Remembering Old Friends: Cars I have known and loved

by Carol A. Westbrook

My DeSoto Detroit copyNew Year's Eve, 2014. Time to ring in the New Year, to reminisce about good times, and remember old friends that have left our lives. No, I'm not referring to relatives who have passed, or ex's that have moved on, I'm talking about … cars.

Now, I'm not a car person like my husband, who has cars like Imelda Marcos has shoes, one for every season, in both of our houses. I like to drive only one car at a time; I grow attached to my car, give it a name, and when necessity demands “out with the old, in with the new,” I shed a silent tear on losing a good friend.

I've not yet taken a picture of a favorite car, though at times I wish I had, unlike my husband, Rick, who has photographed every car he has ever owned, and some he has rented. Rick's first car was a 1957 DeSoto HemiHead V8, shown here.

MGBThe next picture shows him as a young assistant professor in 1968, with his powder-blue, 1965 MGB convertible.

He has even photographed some cars that he has rented, such as the memorable black, 100 series BMW hatchback that we drove on the Autobahn in Germany, as you can see in the picture. We even drove this delightful car through the “autos verboten” square near the 500-year-old cathedral in Strasbourg on market day–quite by accident–after bad advice from our GPS.

I searched my photo archives to see if I could find pictures of my own favorite drives, but they exist only incidentally, at the periphery of a family photo, or near a landmark on a vacation trip. I don't need a picture, though, because I remember them all well, every car I ever called my own. I rarely remember the model and the year, but I remember its make and color, “like a girl,” Rick would say.

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