Father-son relationships can be complicated. Sons naturally want to exert their ever-growing prowess, which is a good thing when it’s channeled properly, but when it comes to telling Dad what to do, it gets tricky. Taking advice from their sons does not come easy, at least in my family.
It’s not just a matter of giving up control, but also whether it’s good and useful advice. Needless to say, we all gave my dad lots of advice, behind his back. He was especially touchy about telling him anything, because he was pretty cock-sure he knew it all better. And on a huge range of subjects that was the case, as he had an exceptional memory and was highly intelligent. But he had his blind spots, and as far as I was concerned, cars were one of his biggest ones.
I’ve shared the stories of my father’s car-buying here a few times, but here’s the quick summary in case you’re new.
The first car he bought shortly after we arrived in the US in 1960 was an elderly but solid baby-blue ’54 Ford four door sedan. It had the new Y block V8 and automatic. Although I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a new 1960 Pontiac, I rather approved. It was very roomy in the back seat, which was a good thing as there were four of us kids. It took us on many outings to explore our new surroundings in Iowa, and then in the summer of 1961, it really expanded our horizons by taking us to the first of a number of wonderful summer vacations in the Rockies.
A doctor at the university my dad met was also a mountaineer, and he and his family owned a couple of venerable old cabins way up on a ridge within walking distance of the boundary of the Rocky Mountain National Park. Having left Innsbruck, in the heart of the Alps, for the endless flatland of Iowa was a painful transition in a number of ways, so heading west on old hwy 30 and/or 6 across the plains until the Rockies appeared in the far distance was exhilarating. Just the drive alone, as the landscape changed from lush farms in Iowa to dry range land in Western Nebraska, and the number of Indian/Western curio shops increased. It was all charged with growing excitement, at least for me. I won’t mention the very unpleasant night in a motel in Holdridge, Nebraska thanks to my dad, because it will spoil the positive mood I’m beginning to generate here.
Being in the Rockies each of those summers of 1961-1965 were the best times of those years. The superb beauty, the smell of sage and pine, the crisp, dry air, the afternoon thunderstorms, and of course getting up into the mountains for hikes.
I’m afraid I rather deeply disappointed my dad that first summer when he took me and my older brother on our first mountain peak hike, the goals being Flattop Mt. (on right) and then on to the taller and decidedly more mountain-peak looking Hallet Peak, on the left. After the 3.5 miles up to the non-peak of Flattop, I said I couldn’t go on. I so remember the look on my father’s face as he looked across the gorge of Tyndall Glacier, which separated the two, over to Hallet’s Peak.
But he was actually pretty good about, and given that I was all of eight, I guess he didn’t have much choice. How many times I’ve made that hike since, and thought about how he must have felt. But then how many mountain peaks did I give up trying to climb during all of the years we had our little kids. For what it’s worth, it’s about the only sacrifice like that he had to ever make.
But I treasure the fact that he imbued the love of the mountains in me, but how could he not? It’s what he wanted to do, so it’s not like we would have had any other choice for vacation. How I pined for Disneyland…
In 1962, my father left one day in the old Ford and came back a couple of hours later with this black Fairlane, seen here with my mom and my younger brother. Hmm. Well, it was new, but it was decidedly smaller inside than the big, tall old Ford with its sofa of a back seat. And now us kids were decidedly bigger, and getting bigger by the day. I would have recommended a Pontiac 8 passenger wagon.
I won’t go into a lot of detail as I’ve documented it here, but the innocence of childhood I experienced in the ’54 Ford quickly evaporated in the ever-more tense atmosphere of the Fairlane. My father was quite unhappy with certain political aspects of his job in Iowa, and that combined with his intensity, defensiveness, control issues and anger mis-management made for an increasingly unhappy atmosphere at home. And that was only highly intensified when we were all cooped up with him in the little Fairlane for several days at a time. The relief of arriving in the Rockies, or back home, after these trips was overwhelming.
