It’s Father’s Day and I like to take the opportunity to post something about my dad or memories for him to reminisce on. This one’s about cars and my memories of them when I was growing up.

Transportation is a core part of society. Whether you are walking, taking a bus, riding a bike, or driving, transportation is embedded in our lives and woven throughout our memories. I grew up in a midsize town in eastern New Hampshire and pretty much everyone had a car. We had one public bus and no subways. Everyone needed a vehicle to go from place to place and getting a license was an important milestone in one’s teenage experience.

Early Memories

The vehicles of my childhood are woven into memories with my dad. They were so pervasive that many of my life events happened in or around them. My memories of our first car are foggy. I think it was silver or blue, I think the interior was vinyl in either blue or burgundy, I think it had a column shifter and bench seat, I think it had power windows, and I think it was a Dodge… maybe. This was the car we had when we moved from Portsmouth to Rochester after my dad retired from the Air Force in 1988. I was about four and I remember having this car for a couple years, parked in the driveway on the side of the house opposite our front door.

I associate it with that red rental I grew up in, driving to the Commissary at the Naval Shipyard, and driving it to my mother’s therapy appointments. As my mother didn’t have a license, my dad was always the driver, she was the passenger, and I was in the back with my sister. I remember it being comfortable and kind of big, but not much else.

Dancing in the Sundance

The car that I spent a lot of time with as a child was our Plymouth Sundance. We bought it used before I went to kindergarten, a couple years after we moved to Rochester. It was probably a 1987 or 88 model. The Sundance was an economy car, similar to a Chevy Cavalier of the day or a Honda Civic now. Ours was a silver two door with light gray seats, yellow fog lamps, and a hatchback trunk with flip down back seats. Other than having an automatic transmission and a peppy turbo engine, this was the base trim. The windows, seats, and locks were manual, the interior was cloth, and the stereo was AM/FM radio only. There was no sunroof and no air conditioning. To be fair, it did have power steering, power brakes, and a passenger-side mirror, which were far from guaranteed on base models at this time.

I have great memories of this car, starting at the dealership we bought it from. It was located in Somersworth which is the city between where I grew up where I live in now. My most poignant memory is of the exterior spiral staircase winding from the second floor down. I think it was the first time I’d seen a spiral staircase and I was fixated on it. It looked so neat winding down around a central pole, making efficient use of space. I still pass that dealership regularly and the staircase is still there despite a large remodel several years ago. I remember being slightly worried the staircase wouldn’t survive! To this day I have an appreciation for spiral staircases.

Anyway, back to the car itself. While it was basic, we had this car for much of my childhood. On the weekends we’d take my mother to the mall. She didn’t want company, so we’d sit in the car for an hour or so while she did her shopping. My dad would flip the split seats down in the back and I’d turn the back of the car and trunk into a little fort. We had a blanket back there and I’d set it up while my dad listened to the radio or read the newspaper. Weekend after weekend I’d setup my little fort “hide” behind the folding seat and “scare” my mom when she came back from her excursion.

In 1990 or so this car took my father, sister, and I all the way to Pennsylvania for our family reunion. It was a 12+ hour drive to almost the Ohio border and despite its lack of fancy features, it was perfectly comfortable. The cloth interior was soft, the seats were cushy, and there was plenty of room for me in the back. We traveled in the summer, which could be a bit hot without A/C, but was generally manageable if we had all four windows cranked open. I remember my sister in the front seat with her maps helping my dad navigate us through New York.

The AM/FM radio was usually tuned to 97.5 WOKQ, a local country station with the best reception in our area.. We didn’t listen to music at home, so the car was really the only place I was exposed to what I thought was my dad’s musical style. He liked country, but I later learned he was more into soul and R&B. To this day I’m not a huge country person (though I do have a few tracks) and listened to pop at home.

The Sundance was our vehicle until I was in middle school and it developed some “quirks”. The first was that it had starting issues. We never figured out the cause, but if the car sat overnight it would start up fine. If it was shut off for 5 minutes or so it would also start up fine. But if it was off for 10 minutes to an hour, it simply wound’t start. This had a shaping effect on our life: if we had to go somewhere it either had to be 5 minutes or over an hour. That worked fine for grocery shopping but made a trip to McDonalds awkward. Better go through the drive through or be prepared to hang out with Ronald for 50 minutes after finishing your Big Mac.

The real kicker was when the passenger door stopped working, sometime during sixth grade. The linkage to the door handle had broken and the door did not open. To get into the car I’d have to crawl over the driver seat and into the passenger seat. Since it was a two door it wasn’t much easier to get to the back seat either. My dad drove me to school every day and I remember being a bit of a spectacle each morning as we pulled up in the drop off line. My dad would out of the car, while I dragged myself, my backpack, and sometimes my clarinet over the center console, past the steering wheel, and out the door. That’s the kind of thing that would severely embarrass at least one of my sons today, but I don’t remember caring about it that much. My dad was very matter-of-fact about it; he wasn’t embarrassed. I thought it was weird, kind of funny, and moved on. There’s a lesson in there about accepting things you cannot change that I still keep with me.

