I came across these pictures with my negative scanner the other day. This is the first car my son Adam bought and paid for himself when he was a teenager.
He bought it from another teenager that worked at Wendy’s. She worked the drive-through window. I forgot exactly what, but we had to do some dealing at the window. I forgot if that is where Adam and she exchanged money for the title or the keys, or what – but I definitely remember we had a dealing at the window.
The little People’s Wagon was cute. It was an eye pleaser. After he gained possession of it begin to have a lot problems.
He took it to Garage in Acworth that seemed to specialize in VW bugs. After they finished working on it I took Adam up to garage for him to pick it up and discovered the garage was owned by a childhood friend. I remember his name well, he lived around the corner from me.
One time in grammar school in the lunch room he and I got into a fight and he grabbed a little container of honey and smeared into my hair. I still cringe with I think of that sticky stuff all in my hair. I have no idea what the fight was about – we were about 7 years old.
His operation looks pretty impressive. I guess he did well for himself. I recently read that his brother died.
It got that to a point where the bug just would not run. Adam parked it and put a for sale on it. A kid came by and looked at and was impressed. He paid Adam in cash and he and his friend hauled it to his parents’ house, which was about .5 mile away.
I don’t think he ever got the car running. For years and years I would walk and run by his house, to see it parked under the same shed.
Then the house had a ‘For Sale’ sign out front. Then, a month or so later it had a ‘sold’ sicker on the sign. Then, the sign was gone and so was the VW.
10 comments:
Same color as my first car - a 1979 Chevy Caprice - that I believe my Dad bought from your Mom. That car was almost indestructible, and lasted with me until 1993, before I handed it off to someone else.
j3
John,
If your Dad bought it from my Dad I know one thing about that car - and keep this is mind, I don't remember ever being inside the car, and nobody told me this, but I know this: The car had no radio or anything like a tape player. It never occurred to Daddy to have music in the car - if you ask him why didn't he, he would say something like "Why? that doesn't help me get from one place to another."
It must have been from him - there was an AM only radio, with only the in-dash front speaker. The first thing I did was buy a tape deck and speakers and install them myself. We have a bought it from Aunt Ruby or Aunt Janie, but I know it was from one of the Hunter wives.
John,
I bet the am radio came with the car when he bought it and it wasn't an option.
He did not go out of his way for anything like music in the car - or shirts that were not plain white or pale blue.
Actually Frances called me and asked if I would like to buy the car. After I crashed it into the neighbors tree I found (same year make) an Oldsmobile bumper that fit, had it installed and then had it painted. John then crashed it into one of his so-called friend’s car. The Oldsmobile bumper was left without a scratch but it did about $400.00 damage to the other car. That was when John had to go tot groceries to pay for the damage. Since John got a small scholarship to Mississippi St. We purchased him a new car and gave the Caprice to his sister for a second car. After they ran it for some time they sold it for more money than I paid for it. That old Caprice has a lot of stories since it left Uncle Ed's.
The picture of the VW reminded me that a VW was the first car we purchased after we got married. A 1968 VW. I told Jeanie two weeks ago when we purchased a new refrigerator and paid more for it than we paid for a brand new 1968 VW. It took 3 years to pay the VW off and struggled to do that. Times have changed.
Johnny
The stories of the car reminds me of the movie :"The Red Violin". It went through all kinds of history and stories and owned by various owners.
Speaking of times have changed we just had our small postage stamp size kitchen remodeled which cost us $500 more than my parents paid for a new brick house in 1955.
My sister Frances just read the genealogy of the car and told me the origins of the car before it reached the John-John Hunters.
It also bounced around having three of them as owners... Frances bought it and she turned it over to Daddy, then Daddy died, and I suppose by default Mama (with no driver's license) owned it.
We were laughing about Daddy's frugal ways when it came to automobiles. He thought heaters and air conditioners were unnecessary luxuries.
We had a pearl white one right after we first married. It had a dark red interior and a great Blauplunkt radio.
Judy,
What is a Blauplunkt radio?
Cars do become part of our families. We had a green Dodge Dart, "Kermit", who passed through several of our children.
And they do become part of our family. The '93 Grand Marquis we had for 15 years and 250K miles was definitiely a trusted member or ours. We gave it to a God-daughter's preteen son. Do not know if I want to see what he does with it.
My first brand new car was a '59 Morris Minor. The same size and horsepower (38) as a VW but the engine in the front. It was a great car. Even I could work on it. So many roadside chewing-gum-and-rubber-band repairs that worked just fine.
Si,
I don't know about personalizing vehicles - although I have owned one or two that had personalities like Christine.
Speaking of rubber band and bubble gum repair I once had a little Triumph Mark II that had something wrong with the transmission that experts tried to repair and couldn't until I happen to breakdown in front on a Sinclair Station in Atlanta in 1967 about this time of year - I remember a Thanksgiving incident about then in the car - the drunk mechanic at the Sinclair Station got working on my transmission and the only part he needed he made himself out of a coat hanger. It worked fine until I sold it a couple years later.
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