tires go screech screech on dry ground as a bonus. Staring down $600 for a water pump (not handy, live in New Jersey), I decided it was better to look into another car. This would turn out to be a crucial lapse in judgement.
Looking through WantAdPress, a black and white printed publication, sometimes free sometimes paid, that advertised used goods, my dad spotted a Dodge for sale. We went to take a look. $790 in 2005 for a rust brown, ’79 Dodge Aspen, tan vinyl seats, corroded body panels, and a fuel pump you had to prime on cold mornings. At my age, now, I know that I should have held on to the Lumina. But then? My father, sharing my lapse in judgement said to me, “You’re not going to find a classic car this cool at that price again” and he was right. And that’s how I ended up driving around North Jersey in a car that was more Sanford and Son than Full House.
But the good news was, I was finally famous: random people asked me questions about the car I couldn’t answer, others would stare at it in the parking lot, almost as if in vague recognition, and uh, well, cops followed me a lot.
I once heard a quote from a law enforcement officer who said basically that, well yes, beat up cars get pulled over more often. Asked why, he said, “Fucked up cars tend to have fucked up lives.” As an idealistic 20-something, I thought this was perhaps a bit of an overstatement, aimed at the Bohemian demographic. As of this writing, I have met a lot of the people who inspired that perspective and am at least slightly more inclined to agree.
One day in Winter, bundled up to the eyes because no surprise, cars built in ’79 are pretty cold in the morning, I was on my way to my unpaid internship as a real estate agent. I passed a police car going the other direction and, of course, he made a u-turn right there. The cop pulls me over and when he walked up, he looked the car over. Something told me he had seen this car before. Did I know how fast I was going? Oh and by the way, did I know that my inspection sticker was expired? And while we’re at it, how long have I owned this car? I might’ve mentioned I was going to my unpaid internship and that I had just had the car in the shop which was why it wasn’t inspected.
“I’m going to do you a favor and save you the points on your license, here’s a ticket for the overdue inspection.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, “I’m going to do you a favor and save you the points on your license, here’s a ticket for the overdue inspection.” $165… on a car I’d bought for under $800. Yes, increased attention from all sorts of folks is the tax on driving a classic, drug dealer car.
Of course, I was working an unpaid internship, while unloading trucks at night, and trying to get a PC repair shop off the ground, so you won’t be surprised to hear I still drove that car for another few months. When I did sell it though, you’re going to think I made this part up, I sold it to two young men from Paterson who were looking for a car for their business. I asked what they did, they replied: shipping. Why they didn’t want to do shipping in a nice, comfy bronzish ’98 Honda I’ll never know, but I hope they fared better than I did with the Aspen. Probably they didn’t.