In the spring of 1965, he finally relented and bought a Dodge Coronet 8-passenger wagon. I just wrote about that recently here. Not surprisingly, I once again would have recommended a big Pontiac wagon.
In 1965 he was recruited by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and he needed a second car for his commute in addition to the Coronet wagon that now became Mom’s car (and the vacation-mobile). I have yet to write this chapter of the Auto-Biography, as I’ve yet to find an Opel Kadett A, but one of these times I will with a stand-in. I recommended a VW Beetle. The Opel was rather fragile, and after three years was showing it. A VW would have been barely broken in. Oh well.
So he went off one day and came back later with a gold ’68 Dart stripper two door sedan, with the little 170 slant six and three-on-the tree. A wee bit modest for a professor of Neurology and head of the EEG Clinic at Johns Hopkins, but hey, if you want to sweat on the black vinyl seats with no air conditioning 45 minutes twice a day on the brutal commute through the surface streets of Baltimore, help yourself. You must need the penance. I would have recommended a BMW 2002, although that was hardly realistic. At least a GM A Body coupe with a V8, automatic and air conditioning. Oh, and an AM/FM radio might have been nice too, so you could listen to the new classical music station instead of straining your ears on that little tinny $5 transistor radio you put in the dashboard.
You should never have started listening to talk radio anyway on the drive; it turned you from fairly reasonable moderate into an increasingly hard-core conservative. Thanks, Rush! Now politics was taboo too, never mind sex or money. Of course, I was long gone by then, having flown the coop by hitchhiking west a week after I turned 18.
Although the Dart lived up to its rep and was still hale and hearty, in 1978 or so my father finally succumbed to the venial sin of air conditioning, having had a taste of it in my Mom’s ’73 Coronet wagon on their vacation trips. It arrived in the form of a red Mercury Zephyr, and was powered by the base 2.3 L four and a four speed stick shift. It was a bit of a surprise when I first saw it on a trip home. And it was a bit of a mixed bag. There was a decided dorky aspect, but once I drove it, my respect increased. With the four and a stick shift, it was light on its feet, and handled surprisingly well. Truly the closest thing to an American Volvo.
In about 1986 or so, my father came to LA for a conference in Palm Springs. He flew out a day or two early and stayed with us, and then I drove him out to Palm Springs in my new 300E. In Europe in the 50s, a Mercedes 300 was of course the legendary “Adenauer” 300, a only fit for royalty, top politicians, the pope or the very wealthy. A product of the very class-structured Austrian/German social order, my father would never have dreamed of having a Mercedes 300. Even though he knew that in the 60s and 70s, that magic number was now increasingly affordable, and there were a growing number of them to be found down at the Johns Hopkins Hospital parking tower, for him it was something that he couldn’t be comfortable in. He sought status and prestige through his career, which turned out to be very successful (if not exactly lucrative, as a professor), and not through overt symbols of success like a Mercedes, never mind a 300!
Yet I could just see how much he liked the ride out to Palm Springs in it, and was proud of/for me for having achieved the financial success at age 33 or so to have one as well. Or was he a bit jealous? Or did he think I was a show-off? I couldn’t really tell; it’s not like he would have actually used his words to share his feelings. One had to read his body language, especially the set of his mouth and the most of all his lips.
That’s not to say he was ever really happy about the fact that none of us followed his footsteps into academia; in fact only the youngest of us five children ever got a college degree. Maybe we were sending him a message: Doctor, heal thyself!
Not that he took that advice: In fact, he told my younger brother on his deathbed that he was disappointed in all of us kids. Oh well; not really a surprise.
By the mid 1980s, he had mellowed out some, given that he was now in his 60s. And perhaps the most extreme example of that in regard to me and his cars is that one day in 1986 or 1987 he called me out of the blue (which he never did before or after) and asked my for a recommendation for a new car. That was easy:
The new Ford Taurus. Here was the perfect car for him. It was American, which was essential after the disappointment of the Opel. But it was as European as an American car ever was. Not in trying too hard, like wearing those ridiculous “Eurosport” badges or such. The Taurus was the first American car to really properly synthesize all the qualities that made for a really good, all-round balanced car for the times.
