Which meant that by the time I turned 13, with calloused hands and a dose of essential shop vocabulary, I felt sufficiently proficient in automotive mechanics. It was time to pop the car question to my parents.
The answer I got from my dad was a welcomed surprise, though not without a few caveats thrown in.
“Sure, son,” he said, quickly adding, “You pay for it and find a place up yonder on the hill where one of them farmers will let you keep it.”
I could work with this.
The next day, I jumped on my bike and began paying a visit to the neighboring farms. Sure enough, I had managed to rustle up a deal with a retired pickle farmer. He agreed to let me keep my project car on his property, so long as I showed up alone to work on it.
“No chums tagging along, ya hear?” he grumbled, as he pointed to what we agreed was a suitable spot.
With a place to work on my car secured, I got on the phone and called the two towing companies in our area. The first one gave me an auditory shrug off, followed by a dial tone. Undaunted, the second company informed me that it had a 1955 Buick Century. I was elated, and said I wanted it, to which the man replied, “Alright, kid. You git yer daddy to drive it out of here an’ you can have ‘er for $35, cash.”
Saturday couldn’t arrive fast enough. I had squirreled away money from a paper route and a kennel-boy job that kept me solvent. My dad was away on business, so my mother and I took a bus down to the towing yard about three or four miles from home. I watched as the fellow who owned the place dumped a pail of water into the radiator and jumped the battery. The old Buick was stubborn, but she coughed and fired on about the fifth try. I counted out my money into his hand before he told us the Century had been a get-away car for some local thieves who’d abandoned it. That explained why the car was sold without a title, the perforated tires, and barbed wire wrapped around the rear axle. Otherwise, the body was straight, and the interior was decent. The Century even had a Wonderbar radio. I was right satisfied with the deal.
As we pulled out of the towing yard, I swear that car was driving sideways down the backroads we took toward the old pickle farm. The Buick steamed and hissed, but soon arrived without incident. Mom backed it onto a cement slab reserved for my project. She got out and tossed me the key, saying: “Now, don’t be late for supper.” She turned and hoofed it home—less than a mile from our house—and there I stood, gazing at my new love.
As the months passed, I learned many things while I dismantled and tinkered with this and that under the hood of that old Century. Along the way, I learned that one should drain the cooling system before removing the cylinder heads. I learned that the distributor goes in only one way, and cranking the engine over while it’s removed complicates repositioning it like nobody’s business. I learned that I should have replaced the valve guide seals and head gaskets before bolting down the cylinder heads, and that I should follow a torque pattern while doing so. The list goes on.
Our high school’s auto shop teacher showed me how to use the cleaning tank, the media blasting cabinet, the valve and seat grinders, and all the hand tools required after I’d hauled the Buick’s greasy cylinder heads to school on my bicycle. Well, the nine-month ordeal turned out to be the best $35 lesson a 13-year-old could ever ask for, with a real top-end rebuild (or near to one), to boot.
One spring day it came time to fire up the big Century, which was less than climatic. The mysteries of distributors and firing orders had weighed heavily upon me. Dad was no auto mechanic. My friend with the Crown Victoria was locked out under my ‘no chums’ agreement with the pickle farmer. So, I turned to one of my dad’s friends, who agreed to make sure I wasn’t blowing up my car’s engine.
He soon figured out the distributor was 180 degrees off, along with a few other do-dads that needed an adjustment by using one of those old-school timing lights you can’t see in daylight. Finally, he hollered for me to switch on the ignition and mash on the accelerator pedal to crank the engine over. The starter groaned as the old girl began popping and sputtering. At last, she fired up! The V-8 shook and idled rough as she came down off the cold idle cam … but she kept running! Despite a bitter-sweet ending drawing closer, I stood grinning ear-to-ear. I had taken apart and put together a good bit of my first car engine. The Buick had too many issues to sell it as a potential driver, but the local auto-wrecker had agreed that if we could get the car to them, they’d give me a hundred dollars cash for it—a handsome sum for a high school freshman.
My dad and I jumped in, and he pulled the Century out onto the country road towards the direction of the auto wrecker. We’d driven maybe a quarter mile when the engine conked out and refused to restart. That’s when I knew the Buick’s fate. They’d have to tow it in, meaning I wouldn’t receive a dime for it. An hour later, after watching the Buick dip over the rise in the distance, I bit my lip and forced a grin, realizing that old car brought me nine months of happiness … and an education that would lead me to hunker down and study ignition and carburetion like none of my peers would. At 16, I was driving a 1967 Chevy II and doing tune-ups around town with the bones of a $35 get-away car in my head.
REMINISCING relates your personal stories and remembrances enjoying and owning a car. To submit your stories, email us editorial@hemmings.com or write to us at Reminiscing, c/o Hemmings Classic Car, 222 Main Street, Bennington, Vermont 05201
