My first car was also my sister's first car. I bought it from her in 1983 for $500. To say I was excited to have my own car is a pretty big understatement. And it was a cool sleek thing with a V8 and a moon roof. Rolling sexy, on regular gas.
The Dodge Dart Sport was a "Duster-ized" version of the shoe-box Dart. Originally called the Dodge Demon, the model was renamed to Dart Sport in 1973 after religious groups complained of the name Demon and the cute little red guy with pitchfork emblem (incidentally, why can't people just not buy something when they don't like it, why ruin things for everyone else? I really liked the name Demon).
Grr. Anyhow...
Mine was a 1974, the last year before the introduction of catalytic converters and unleaded gas, so this thing smelled poisonous on the exhaust end. It was Lucerne Blue metallic, with a big black stripe and black vinyl half-roof. The moon roof never worked right, opening or closing it required the equivalent effort of wrangling a large steer to the dirt. And the heater linkage was broken so the heat was on all the time.
All that and AM radio...Woohoo!
But it was mine, and I loved it. I remember driving it to Pentwater one summer with my brother and a couple of friends, all loaded down with sweaty people and canvas tents. I felt alive and in control. The open road. Freedom is a rare and precious thing when you're a teenager.
And then there was the time I was going to the music store to buy concert tickets in the rain and I was hit by a bald-tired New Yorker as it slid through a red light. The passenger side was crunched like a used yogurt lid, but eventually we fixed it and it was good as new.
I had the Dart for a few years, and then sold it to a friend of mine for $450. He promptly got in a bad accident and totaled it.
I often wonder where my old Dart Sport is, probably rotting in some junk yard. Or, just maybe, I have since re-bought part of it in a new car, recycled into a fender or something. I hope that's the case, because my Dart is the only car I've owned that I miss.
1 comment:
That WAS a sexy car! I LOVED that car. The moon roof and heater worked fine when I owned it. But remember the speedometer?? Remember the story behind it's uselessness? It started getting noisy, noisier, then just plain irritating. Think electronic pinball with bells and buzzers and wild whistling sounds, while the needle oscillated maniacally from left to right. So one day on my way to work on I-10 between Auburn and Midland I just PUNCHED it! There was broken plastic, a dead still needle and calming, heavenly SILENCE. End of speedometer, end of story.
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