What a great piece. Every trip in a car, no matter how pedestrian or modest the vehicle is still a treat after all these years. Even a trip to Safeway. Sometimes I have felt they've been my only friend. Next week I will take a short trip [about 7 miles] to Saguaro Canyon National Park to spread the ashes of my best friend Bill in the car I was driving when we met 40 years ago. I will be a full participant in this action as the 63 Valiant that will take us there has un-boosted steering and brakes and a three speed manual on the column. Bill rode in, worked on with my Dad, pushed and listened to me freak out when it screwed up along the way. He would have loved this. He put a working radio in it. A $10 special from Zody's. We went to see Leslie Gore and other performers in a nostalgia tour at a theater on Hollywood Blvd. Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons 25th Anniversary tour on Wilshire Blvd in it. Drove Edith Massey [The Egg Lady, a John Waters superstar] to the clubs in West Hollywood in it to promote her act on Sunset Blvd. and the Whiskey the next night where she performed with her punk rock band. There were funerals. Cruising on Hollywood Blvd. Stolen batteries, flat tires. A cassette player from his '73 Duster went in it and speakers. He installed my new Econo-Miser carb from JC Whitney on it, KRTH 101 locked in on the radio. Trips up into the Hollywood Hills and Griffith Park. The Observatory. After all that he remined me that he'd never driven it in all these years. I spent plenty to get it safer for him to drive on one of his visits in the last couple of years, and then he wasn't well enough to come visit any longer. This route was the one I planned for him to drive. AZ was one of his favorite places. He would have appreciated the ceremony and the Valiant's participation in his send off. Best friends indeed. I don't think that some autonomous device will ever become the kind of vessel that could generate that sort of counterpoint to someone's life in the future. How sterile and soul-less driving one of these must be. But then automotive scribes from the '50s, '60s and '70 sneered about the idea the cars of those eras would ever be collectible. I'm likely as wrong as they were. Wonderful piece. There's been nothing that has had such an impact on my life as these four wheeled things and interaction with them. Crossing to the other side to the Isle of Misfit Cars to spend eternity would truly be heaven. Thanks for taking pause and reminding us that these things are far more than just collections of sheet metal, rubber, screws, bolts and glass.
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