So Cavalier

The Sundance came to an end after my mother passed away, in the summer after sixth grade or the beginning of seventh. I think it became so unreliable that our 5 minute / 1 hour rule stopped working. Our next car was more of an emergency stopgap. It was a 1984 or 1985 (maybe 1986?) Chevy Cavalier that my dad bought off of a friend of the family. It was dark gray and similar to the Sundance – a two door base model, cloth interior, manual everything, but I think it had power steering and brakes, and it did have a passenger mirror. It didn’t have a turbo, but it did have a sunroof, A/C (that unfortunately didn’t work), and a stereo with a cassette deck!

Though older than our previous vehicle I was really excited for a car that was new to me. By that time I had a strong interest in cars: drawing them, building interiors out of cardboard, and subscribing to Motor Trend magazine. The sunroof was manual, so it only popped up a few inches, but I enjoyed the extra air circulation and the ability to see the sky.

The best part of the Cavalier was its radio. Never before could I bring my own music to listen to! Gone was the lock on country music; I could finally listen to something I liked! And listen we did. Country still played on the radio, but every now and then I’d bring a cassette of my own. We had a few in the car that my dad liked too: a Marvin Gaye tape, some Percy Sledge, some Barry White, and some oldies. This was the music my dad really enjoyed and it was fun to discover it with him. We also had a single version of Baby Got Back that we listened to all the time. Nothing like hearing to “This anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns hun” over and over with your dad!

We didn’t have the Cavalier for long, but it did take us to Pennsylvania once more for a family reunion. By that point one of the creeps in our neighborhood had smashed out the back driver side window to steal change and we hadn’t found a replacement yet. We drove the entire trip with cardboard duct taped into the opening. My jerk-of-an-uncle made sure to suggest that my dad “bring a better car” next time. He didn’t tell me until the trip home and I remember being furious. I was 13 or 14 at this point and had started to become aware of what things cost and how hard my dad had to work to support us. We were lucky to have a car and I found my uncle’s comments incredibly insulting.

By this time the Cavalier was 15 or so years old and it was time for a new car. The cassette deck and entire radio had stopped working, which wasn’t great, but also forced us to talk more. Our relationship was rough since my mother passed away and we didn’t always get along. Not having a radio gave us a reason to talk and bond. Sometimes my dad would tell me stories about the military and his early marriage with my mom, sometimes we’d work through a disagreement we’d had, and sometimes we’d just chat and observe what was around us. We probably did more talking than I remember back then thanks to this broken radio.

A Sweet Sonata

Radio silence didn’t last forever though. It was the summer of 1999 and our local Hyundai dealership was running a deal on brand new Hyundai Accents for something like $99 a month. While we never bought brand new cars during my childhood, this was something my dad could afford so we took a test drive. The Accent was small but had enough space for us and, while still a base model, included a cassette deck and A/C. It wasn’t very powerful, but it was brand new and we really liked it.

Unfortunately when it came to financing, my dad couldn’t get the advertised deal and walked out. I was absolutely devastated that we didn’t drive away in this brand new car and listened to my dad explain finances and deals and how things are not always as advertised. Later on the saleswoman called and convinced him to come back and look at another vehicle. It was a 1995 Hyundai Sonata, bigger than the Accent, with reasonable mileage.

It was blue, had a more powerful engine, had a cassette deck, working A/C, power windows and locks, and even airbags! While not brand new, it was the newest car I had been exposed to and it was so fun. The saleswoman took a photo of us next to it and gave it to us on a calendar with my quote: “Finally, a radio that works!”. I think my dad was proud to get this car for us. We’d had a rough couple years, he’d been working hard, and this was a nice reward. He absolutely loves that picture and still has it hanging in his office today.

This was the car we had through high school and the car that my dad drove to Texas after I graduated. It’s the car that we took on weekend trips to Weir’s Beach to hang out at Lake Winnipesaukee looking at boats and catch evening movies at the drive in theater. It was the car I learned to drive in at the parking lot of our post office and the car that I accidentally scraped against our deck when parking one fateful day. I’m still sorry about that Dad! It was always comfortable, spacious, and reliable. It had a long life, eventually being sold to a family member.

Driving Down Memory Lane

These cars, as utilitarian as they may have been, shaped my life and my memories. They remind me of my childhood and the time of growth with my dad. They stoked an interest in cars that I still have to this day and they provide a perspective on my own vehicle purchases.

My first car, a 1988 Jeep Wagoneer, was much like our Cavalier; broken A/C and some rust, but it did the job. My next car, a Nissan Sentra, was much like our Sundance – basic trim, but reasonable and reliable. The Sonata probably had the biggest impression on me because it proved that this South Korean car company could actually deliver on its promise of well-made, affordable, and reliable cars. We’re currently a Hyundai family with a Santa Fe and Genesis G70. The Santa Fe is almost 10 years old and my Genesis turned six in February with replacement in sight. It’s also a turbo 🙂

It’s funny how hard it can be to remember things in detail, so I may have a few details wrong, but it’s been fun to tell some stories from the context of the cars we had at the time.

Happy Father’s Day.