POS Parade....

Well-known Canadian blogger Firestarter5 (he of "Half-Nekkid Honey" fame) has issued a challenge to his fellow bloggers:

So here is your next task if you happen to be running short of Blog post ideas. Besides wracking your brain thinking of production years, you'll have to use Google Images to find the correct picture of all the cars/trucks you have owned. The colours don't have to match, just the body style.


I shall be working on this post today. And I'm tagging EVERYONE who reads this. Remember to leave a comment giving your blog address if I don't have your blog listed on this page.


Remember, you have to list every P.O.S. you may have owned, as well as all the good ones.

As I said in my comment on his post, "Do you have any idea how many POS cars I've had over the last 30 years?"


Anyway, here goes.

The first car I ever drove was my grandmother's 1956 Hudson. I'm not 100% sure which model, but I think it was the Hollywood; it looks familiar. I "stole" her car and took it for joyrides up and down the driveway when I was about 10 years old. I remember riding into town with my father each Sunday to get the NY Times; if I had been good all week, we'd stop for a hot fudge sundae before heading home.








The next one was also illegal driving for me, my parent's 1964 Ford Falcon wagon. They bought it when we lived in NYC and had a summer house in Maine (how excrutiatingly preppie, right?). Even though I was only 15, I was much more comfortable driving than my mother was, so I got to play chauffeur most of the time.







The first car I owned was a 1963 Studebaker Lark. Mine was a cream-colored four-door. I was in the process of getting it street-ready when my brother put a rock through the back window, which allowed rain to seep in. Shortly thereafter, a part of the broken window collapsed and some squirrels moved in and really trashed it. I could have killed him. And yes, I wish I still had this car.



I think one of the things that killed Studebaker was their styling... they seemed to be well ahead of the times. Look at the front of that 1963 Lark and compare it to the '80's and '90's Mercedes - very similar, at least to me.



The first legal rides for me were my father's two vehicles - the 1965 Studebaker Commander he used for commuting, and the 1971 Datsun pickup used for weekend projects. Both had manual transmissions - the Stud had a three-on-the-tree (steering column, for the kids), the Datsun a four-on-the-floor. Dad wouldn't let me take the license exam until I could shift with one finger, leaving the rest of my fingers free for things like exploring my (female) passenger's knee.

Again, with the Commander, you can see styling that wouldn't hit the rest of the auto industry for years - a very functional design similar to many of the 70's and 80's models.

More in a bit.