It handled very competently without one having to order a harsh sports suspension like on GM cars. Did BMW or Audi or Mercedes offer ‘sports suspensions”? No. They mastered the art of finding a happy compromise through a proper four wheel independent suspension, good shocks and careful tuning, all of it attached to a rigid body structure. And yet it had avery comfortable ride.
My father was very happy, even if he could no longer shift his own gears (fortunately he didn’t get the MT-5 version with the dreadful four cylinder and manual). And now my mom could actually drive it in a pinch! The Taurus was treated to a steady diet of super gasoline, even though it had no use for it. But in my dad’s mind it made a difference.
I only recommended the Taurus from what I’d read about it, in all of the gushing reviews. But on our next trip home, I borrowed it for a day’s outing with Stephanie and the kids, and it lived up to its lofty billing. No, it wasn’t a Mercedes W124; it was decidedly softer and cushier, but in a good way, for the more leisurely driving style Maryland mostly required compared to my frequent high speed runs in the deserts and mountains of California. Very nice, Dad! I approve!
The back seat was very accommodating too, a bit more so than the rather cozy one in the Benz. And I can still feel that distinctive low-cut velour-ish fabric all the Taurii back then used. Again, no Benz, but it felt decidedly nicer and better quality than comparable cars from GM or Chrysler. Well done, Ford!
The Taurus was of course a huge hit, because for just about the first time ever, it was really done right. Yes, many of the better American cars of the 60s and early 70s had very redeeming features, but they lacked the poise and handling competence and the feeling of being of a piece that was typically a Mercedes quality. The Taurus synthesized just the right amount of that to work just right and still be an American car, which it was.
And as such, it turned the market on its ear and set a standard. Every sedan on the market today has been deeply influenced by the original Taurus. They all carry its DNA.
It’s way past bedtime, so this needs to end. Let’s just say his asking my advice for a car was a one time event; my father eventually replaced the Taurus with a Buick Skylark, a very modest GM rental-mobile. And a few years later he drove off one day in my mom’s beloved Honda Civic, which she had bought on my advice, and returned with a craptrastic green Saturn Ion. She was really steamed about that; about as mad at him as I ever saw her in their later years. Oh well, the golden era of when the Taurus and Civic shared the Niedermeyer garage was well over. Maybe it was because he didn’t approve of me ditching my career and moving to Oregon?
Who knows; I had given up trying to understand him a long time ago, especially when it came to certain subjects like cars, for which he had no affinity whatsoever. But who was going to tell him that? Not me.
I am not sure that there is a more complicated relationship than that of father and son. All of the dynamics you mention seem to be always there, with the differences being in the amounts.
I don’t recall my father ever asking me for car buying advice, so you have me beat there. He did, however, sort of copy me once – in a very surprising way. When I was first married an 88 Accord was our “good car”. One day Dad walked away from a long line of FoMoCo cars and came home with a 90 Accord. But after wrecking it a year or so later (possibly an early symptom of the brain tumor that eventually took him down) he was back in another Taurus.
He had two Taurii (it is hard to keep them straight in my mind because they were both white). His last car was a fwd 96-ish Continental sedan, so maybe that brings the Taurus count to 3. He was quite happy in all of them.
Wonderful, bittersweet Father’s Day read. I especially liked the line about how modern cars all carry the Gen-1 Taurus’s DNA.
It was tricky when I was at the tipping point, age-wise, when I realized my parents didn’t necessarily know better than me. The giving up of control is a bigger deal with many families than many of us realize.
As for the Gen 1 Taurus, I’m glad that positive association is there with a North American Ford that was truly great.
Thanks for the great read, Paul.
