1966 Pontiac GTO
1966 Pontiac GTO pen, ink and watercolor by Christopher Parent ©1999
This signed and dated 11"X17" print comes ready to frame for $15.
"My First"
My first car was a 1967 Pontiac LeMans hardtop, as blue as the summer sky with a snow white vinyl top. From a distance the white top fooled people into thinking it was a convertible but even more people were fooled into thinking it was a GTO. I got my LeMans on July 3rd 1976, just after my High School graduation. While walking up the driveway after work I spotted the unfamiliar car sitting at the front of my house. It was covered with leaves and moss and desperately needed cleaning . I didn't think much of it and suspecting we had a visitor, I asked my Dad, "whose car is that in the driveway?" He replied, "That car belongs to the next person in this family who registers to vote." Since I had turned 18 a few months earlier, My Dad had often encouraged me to get my voting card. This was just the incentive I needed and that evening I rode my bicycle to the local Fire Station and filled out the registration form. The Fireman handed me a red and white card with my name on it. It was a card that all Americans have the right to carry. It symbolized our freedom. I didn't really understand what it meant....to me it meant I had my own car. Appropriately it was the eve of our country's Bicentennial and it was the eve of my own freedom.
My Dad had somehow talked my older sister into steering the LeMans home while he drove in front of her in his truck and on that afternoon, while frantically trying to steer the Pontaic home, the first of my sister's white hairs appeared at the tender young age of 19. It may have been one of the few times that a parent's actions turned their child's hair gray. The next night I sat on the front porch of my home watching the fireworks reflecting off the paint of my beautiful new car and dreamed of the future and all it's possibilities.
Getting my first car was much like falling in love with my first "real" girlfriend in High School. I thought about them both all the time and I was constantly smiling. From the time I first saw my LeMans I didn't stop thinking about it until it was ready to drive. After getting a new transmission cable and lots of washing and waxing my Dad and I were ready to take the Pontiac out for my first drive. I sat in the creamy white bucket seats and pulled in a deep breath of air. I was dizzy. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat as I placed the key in the ignition. I hadn't felt like this since my first kiss. I turned the key and the LeMans started on the first "click." The engine rumbled and I inhaled the sweet smell of exhaust through the open windows. "Needs a new muffler." My Dad said with a grin. I looked at him with what must have been a puzzled look. "We'll get a new one this afternoon, I'll show you how to replace it" he added. I smiled, nodded my head and anxiously reached down to the consol and shifted the transmission into drive. My new life was about to begin.
My 1967 Pontiac LeMans photo by Richard Parent
It didn't take much to spin the tires, especially on a gravel driveway. A cloud of dust rose from the rear of the car and I quickly released the gas pedal. I sheepishly looked over at my Dad just in time to see his eyes roll up and a smile crack on one side of his mouth. The rest of my first drive was uneventful but every mile of it would be forever in my memory. I drove that car all summer long using one hand to steer and the other theatrically propped on the door so the world could see how cool I was in my very own car. I was in heaven and felt like a king among the kids who still had to walk or ride their childish bikes to the store for candy and pop. I was in the most beautiful 1967 Pontiac LeMans in the city and I rubbed it in their faces.
Four months later I was dethroned from the kingdom of coolness. My LeMans was hit by a speeding station wagon as I crept out into traffic to look around a bus. Humiliated, I was forced to ride my childish bike or take the bus to school and work. I was crushed and unaware that this accident would spawn one of the great lessons I would learn in life.
I thought my car was a total loss. The frame was severely bent and the whole nose was smashed beyond repair. I had bruises on my hips from the seat belt but the injuries on my LeMans would not heal like my body would. I was ready to look for another car but my Dad saw things much differently. This car was going to be my project. With my Dad as the teacher and me as the eager pupil we would rebuild it. We scoured the junk yards looking for all the parts we would need; A radiator, a frame and a complete front end. It took us weeks to find them all. We spent hours delicately removing the front end off a 1966 Tempest and carted it home to begin our project. My Dad was like a magician. He seemed to know everything and had solutions for all the problems we faced. His skill and knowledge convinced me we could restore my LeMans into a condition better than it was. We pulled the body off the frame in the uncovered driveway in the winter rain. The pain from the cold stung at our fingers and bodies but it didn't matter, nothing was going to keep us from our goal of restoring that car. When the new frame was in place we recruited all my neighborhood friends to help lift the massive 326 engine back into the car. I spent countless hours sanding the Tempest front end in the basement at night until only the bare silver metal was left and by spring had pieced together the vehicle of my freedom. When the rains cleared and the wind was still we painted the LeMans.
The car looked beautiful. Better than before with it's shiny new blue paint. But something wasn't quite right. Over the winter I had cheated on my LeMans and fallen in love with the GTO. I loved my LeMans but the GTO was a masterpiece. It was the Michelangelo's David of American automobiles, sculpted to perfection. I became obsessed with the "Goat" and my next goal evolved into at least making my little LeMans look like a GTO. In hindsight I felt like I was a plastic surgeon trying to beautify something that was already beautiful. I found a Goat hood with the signature air scoop and the GTO grille with the emblem on the front and soon thought of replacing the little 326 engine with a 389 or 400ci. When I realized I couldn't afford it I surrendered to the fact that no matter what I did to the LeMans it would always be a poor man's GTO. So I left it at that.
As the years passed and I got older I seldom drove my LeMans I bought a smaller fuel efficient SAAB to drive while my Pontiac sat idle in the driveway and except for the few summer weekend joyrides the car wasn't driven much. I debated in my mind the fate of my LeMans for some time. Finally, after graduating from college I joined the Peace Corps and two nights before I left for my job in Honduras I made a decision I have regretted every day since.
I sold it.
As the LeMans was being driven away by a smiling stranger I realized what was happening but it was too late. I wanted to yell out: "COME BACK, I MADE A MISTAKE!" Instead I watched my car roll away that day with my youth. All the memories and excitement of a young man's first car had been sold and signed away to a stranger. I felt sick and was searching for some way to comfort the hollow feeling inside me. All I could think of to say was; "That's all right, when I get back I'm going to get a GTO".
This is an excerpt from a story by Christopher Parent ©1999
