My first car was an Austin America that I purchased on my 16th birthday with money earned from my paper route. Maybe it was a ‘68? This photo isn’t actually my car; back in the Mesozoic before smartphones we didn’t know that every waking moment was supposed to be photographed and shared so I’m doubtful that a lengthy search through the overstuffed shoeboxes in the closet would turn up anything. Anyway, my car only looked like this the day I got it. The following morning was a Sunday and it was pouring so I was excited to deliver my papers in a nice dry car. And it was going great, I was just firing those heavy Sunday SF Chronicles off left and right and having a ball. One paper in particular sailed out of my hand through the passenger window in a perfect 30 yard parabola and landed right on the doorstep and I was transfixed. Then crunch! My right front fender slammed into a tree. Lesson learned-watch where you’re going. We jerry rigged the fender so the headlight would point more or less in the same direction as the car and that was that. Except of course that wasn’t. The Austin turned out to be just about the safest car imaginable for a new teenage driver; thanks to Prince Lucas of Darkness the car almost never ran. I ended up selling it to a guy who had another America and needed a parts car. Yep, just like the joke about needing two Jaguars except considerably lower rent. Further lesson learned: avoid finicky unreliable old British wheels and stick to solid American iron. So I replaced the Austin America with a Chevy Vega. Needless to say, many more lessons learned were soon to be learned.
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