Not to diminish your father in the least but this makes me realize how lucky I am to have had a father who is a total gear head. I grew up with a driveway and yard full of old cars. I got him into Volkswagens and as I got older, we started going to car shows together, tracking down leads on old VWs and hauling them home. I don’t know that my being a car nerd at such a young age would have been as well cultivated otherwise
Dad had a long string of the biggest Mercurys in his lifetime, but after two none too happy years with an ’84 Topaz coupe (that car was Mom’s idea), he was ready for a new car. I talked him into buying a new Sable for ’86. He bought a well-optioned LS wagon and liked it so much that he replaced with another one in 1990.
My Father seldom asked for my advice (or anyone else’s, save for Consumer reports) on cars, and with a family of 6 he tended to buy for function more than anything. Not the very cheapest, but close to it. I recall he bought a 2 door 1973 Plymouth Satellite new off the lot, which he later claimed to have a slant 6 and 3 on the tree. I was too young to know and it was such an absolute piece of crap that he only owned it for 18 months – worst car he ever bought. In close second place was a 1958 Chev, which he defamed religiously for the rest of his life.
I had a 1982 Mazda RX-7 in 1986 and it ended up in the body shop for a month, waiting on a minor part. While I waited, the insurance company provided me a rental – a new 1986 Mercury Sable, sister ship to the Taurus. These things were a revelation in comparison to the awful garbage coming out of both Ford, Chrysler and GM in immediately precedent times. They were very well reviewed and looked like a home run ball for the masses, and they were ubiquitous in short order. I was not a “Ford” guy in any sense, but I found it a great surprise to drive a modern, well engineered sedan like that.
As a new model of vehicle and an update on the mid -size sedan concept, it was in the same league as the 1977 Chev Impala/Caprice had been. I thought it was a superb car for the time and evidently I was not alone.
Being 21 years old, it was not my ambition to drive a sedan like that and I was impatient for the return of the RX-7. But, I recall my very favorable impressions of the car. By that time, my Father had permanently ditched American and had bought a 1986 Audi Coupe, which he loved for about 15 years. The Taurus would have been great for him, but he’d been burned too many times over the preceding 32 years by North American junk. He died 4 years ago at 87 owning a Honda CRV for him and an Acura Integra for my Mom.
Truly a terrific Father’s Day read. The wonderful explanation of the father-son dynamic never really goes away, either, it just seems to evolve over time. Sadly, it sounds like some things are universal.
Three weeks ago my parents visited in their ’98 Dodge pickup. Knowing it sits a lot, I looked at the tires. Looking at the date codes, two of them were 13 years old and cracked. Telling my 74 year old father this, he responded harshly with “there’s still plenty of tread left!”. So I later got my mother involved and the tires were swapped out within two weeks. It seems I’m still too young (at 45) to know much of anything.
My father never had a first generation Taurus, having passed over a sharp dark gray Sable wagon for a Crown Victoria in 1986. However, he does have a current generation Taurus that replaced an ’07 Ford 500.
My Dad pretty much bought for function as far as I can tell. The sportiest car he owned was the ’71 Vega that would get passed down to me for my first car. He had me help often when making repairs or doing maintenance – don’t forget to put the empty paperboard cans up to drain the last few drops into a Mogen David wine bottle when you’re done – so I learned the basics that way.
I didn’t really get “into” cars until my Senior year in high school, and Dad took a job overseas and shortly thereafter divorced Mom, so he was pretty much absent as a father figure from that point on. Four wives (and four divorces) later, I’d forgiven him and ended up being the son caring for him as his dementia took more and more of his mind away. At least he still recognizes me at this point.
As far as I know, Dad owned two ‘foreign’ cars – the 1959 Beetle that brought me home from hospital, and a ’58 or ’59 Hillman Husky that I have a few vague memories of riding in from when I was maybe three or four. Those were succeeded by a Chevy Biscayne, Rambler American and then the ’69 F-100 I’ve already written up here and a ’68 Country Squire LTD wagon.
