…and cars.

I have my own dad and car story. As I’ve mentioned in the past, my dad was first an AC, and then a GM executive. He got company cars to drive, and he got discounts on cars that he wanted to buy. Generally, he would get a company car like a Caddy, drive it for a while, then buy it at discount, and then sell it to get a new one, on a yearly basis. But when I was just starting to become aware of cars in my “tween” years, my step-brother bought an Austin-Healy Sprite. Not the one that was a copy of the MG Midget (one of which I later bought myself on a whim because it was a great deal) but the original, “bug-eyed” variety (following in suit, my younger brother even later bought a couple of Healy 3000s, in the first one of which he had an accident when a woman made a left in front of him, with me in what passed for a back seat, and I got tossed out the back, with no serious injuries, but he and his friend in the front seat got some nasty face cuts from wheel and windshield — he bought the next one with the insurance money therefrom).

Anyway, I wonder if that, and the combination of a sort of mid-life crisis (he was forty-five, and about to have his first coronary, the second of which would kill him a little over a decade later) spurred him to buy the coolest car that he ever bought, at least to my knowledge.

The 1968 models (which came out as they always did in the fall of the previous year) represented a wonder year for me, as far as General Motors was concerned. The change in styling was so dramatic, that it almost seemed like I’d been instantly transported into the future. The lines were curved, not square, the windshield wipers were hidden, giving the cars a streamlined look. The Vette went from something that looked all right to the classic Stingray that I think is still the best-looking in its history (yes, I know many disagree — don’t waste time trying to argue with me in comments — you’re wrong. The early ones were ugly and it didn’t achieve its style potential until ’68).

And in that year of their, but not my, Lord, late 1967, my father ordered a 1968 Pontiac. A LeMans. A green one. A convertible.

And here’s the coolest thing. Unlike his Caddies, or Caddie wannabes, like a Buick deuce and a quarter, it had a stick shift. With a clutch. Three on the floor, baby.

I never drove it, because I wasn’t old enough, but I sure wanted to. We took that car a lot of places, with the top down, and I think my dad liked driving it, though after it died (a cracked bell housing that resulted in the clutch not disengaging, and not worth the money, at least to him, to repair) he went back to his standard living rooms on wheels. I wish I’d talked to him more about why he’d bought it. I wish that I could talk to him more about a lot of things.

It’s been thirty years now, but I miss you, Dad.