Our current Cars Of A Lifetime (COAL) series is ending with the end of the year, so it’s time to find a replacement (or two) starting Jan.1. I know some of you offered in the past, but I think it’s best to start fresh with the recruitment drive. So if you’ve had an interesting assortment of cars in your life, and have something to say about them, we want to hear it.
You need to be able to commit to a weekly series, and be willing to compose them directly in CC (Word Press), which is easy enough. If you don’t have pictures, it’s easy enough to find them on the web. If you doubt your ability to write, well, every one of us here did at first too, so it’s just a matter of jumping in. I’m here to help too.
If you’re ready, willing and able, send me a list of your cars in an e-mail to curbsideclassic(at)gmail.com. If there’s two of you ready to jump in, we can also do a series on Saturdays, like we have in the past. This is your chance to share your automotive legacy for us and for future generations as they stumble on this website 50 or 100 years from now!
I certainly have 10+ cars I’ve been through. Maybe it’s time to weave a story together.
I would be happy to contribute photos and stories of the 200 cars and 30 plus motorbikes I have owned and driven throughout the country but I don’t want to go through the drama of trying to open a damned flickr account…. again
Flickr isn’t a requirement or even a need. The pictures I use and have taken all come from a memory card, flash drive, or (rarely) a DVD.
If you have the inclination, I would encourage writing something. Once you get going it isn’t that hard, plus writing about something you enjoy makes it even easier.
Reading all of the excellent COAL series so far, I’ve come to a sad conclusion. I’ve owned some great cars, but my life just isn’t interesting enough to make a good read. “I bought a Sienna and everyday stuff happened” doesn’t make for a gripping story, really. I’d have to jazz it up slightly: “The first car of FSB assassins (Black BMW M5) lost me as I hurled my 1998 Saturn SL2 through yet another curve on the desolate Scottish coast road, but the rest were still on my tail. In my mirror I saw the window of the Austin Allegro behind me go down and the RPG emerge, pointed at my back bumper….”
Paul: please consider applying your talents toward Curbside Fiction. Jason needs some competition. He’s been slacking off lately.
Thank you; I think. 🙂
A similar thought crossed my mind with Paul’s comment. He could easily outdo anything I come up with based upon what he has so far.
You are welcome! How about a battle of the fiction writers?
I certainly appreciate the encouragement. Jason can’t be beat, but maybe I’ll try my hand at an entry one of these days.
Love the picture of the coal truck. I Googled the Chicago address on the truck. There’s an ALDI there now.
As a kid growing up in Chi. I lived only a few miles from that coal co.
Up until 1950 We had a Holland brand coal burning furnace, called an octopus because of all the 8″ pipes wrapped with Asbestos that came out of it to disperse the heat to each room. My father would order 6 or 8 tons of coal every fall. The driver would dump it at the curb and my older brothers and I would use a wheel barrel to bring it to the open basement window and dump it into the coal bin. When I think back to that time I can still hear those old coffin nose Mack chain drive solid rubber tire coal trucks on the streets in our neighborhood, the well greased large chain to each rear wheel made a slapping sound coming down the street. My father applied for a gas permit and after a 3 month wait we had a gas furnace installed. Ahhhhh the good old days………..
Wait? 8 tons?? I’ve never been in a house with coal heating, just electric or natural gas, but that still seems like a lot!!
Sorry for the tangential diversion, but now I’m curious, since coal has been in the news lately
I’m surprised they were still using solid rubber tired, chain-drive Mack trucks in 1950! Must have been quite a thing to see coming down the street. An R-model or U-model still in use today, of which there seem to be quite a few, is probably older chronologically, but what a fundamental difference between the 20’s and the late 40’s compared to the early 80’s versus today.
Sitting on the front axle on such a short wheelbase must have made for an interesting ride.
Probably ok fully laden, empty not so much.
It probably rarely exceeded 30-35 mph. Most likely never.And it undoubtedly rode a lot better than the solid rubber tired trucks it replaced.
My entry in the series would be, I’ve concluded, too sad because I wrecked my first two cars in highway hydroplaning accidents, both of them before I was 18; six years later, the third car was stolen and gone for a month, and the insurance money paid for only mechanical repairs and parts replacement, leaving the poor abused sheetmetal unrepaired. (In order, the cars were a ’67 Bonneville coupe that had been my grandparents’; a ’67 automatic GTO hardtop that had been my mother’s; and a ’66 Bonneville convertible that I drove for nearly 17 years, until 1991.)
Regarding the hydroplaning crashes: People may not remember how dangerous a rainy highway was in those days, when the majority of cars were rear-drive and had drum brakes all around (as was the case with all three of those Pontiacs) and nearly all cars still had bias-ply tires with relatively tiny contact patches.
I’ll pass as my COAL would read “bought Mazda GLC and trundled to work for 12 years, then bought a Civic, and trundled to work for 15 years”.
I do have this pic of a Studebaker delivering coal however.
OK, we’ll give you a pass on the COAL. But how about some Automotive Histories? I know you’re good for a few; some of your comments are veritable articles.
But how about some Automotive Histories? I know you’re good for a few; some of your comments are veritable articles.
LOL…probably doesn’t surprise you that you are not the first to comment that I get long winded when I am really interested in a topic.
Thing is, I don’t remember what I have said here, what I have said in FB groups, and what I haven’t said, publicly.
Did I talk here about the alternate reality where Nash merged with Studebaker?
Somebody needs to write something as I don’t want to buy another car right now. Sellers around the world are in despair as I write these words….
No Flickr or any other accounts required, all my pics were from my memory cards and uploaded to my hard drive, found on Google, or scanned from old pictures. I do use Google’s Picasa to loosely help me organize stuff but it’s not completely necessary.
