Funny how things that don't seem all that significant when you start can leave you with so many impressions. For the first time in I can't remember how long, I did something over the weekend just because I wanted to. Forget that the grass needed mowing, forget that I have a web page that I need to do for a client, forget that I really ought to be putting in overtime at the office; I've lived in the Houston area for over 12 years, and I've never been to the Auto Show at the Astrohall! For a professed car nut, this is really unacceptable.
This year, I decided to go. A friend got an Email from Buick, and told me how I could call them and get a couple of free passes. I made a big deal out of this, arranging to meet this friend and another there (I haven't seen either of these guys in years), then getting with three other guys from Baytown who wanted to go with me.
Jacquelyn might have been mildly interested in this outing, except there was no way she would want to stay for 4 hours, but of course Adam (aged almost 13) and Jesse (10) had to go. I would have taken them even if no one else wanted to go.
Anyway, Ray showed up at my house shortly before 9:00 a.m., and we got in the minivan and went to pick up J.R., then Buzz. When we got there, I found out that kids 12 and under get in free, so I had a spare ticket, and Kyle and David, who we met there, each had an extra, so the whole bunch of us got in for nothing except two $4.00 parking fees. Talk about a good way to start off! On top of that, since we were there about ten minutes before they opened, the crowd wasn't bad at all.
First stop, the new Corvette. I came armed with 4 rolls of Kodacolor Gold and a 1950-something Voigtlander Vitomatic I camera. I got a couple of shots of the Vette, but it was pretty crowded since everyone went there first, so I decided I'd take more later.
Buzz wandered off to find the Suburbans... not exactly my idea of a car. We found the BMW Z3 pretty quickly. The Z3 is a tiny two-seat roadster, about the size of a Mazda Miata or the old MGB or Triumph TR6, but with tires wide enough to really grip the road. The version with the inline 6-cylinder engine goes for about $38,000, and the 4-cylinder is maybe $10,000 less.
BMW let you sit in this car, and it had a crowd around it all day. The Corvette had guard-rails around it, so all you could do was look.
In fact, BMW and Mercedes Benz let you sit in almost all of their cars, the only exception being the ones they wanted to display on platforms.
Naturally, that meant that my kids sat in everything that seemed interesting to them. The Z3, the Chevy Camaro Z28, the Hummer. Adam really wanted to sit in the new Jaguar XK8, but they kept it locked, opening it only if they thought you might actually buy one.
But the thing that gave me the lasting memory was when Adam and Jesse sat in an econobox. The Hyundai Accent is about the size that the Honda Civic used to be. Jesse got in and adjusted the seat, then observed that, not only could he reach the pedals, he could see out! In other words, "Dad, I could drive this car!"
This was repeated with a several of the smaller cars. That sparked a memory.
I'm not sure how old I was, but it was probably between 10 and 12, and my dad decided to go look at cars. I don't think he was really planning to buy, but he must have had the bug to get himself a new car. Anyway, we stopped at Speedwell Motor Company in Beaumont, where they sold Fiats and British Leyland cars and maybe Jaguars. There were a couple of Fiat coupes there that my brother and I got in, and discovered that they seemed to be a perfect fit. There was something special about the fact that the manual gear-shift knob was positioned perfectly for my reach, and I sat there and ran it through the gears, feeling "big" because I knew how to push the clutch and shift.
I don't remember which of us (my brother or me) chose the "sporty" coupe, and which chose the "econobox" version, but since they were Fiats, it probably didn't matter. I also don't know why I didn't notice any MG or Triumph they might have had, but those are certainly not part of my memory.
I just knew that I could have driven that car home, and my kids knew the same thing there at the Auto Show. For a second, I had a real memory. I remember lots of things all the way back to when I was two years old, but usually the memories are words and pictures. This is a real memory... it includes the "what it felt like" part.
Merecdes-Benz must have had a new, somewhat smaller model out about that time, because after we left Speedwell, we went to the Mercedes dealer. They sold Chevrolets next door, and the salesman met us as we got out of our car, to see what he could sell us.
When my dad said he thought he'd have a look at "one of those little Mercedes-Benz," the salesman said "Sure, go ahead," and returned to his office. I don't know if we were in the Oldsmobile, or if we were in the old Dodge Dart, but the "middle-class look" (in America, that means "working class" or "middle/average income") must have been apparent.
That didn't happen to me at the car show. Since I was carrying several rolls of film, blue-jeans wouldn't have worked. Instead, I wore a pair of "no-wrinkle cotton" slacks, with large enough pockets for carrying golf-balls, and a four-buttons-at-the-top red sport shirt.
Somewhere along the way, I decided to take a few photos of wheels up close. Not long before we left, I stopped at the Corvette display again to get a shot of a wheel (you can see the huge disk-brake calipers, with the word "Corvette" embossed on them, through the wheel). The salesman from Courtesy Chevrolet mentioned, as I stood up, that he had a new Vette coming in about two weeks, and that we could make a deal on it "today" if I was interested! Must have been the way I was dressed, plus the unusual camera.
I told him that that was about twice what I'd be able to afford in about three years when I might be ready to buy another car, but on reflection, that's doubtful. Whether it's one for Adam to drive, or if he gets the Lumina and I get another car, the "third car" will probably be five or six years old. The Grand Voyager won't be paid for yet. One middle-class vehicle is enough for any family, and the upper-class stuff has to wait until the kids are grown. I just hope that, by then, I still want the Corvette (or the Z3), and I'm not starting to look longingly at Cadillacs.
Copyright © 1997,
