Love at First Sight

A Sequel to "Grandma Cars"

As I recall, it was a sunny Western Pennsylvania spring day. I was driving a 66 Chevy Biscayne, a car I wrote about in a previous post - Grandma Cars.

https://thestormbynorm.substack.com/p/grandma-cars

I was going to work by my usual route, most likely thinking of nothing in particular. On this day, as I entered town from the north, I passed a Chrysler dealership, just as I had done hundreds of times. But this day was, in fact, very different. Because on this day, I was hit by the thunderbolt of love. Kind of like when Michael Corleone first saw Apollonia.

Among the otherwise unremarkable Chrysler vehicles, there was a stunning red Plymouth Duster 360 on the lot that day, parked right out next to the road, where everyone could see. Including me. With that first look, I was smitten.

This is not a photo of my beloved Duster, but it looked very much like this one.

That Duster was so pretty. I wasn’t a motorhead, but I liked cars and I grew up around car people. And, working at my uncle’s garage, I was exposed to the local car culture and saw, up close, how the guys in town worked on and cared for their beautiful hot rods. As I’ve said many times, they were works of vehicular art.

I did not care about working on a hot car, I just wanted to have one.

I was aware that a Duster was not as valued as, say, a Chevelle, or GTO, or Firebird, or Mustang, or Roadrunner. But, I thought the Dusters were just as beautiful and hot-looking as any of those others. The styling of the Duster was a perfect fit for what I liked in a car.

I knew there were many logical reasons why I would never have that Duster. Legally, I did not even have a real job. I had been working at my uncle’s garage/gas station for a year or so, but, I wasn’t a real employee. He paid me cash money, under the table, as they say. No withholding, no FICA, none of that. Straight out of the cash register every night. (I would guess the statute of limitations on such activities has expired nearly half a century later.) I was working 48 hours a week for $2 an hour, no overtime, no minimum wage, no benefits. Looking back, I’m not sure why I thought this was a good arrangement. Perhaps I just didn’t know any better. Or maybe I was trying to find myself. (Oh, for crying out loud . . .)

Anyway, as spring turned to summer, I saw the Duster sitting on the lot just about every day. I began to think that being behind the wheel of such a beauty wasn’t so farfetched. Maybe I could, possibly, maybe, perhaps, maybe, sort of, conceivably, perchance, possibly, potentially, perhaps, maybe, sort of, you know, buy it. Maybe.

As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to months, my lust for that car never waned. It was as if it was calling to me, “Hey Norm, hey, come and get me! You know you want to! Come on, bud, you can do it! Come get me!” I had some money saved up, but figured I would never have enough.

One day, after several months of this, instead of driving past, I pulled into the Chrysler lot to look at the Duster up close. Man, it was sweet! The color was called Rally Red, It had black accent stripes on the sides and back end. It had a black vinyl interior, and it had a bench seat in the front, so that the driver and his best girl could snuggle up to each other while driving. (The cars of that period had seatbelts, but hardly anyone used them.)

Admittedly, I did not have a best girl to snuggle up to at that time. I figured a hot, sexy car might help with that situation. (All I can say is, that was the way a young man’s mind worked in the olden days.)

At the very least, I knew I had to check into this further, or else I was going to lose my freaking mind.

The price on this beautiful, Rally Red Plymouth Duster 360, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I can’t remember for sure, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of $3200. It’s so funny, looking back on it. What made me think buying a new car was even a remote possibility? I was still a teenager without a legal job. I had no credit history. I didn’t even have a bank account.

After this initial visit, though, I knew I had to go for it, despite the little voice in my head telling me I’d be making a big mistake. Sometimes you just have to tell the little voice to shut the hell up.

On a subsequent visit to the dealership, the salesman said they would set up financing for me. I needed a down payment, which I had, and the loan would have to be cosigned. That was a problem. I was loathe to ask my parents for this, because, well, let’s just say it was an unhappy situation.

It was an adult world-type lesson for me - sometimes one has to do what one does not want to do, in order to accomplish something else. I asked them to cosign the loan. They agreed to do so. Which was the last hurdle to driving off the lot in a Rally Red Plymouth Duster 360.

Remember how I said I was paid in cash from the cash register every night? And, that I did not have a bank account? That’s why I showed up at the dealership with my pockets stuffed full of cash. When the guy asked for the down payment, I started pulling wads of bills from my pockets - 20s, 10s, 5s, even some 1’s. He must have thought of me as a some kind of ignorant hillbilly, who kept his money in coffee cans buried in the backyard. (If that’s what he thought, well, then the joke was on him. I would never bury my money in coffee cans because I hate coffee. So there.)

There was around $1100 dollars in several piles on the salesman’s desk. We signed the papers, committing to paying $77 a month for the next 30 months. (These numbers seem so piddly now, but back then this was a huge financial transaction for me.) I gave him the keys to my 66 Chevy (which was worth next to nothing), he gave me the keys to my new Duster. It was one of the happiest days of my young life. Because I had a brand new Duster, yes, but also because I listened to Richard Nixon announce his resignation on the radio that evening. Yep, that was a very happy day.

I loved everything about that car. I especially loved the way it sounded. It had a 360 cubic inch engine, with a 4 barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust. When the Duster was idling, it was like the low growl of a big jungle cat. Stomping on the gas pedal made it roar. Oh, man, even all these years later, it makes me smile. That Duster was so cool.

Loving that car did not mean I was unwilling to make changes to it. I replaced the factory wheels with shiny, new chrome slotted wheels. In keeping with the style of the day, I put big, wide tires on the back, and put air shocks on the back end, allowing me to raise the rear a bit higher. I had an AM-FM eight-track tape player installed to replace the original radio. To prepare for the harsh Pennsylvania winters, I had it rust-proofed, a process involving drilling holes into the car’s body, and squirting some kind of gunk up in there to prevent the body from rusting.

I loved that car and was determined to make it the best it could be.

I paid it off in less than two years. A few months after that, I packed everything I owned into that Duster and moved away from Pennsylvania, to start a new life on my own, Far, far away. Thousands of miles away, figuratively, and literally.

Fast forward seven years or so.

My Duster and I had begun to have issues. Gas prices had skyrocketed. The car had always gotten poor mileage, which was to be expected from a fast hot rod with a big motor. The poor mileage was exacerbated by living in the city. I began to imagine I could actually see the gas gauge moving toward “E”, while idling at the many stoplights. And, the front tires were wearing badly, indicating a probably expensive front suspension problem. It also had no air conditioning, which wasn’t a necessity in Pennsylvania, however, as I was now living in a place that was hotter than the fires of Hades in the summer, it seemed problematic. No AC with a black, vinyl interior was a miserable combination.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, love lasts forever. Sometimes it doesn’t. I’d had my beautiful Rally Red Plymouth Duster 360 for almost 8 years. We had been through a lot together. But, I convinced myself it was time to get a cheaper, more fuel efficient, responsible adult car. So, I traded my beloved Duster in for a new, green Mercury LN7, which was really just a little Ford Escort with a few cosmetic differences. It would have been a perfect car for my grandmother.

I gave up my beautiful, badass Duster for this? Apparently, I wasn’t in my right mind.

I had convinced myself that I was ready for something new; that the love was gone. I was wrong.

It might have bankrupted me, but I wish I would have kept that Duster.

I still miss it.

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