IML: Imperial love / hate relationship
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

IML: Imperial love / hate relationship



In the vein of Laurie's recent contribution, let me just say that bringing "my" 58 into the family was never a deal breaker but it has caused some intense emotional responses along the way. First thing worth saying is the car does not belong to me. It is owned by a museum. I used to be the chairman of the board and am now it's manager, part-time, badly paid but loving it. I fell for the 58 hard. After a long time working on it at the museum, it became runnable enough to bring it home, which at that time was an apartment. I never wanted to own a house, but my wife did, and my way in was a garage for the 58. I turned down several house because the car would not fit into the garage or the entrance was too awkward. Anyhoo, soon enough we found a place when the car could squeeze in with inches to spare on each side, and almost none fore and aft. The funny thing is that the house and the car are contemporary to each other and all cars were pretty big back then but there you have it.

My daughter, now 13, loved the car from the get go, especially being picked from school in it. I'd let her sit on the arm rest in the middle of the back seat with a wee strap to keep her in place. Twas she who named it Mrs. Blueberry. My best compliment on the name came from a real head turner female member of my local Mopar club who said it took a real man to have the guts to call his car Mrs. Blueberry and introduce it as such to anyone and everyone. I hadn't thought of it that way until then but was happy to be given the idea and the ego stroke. However, my wide hated the car, completely and resolutely. She referred to it as my girl friend. When people phoned she'd say, "Oh, he's under his girl friend, let me get him for you." My boss called once and that took more than a little explaining.

Anyhoo, things changed when she started riding in it. Folks would go nuts as we drove along. Hooting, hollering, waving, big thumbs up, honking, the whole tilt. Funnily enough, I hardly noticed. I've been in so many parades and other events over the last fifteen years, I just don't see it anymore. But my wife loved the attention. She waves back and does the whole happy owner thing. The fact that spending money on the car counts as a donation to a registered charity and gets us tax breaks doesn't hurt either. Now she wants me to get the car painted so it won't be so embarrassing to be seen with it. From pull back to push forward. I'll take it.

Another sweet response came when my parents came to stay. My father hated the car. It represented to him, the stolid Englishman, the worst excesses of Americana. Loud, large, and a waste of the earth's precious and scarce resources. Not my mother though, she was happier than my daughter. Sat there in the back seat doing the royal wave like she was born to it. She thought the time I spent polishing a newly acquired set of 67/68 hub caps, which go so well with the 58's grill, if you happen to have 15 inch wheels on your 58 and not the original 14s, was total madness. She said she wished I'd spent so much time on my studies. Now the drop-out has written and had published one book and is working on another. I'm desperate to get the Imperial onto the cover. Time and money, as ever, are the problems. And so it goes.

Hugh


-----------------  http://www.imperialclub.com  -----------------
This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the
Administrators should be sent to iml.webmonster@xxxxxxxxx
To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm



Home Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network


Copyright © The Forward Look Network. All rights reserved.

Opinions expressed in posts reflect the views of their respective authors.
This site contains affiliate links for which we may be compensated.