Post-divorce, Dad ended up with his Mom’s Nova for a while after she passed, and finally settled on a Buick LeSabre for himself, followed by a second when the first wore out. It was this car, along with his oldest sister’s Ford Ranger pickup (she, too, developed dementia), that I parceled out to family members when we moved Dad to the care facility.
“When you are young, your parents lead you by the hand. When they become old, you lead them by the hand.”
Great Father’s Day read. And best wishes to all the dad’s today!
My father had two cars in his life: a 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass coupe until 1993 and a 1989 Sentra from the local Nissan dealership, which we kept until 2012. Other than that, we would take public transit or rent a car.
Really appreciate the discussion of not just the Taurus, but the relationship and dynamics between fathers and their kids.
My mother did ask for my advice on car buying since even at 14 I was an avid R&T reader and car lover and so when my sister ended up totaling our 1980 Honda Accord sedan… we ended up with a 1986 Ford Taurus….. MT-5! In maroon. All I can say about the 88 hp 2.5 HSC engine is… with the aerodynamics of the car, it got pretty good mileage. Unfortunately, they had yet to work out the kinks on those first year Tauruses, and after a series of problems, the car conked out in 1991 with about 80,000 miles. My mom replaced it with a 1992 Mazda 626 DX.
Well Written and so very “True To Life”, Paul.
As usual, I am the odd man out. I never got the Taurus love. Sure, they were better than the Lumina and K car, but that really isn’t saying much, since both cars were so horrid.
When I heard all the hype about the Taurus, I was very interested in driving one. When I finally did, about 1988, I wasn’t at all impressed. The steering seemed heavy for no reason other than it was “European,” and the Vulcan V-6 was crude and rough.
Yet the cars sold well. At least where I lived, there was still a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment going on in 1986 in the new car buying generation. I wonder if this was a major selling point, as the driving dynamics of the cars were nothing special.
The Taurus was a very appealing product even when compared with the new 86 Accord and Camry, exc for a little bit of build quality. For an older buyer who was import curious, the Taurus was much more car for the money than a Japanese or European car.
The Accord and Camry were very appealing to younger buyers with a positive opinion of Japanese cars who wanted traditional sedan comfort and convenience but didn’t demand a very large car; more of a Corolla Supreme. The Accord and Camry were more fairly compared with the Tempo and Grand Am, and put them in the shade. My 24 year old sister and her husband bought a new 87 Accord after college; today a new Accord would be too big and fuddy duddy.
The 93 Camry kicked the Taurus in the nuts and took its lunch money.
Everything is relative. I would have gotten an Accord, but that was off the table for him.
Because of my high school job as a “tripper” for Hertz and 12 months after high school (82/83) working as a lot attendant at a Chrysler dealership in Calgary, I had plenty of exposure to literally all the contemporary offerings from domestic and most foreign manufacturers of this era. The Taurus/Sable was the first thing in years that appeared to be a successful (that being the operative word) departure from prior orthodoxy AND well a engineered product. I can’t remember Accord/Camry etc. model cycles from that time but these were a fresh approach.
My Dad was an English immigrant to Canada in 1954 and he had no anti-German or Japanese bias – all he wanted were decent cars and he was mostly let down by North American stuff over a period of several decades, so he later bought Japanese, and his lone Teutonic embrace was that of the Audi Coupe GT.
For him, the ultimate sign of success was to buy a Mercedes, as he had great respect for German engineering and their cars. He could not comfortably afford one but often cited accomplished friends of his who owned one as role models for his kids to emulate. He lived just long enough to see me acquire a new Mercedes, and it meant much more to him as a sign of success than it ever did to me. 15 years before this I’d bought a new Jag XK-8 and though he liked it, it wasn’t a Mercedes – and he was English!
Cars really were a sign to the prior generation of accomplishment, taste, sophistication and of having “arrived”. I have never felt that way and I’m 53 now, but to my dad it was a very important milestone if someone bought what he considered to be a premium car.
An important moment in my relationship with my father came the day he bought what turned out to be his last car, a used 2012 Ford Focus.
