Published: July 04, 2008 12:36 pm            

BARRY ST. CLAIR: The perfect SUV

“She weren't much to look at — she weren't much to ride — she was missing a window on the passenger side.”

Those grammatically incorrect but poignant lyrics from a song by singer Dan Seals pretty much describes the cars my friends and I owned when we were young men. For the most part they were relics of a by-gone time and had already lived their useful lives.

They ran for us because we were all country boys with technical degrees in shade tree mechanics. We were actually EMT's (Emergency Mechanical Technicians) as our treasured transportation vehicles (TTV's) broke down frequently and usually in the worst possible places.

My friends and I were all outdoor guys. Our free time was spent hunting and fishing as much as our meager means allowed. Of course it was a big deal to us to load up our old cars and take off and camp for a night or two.

I don't remember much about how many fish we caught or quail or deer we shot but I do remember the cars and how much fun we had trying to keep them together coming and going. As we got older we started taking wives and girlfriends along on our adventures and then we really had some interesting times!

Just ask my now wife-then girlfriend-about all the fun we had going camping in my old car.

My pride and joy was a 1959 4 WD Willys station wagon and it was the perfect sport utility vehicle. We did not call it that because the acronym for cars of that type had not been invented yet. My wife had some other colorful names for it but that is another story.

The Willys had plenty of cargo space in the back and could accommodate four passengers somewhat comfortably. When I bought it, the car needed a little work as the previous owner forthrightly admitted. The brakes were worn out and the transmission gears were minus a few teeth in important places. The windshield wipers were for decoration only and it was a real challenge to drive when it was raining. This was way before Rain-X.

The engine ran like a top however and the previous owner had put side pipes on the exhaust system. They sounded and looked good but it was a sizzling surprise to shorts-clad passengers that forgot about the lack of shields on the pipes when climbing out of the car.

The interior was clean but Spartan as utility vehicles were back then. There was a little problem with the electrical system in that when the headlight switch was pulled into the on position, the heater came on whether it was needed or not. The Willys was “shod” with eight-inch stagger block, traction tires and would climb a telephone pole in low gear.

It also had a little steering problem too and at the right speed the front end would start to shimmy uncontrollably. This feature caused my wife a large amount of consternation when she rode with me in that old wagon. I always consoled her fears by explaining that I was used to vehicles that had worn-out steering systems because most of the equipment on our farm was in the same shape.

Occasionally for some mysterious reason, the starter switch would not engage when the ignition key was turned to the start position. This would only happen in those situations when starting the car was somewhat critical. To get the engine running, it was necessary to crawl under it and jump the starter terminal across to the solenoid using a screwdriver. I actually got my wife to do this a few times. She must have seen more in me than her mother did.

Other than those few “minor” problems that Willys wagon took us to all kinds of adventures that we treasure the memories of today. We fished and hunted and camped out of that old car for several years and I regret the day I sold it. The only reason I did was in order to buy my very patient girlfriend, who had by then become my best camping buddy, a diamond wedding ring. We call it her 4-wheel drive diamond.

Barry St. Clair is a guest columnist for the Athens Daily Review. His columns appear weekly.

        

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