You don’t even have to compose in WordPress, just compose the raw verbiage in whatever other medium you prefer (MS Word, WordStar? Your email screen…), then cut and paste into the WordPress page along with the pics. It is quite easy and becomes second nature after about the second or third one. Paul’s instructions are good and he helps out as needed (as could many of the others here if needed).
And the cars don’t have to be “interesting”. Actually more people can and will relate to a story of a minivan than some exotic. All cars are interesting, that’s why we are here. My greatest joy was/is when someone commented that I had never seen comment before, to be frank. Also, the number of comments is not indicative of the number of readers that read a piece.
I hope to read your writings soon.
I’ve already signed up two. They look quite promising. And another couple in the wings.
Awesome! My main motivation for doing mine in the first place was that I wanted to leave a history somewhere chronicling one of the things I enjoy most (my cars). Instead of just writing it for myself I was able to share it with tons of others which turned out to be very gratifying. Once again, thank you for the platform.
I’ve had 10 cars (some of which were the same make and model), some of them pretty interesting by gearhead criteria, over 45 years. But aside from my inability to make the time commitment, my life just hasn’t been as interesting as R. L. Plaut’s.
I never had any illusions about writing the great American novel, but if I had, reading A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole would have killed them. Same principle.
Unfortunately, not very many pictures, hard copy or electronic. I used to have photos of everything, but I think a divorce, a foreclosure, and umpteen moves have them lost to the mists of time.
Shame my dad has no photos. Quite an interesting collection of rides from ’59 to today. Sometimes incredibly out of sync with tastes of the time (the Fiat 600’s) sometimes slightly ahead of the curve (BMW 1600) and sometimes just right (Ford Explorer)
Don’t let the lack of authentic photos dissuade you from writing a COAL series. I had no photos of my 2 Peugeot 304. But I found some good ones with Google image searches.
Fiat 600, BMW 1600 and Ford Explorer: George, you made me curious!
Well, I wrote a COAL on my first, and so far, only car I own. I took pictures on my phone, uploaded them to my computer, and wrote out a complete COAL. But, I dunno, I’m not confident in it. I want to upload, but I don’t think it’s good enough.
Send it in…I felt the same way as you with my first one back in the day. Really. I didn’t even have any pictures anymore, but we found plenty of representative ones on the web.
I agree with Jim. Do it!
It’s going to run this Wednesday!
Excellent, I will tune in for sure!
I wish Plaut would return and write about just about anything, clouds even!
Well maybe not clouds, but about planes, trains, HiFi, stereo and juxtapose it against those years in NY. Don’t have to cover all the family angles, but maybe there are interesting stories about parents, neighbors, friends or colleagues.
The writing was just so great, I think Plaut could even describe a glass of Metamucil and make it entertaining and interesting.
I’ve had (or put the majority of seat time on) 32 cars, 9 motorcycles, 2 divorces, 2 female roommates and a bunch of moves starting from age 14. Some drama spanning from 1978 ’til now.
I have 10 cars and know all of their ownership histories for the ones that I haven’t had since new. I keep trying to write a COAL on some of them but there isn’t enough hours in the day. Maybe this will motivate me to finish one, lol
How long should they be?
Yesssssss! About 800 words but it can vary from car to car.
For some reason mine got longer the more recent it was while it did get a bit more difficult to keep them coming out on time as time went on. It helps if you can get a few out in advance. If you just do them one a week or right before they are due you invariably later recall a very interesting tidbit or come across a particular picture that you wish you would have included. By being a couple of weeks ahead of the publish dates you have the time to edit that stuff in.
That being said I don’t think I ever really got one done more than a few days before it was due to be published 🙂 The guilt of possibly having a blank space on Sunday morning is what kept me going.
Don’t worry about a particular length really, once you start writing it usually just starts to flow out. I often remembered stuff out of order as I was writing so would jot down a key word at the bottom and then return to that thought later as otherwise the thought would escape me when I was ready for it.
I started writing one for my 69 Charger today. Its up to 1800 words and still not done yet so….yeah. I guess I have some trimming down to do, lol
Similar here. I made rough drafts of all my COALs and edited them, some heavily, when they came close to publishing. Doing it that way jogged my memory of details. It also revealed holes that needed filling and allowed me to do the research in time.
I haven’t personally owned many cars, mostly because I’m still young and I’m saving for law school, but between my parents, my ex-girlfriend, and my brother, I reckon I could pull together about a years worth of content. I can remember 38 different vehicles right now, although the differences in the same models increase the count to 45. Then there are the two cars I have owned.
That said, I am also a skilled writer, and I have been told I am quite funny. I have been reading Curbside Classic for a little over a year now and I would like to contribute a little.
If I can ‘import’ pictures of my cars (because I never took actual pics of them) I’d be happy to try my hand at this. I was a newly minted 16 year old in 1979 and of course had driven the parents’ cars which were a story in and of themselves. I’ve owned a number of cars that were definitely not mainstream and each has been an adventure!
I’ve already signed up a few. Next time!
I’ve mentioned it before and will do so again… I think it would be fun to make a COAL series but I don’t know how interested anyone would be in hearing about my many jeeps.
Every Jeep has a story. I will read them!
At some point in the future…
I’d need help w/pix, don’t have many, but I’ve owned a boatload of rides over the years.
Looking forward to whoever does the next round of COALs, however. Especially enjoying Brian’s now, but R.L.’s the one to beat in terms of weaving life and cars together in a compelling story.
God knows I’ve own a metric s***load of cars 🙂 and had a lot of adventures in them … but I’m not much of a writer.