I was going to buy his old car, a 2006 Ford Focus, so I drove to his house the day he planned to look at the ’12 in case it turned out to be the car for him, so I could write the check for his old car and drive it home.
I waited patiently at the dealer while he and Mom test drove it. The car had a lot of miles for its age, and it was the sedan rather than the hatchback Dad really wanted. But he was frankly ready to move on from his old car, and even at list price this newer Focus was a good deal.
When he came back from the drive I asked how it went. He said it was fine, that it had good room, power, and handling. But he worried about the miles. Then he asked it: “Do you think I should buy this?”
The tone of his voice and his body language both said to me very clearly that he was unsure and needed to be pushed off the fence either way, and that my word was going to do it.
I told him that if he truly liked the car, he shouldn’t worry about the miles as he would put 3-5,000 a year on it himself and in a few years the car would be at the right number of miles for its age. I also said that the car was at a good price, and a little bargaining should bring it to a very good price.
You could see it in him: his resolve firmed. He bought the car.
Thanks for reminding me of this memory, a rare, perhaps the only, time I got to speak so clearly into my dad’s life. For he, too, had trouble letting go of control and leaning on his adult children when it was appropriate.
Very enjoyable piece Paul! You’ve touched upon elements of this story before over the years, but it’s nice to hear the full details from beginning to end. Happy Father’s Day to you and your family.
^^What Brendan wrote.
I knew you’d have something timely for us today, Paul, and I do hope that your mixed-feelings tales have a bit of a cathartic upside in them.
It somehow feels far less important to mention your bit of Taurus-love, but thanks all the same. I’ve got a COAL in progress, really I do!
My dad never took much heed in my car buying advice. Probably a good thing as I was a VW nut for my first 20 car buying years.
He taught me how to drive in an old Chevy milk van that was the shop truck. He bought my mom a bunch of wagons starting with a Renault 12 then a dodge colt a couple of Subaru’s a ford escort before settling on Chevy Astro vans. He also passed on his habbit buying cars on their last legs. In his case he gets a good deal and drives them for a couple of years and then hauling them off to the wreckers. In my case I seem to buy them and spend too much money fixing them and then passing them on to the next guy that gets 5 more years out of them.
He did take my advice when a low miles 20 year old Mercedes-Benz (1986) 300e became available for a great price. I told him to go for it and it is still on the road as a run about for his vacation home. It could use some door handles and the climate control fixed but otherwise is a nice car to drive.
I lucked out and got a pretty good dad who taught me how to build nice furniture and gave me a good career. I was lucky enough to work with him for 15 years. Although there were some times I may have not have thought that was the case.
Thanks Paul for reminding me to give him a call today and wish him a happy Father’s Day.
Thanks, Paul. Every car, and every dad, has a story.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170903012536/http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bs-md-ob-ernst-niedermeyer-20120411-story.html
Wow, that was a fascinating read. Your father certainly lived an interesting life, Paul!
Good story! And a few parallels….
I’m a fairly regular visitor, so I remember the Opel Kadett, and also the base 68 Dart. My first friend (our–my dad had already been in the US for a month) when we moved back to the US in 1977, their family car was a 68 Dart. But theirs had the 225, PS and auto.
Anyway, I don’t recall, or I missed, the 78 Zephyr! When we came back to the US, my dad got a used 75 Ventura (aka Nova), that I found in the classifieds. He told me he would consider any car I found provided it was a compact and a GM product.
Life in much of Long Island, like most of suburbia, is difficult without a car, and my dad used the Ventura to commute. So finally, in 1980, my dad started shopping for a new car, with my eager help, since reading Car & Driver, and the other car mags and Consumer Reports, and anything car-related, I figured I knew more about the features and prices than most people, even adults (and I actually did).
The car had to be American (my dad was born in Greece, but moved to the US at 16, and served 20 years in the USAF), it couldn’t be bigger than a ‘compact’ (but in 1980 that included the GM ‘mid-size’ cars). And of course, it was UNDERSTOOD, price was KEY. No V8s.
So, on Saturdays, I joined my dad going to dealerships. While my detailed knowledge sometimes annoyed my dad, he definitey did NOT discourage me from talking to, and sometimes correcting the sales men. He quickely narrowed it down to: Pontiac LeMans (because our Ventura had been good), or Chevy Malibu, Ford Fairmont, or Chevy…Chevette (price! Money talks!). He actually did drive a Citation equipped with the 2.5 4-cyl, manual (? !!!!) steering, and auto, which he liked. And it was a GM car. And the word was not out yet about the X-cars issues. BUT, the salesman, who was actually polite and my dad liked, and was 2 miles from the house, told him that Citation’s sold for sticker. He was welcome to look elsewhere, but they would say the same thing. So after we left, my dad told me “there is no WAY we are paying sticker price”.
He also realized that the GM A-cars that he thought were good, though he liked the Citation, would require an automatic (more $$), and of course, they had higher sticker prices (though with discounts, they would cost about what the Citation would have cost). He agreed the CHevette was small, and I also told him that in his position (he was an upper middle manager in a medium company with a reserved parking spot, like the other managers), a Chevette looked kind of lame, even with 4 doors.
How about a Ford Fairmont, I suggested? Yes, it’s a Ford, but it got good reviews. We could order one with the base engine and a 4 on the floor, which was quicker (per Consumer Reports) than the 6 cylinder automatic (both of which cost more). Also, I would be getting my learners permit soon, and I wanted to learn to drive a stick–I kept that to myself.
So we went to the local Ford dealer. No 4-cyl 4-speeds in stock, but we could order one. If we ordered before month end, we’d get a $300 rebate.
So the salesman gave us a silver 2-door, fairly base (dog dish hub caps) exterior, 6-cylinder, MANUAL, with PS and PB.
My dad drove, and asked me what I thought. I though it was alright, but I’d rather have the four cylinder: 88hp vs 85hp (at age 15, as much as I knew, I didn’t consider Torque very much…). He told me he thought “it’s not too bad, pretty nice”. I liked the new car smell. So my dad said, “let’s see what your mother thinks”, and we took it home. Mom thought it was ‘nice’. She wasn’t overly excited by the car, but the prospect of having her car appealed to her.
So we went back and the following weekend, last day of the month I think, just in time for the rebate, we ordered a silver Fairmont, 4-cyl, 4-spd, power steering, power brakes, exterior accent group, rear defogger (required in NY), the turbine wheel covers (which to this day, I think are the best looking fax alloy wheel covers ever), the SPORT suspension (less than $50).
Maybe we should have ordered A/C, though my dad had not interest in A/C then.
How did your Zephyr’s work?
The Fairmont was a pretty decent car. It got 21-23 mpg, vs 15 for the Ventura. Both my parents liked the Ventura more than the ‘tin can’ as my dad called the Fairmont.
I liked them both. I thought the Ventura’s construction was more robust, but I liked changing gears, and I also liked driving a car that Car & Driver and others had praised (the Fairmont).
My dad held onto his middle manager job, but took a big pay cut during the recession. After the economy improved, he got it back and more. So by 1985, I could use a car of my own, and, well, time to move beyond the tin can.
So, my dad asked me what I thought of the Ford LTD (the Fox). I told him they were good cars. I thought they were decent, but the Taurus–that was the car to have, IMO. But it was a ‘new’ car, cost more, and who knows what bugs it had….
I also told him, if he got an LTD, get the 3.8 V6. It used the same gas as the six-cylinder, probably the same as the 4-cyl auto in real life and it had a lot of power.
So we test drove one with a V6, and this time, I also drove it. So, I was just driving it, with my father in the car, conservativly, and my first acceleration, not even trying, I chirped the wheels! “Dad, this is a great car, buy it”!
So my dad got his first car with A/C, first with Power Windows, and I inherited the Fairmont. After a month, I thought I would have some fun, so I flipped the ‘master control’ on the windows. We went to run an errand, and I asked if his window worked “Yes, why?”. “Mine won’t go down. Try your switch” It worked. “Hmm, maybe the passenger door switch is bad”
I remember the reaction “I told you! All this power BS is just TROUBLE. The car is a month old, and the ‘power window doesn’t work. Great!”
I laughed and then told him about the switch. He was a little amused, and a lot relieved.
He’s still with us, but (to his credit) sold his last car, a Hyundai, 3 years ago on his own, to his credit. “I hardly drive it, can use the taxis or bus, it’s just another thing to worry about”. Good call
Excellent piece. Could have been about anything, cars or computers…it’s life.
Not the same year but this is a good example of one of your Dad’s cars.
https://auto.mercadolibre.com.uy/MLU-453112461-opel-kadett-l-1964-aleman-ideal-restauracion-_JM
A 1987 Taurus was the first nice car my German father bought. He and my mother moved to the United States in 1963. Their first car was a 1962 Falcon wagon with 3 speed manual. His second car was a 1970 Fairlane 500 wagon with 3 speed manual, 302, manual steering and brakes, with the only option being a power tailgate. His third car was a 1981 Escort L wagon with 4 speed manual. Finally, in 1987 he treated himself to a loaded 1987 Taurus LX. HIs last car was a 1993 Taurus GL before he died in 1995.
A great piece, and happy father’s day to Paul and all the dads here.
Just got back from visiting dad, at 80 he is gentle and wise and gracious.
The only time he really listened to me on cars was when I begged him to not buy the 1982 Olds Cutlass 4 door sedan. “Dad, please no, it’s…. it’s so many rectangles” He got an 83 Regal 2 door instead, much better.
Thanks Dad
Thanks for the story Paul, a great read on father’s day. Great to read all the comments about people and their relationships with their fathers.
I read your article this morning, then headed out to the annual Classics for Cancer car show in Georgetown, and snapped this one, thinking of your family all sandwiched in the back seat of that Fairlane. CC Karma at it again.
the photo upload misfired – second try
one last attempt
Thanks for another great father’s day read! Of course the stories that I have written involving my father tend to accentuate the positives. In reality, our relationship was a complex one as well. He was a gearhead in the 50s and 60s but abandoned all of that when he had kids. We butted heads a lot as I came of age, but I do appreciate that I got to have a better relationship with him before he passed away. It got better after I got my own house, a fixer upper which is what he loved. Spent a lot of time with him working on the house and reconnecting.
As for cars, he was very much like your dad was, especially in his later years, though he preferred bottom of the line Japanese cars which he kept for years. The 6000 wagon was in fact his only American car after 1979. He spent most of his time working on houses or his careers in the military and education. I am like him in some respects, but certainly not all. Not a bad guy to emulate as I write this with my 10 month old daughter by my side, as he was great with kids and would have loved her.
Fathers and Sons and, cars. A trifecta that can result in a lot of treasured memories. Or a lot of very unpleasant experiences that might best be forgotten. I guess it depends on the Father’s temperament. I was lucky in that my Dad was a pretty easy going guy with his kids. Now that I am well into adulthood I can appreciate the issues, personal and environmental, that can affect a parent’s relationship to their family. I said appreciate, not always excuse. It’s a parent’s responsibility to try to foster the best relationship they can with their children. However in the end we are all just human. Happy Father’s Day!
Great story – it’s always interesting to see how fathers and sons can be so different when it comes to cars. In my case, my father had given up driving by the time I came around – he was 50 when I was born – mostly because we just couldn’t afford a car. I, on the other hand, was fascinated by anything on wheels and can remember pointing out a 59 bat-tailed Chevy at the age of three. Later, our talks on cars were few and far between – I was into big block Fords, which he didn’t quite get, and when he did talk cars, it was mostly about Nash or Hudson.
In typical cyclical fashion, my son (a millennial) has no passion or interest in cars whatsoever.