Brain Fertilizer

Much of the appeal of Car Lust is the emotional connection made between cars and people. It is the memories that tie us to some fairly unappealing vehicles, and it is the anecdotes about those memories that draw me back to the Car Lust Blog every day.

One Car Lust wasn’t a conscious Lust until I started thinking about all the cars I’ve ever had extensive experience with…and then the Lust for a Ford Courier blazed up brightly.

Our family obtained a 1980 Ford Courier around 1982, I think. In any case, it wasn’t new because I don’t remember my parents ever purchasing a new vehicle. It was in excellent condition, however, with a camper shell over the bed. In 1984 I talked my parents into using it to haul our pop-up trailer and two of my friends on a 5-hour trip to the Medicine Rocks Campground outside of Ekalaka, Montana. Five people in a two-seater mini-pickup? Well, the three teens go in back, of course. We were able to spread our sleeping bags and stretch out quite comfortably among the coolers and other bundles. I remember snacking on Oreos, for what it’s worth. I guess my Dad wasn’t worried about the dangers of carbon monoxide build-up inside the cover, but his lack of worries were justified: we survived the trip just fine.

In time, I inherited the truck. It had a manual transmission, which made it quite peppy when accelerating from a complete stop. I learned to drive a stick in it…and in what I think is typical youthful idiocy, I practiced getting to full speed from a complete stop in 2nd gear, then 3rd, and even from 4th once. Okay, more than once. It’s possible with an extremely liberal use of clutch, of course. And yet, the transmission and clutch never slipped, never needed replacing even as the mileage approached 140,000.

In high school, my girlfriend(s) would sit close to me and we’d do tandem shifting, i.e., after I pressed in the clutch, she’d shift gears when I said “shift.”

I drove it to college, and was able to fit every single thing I owned in the world in the bed to a height that still let me see out the back window, which served me well in several moves between dorms and student apartments. And when my fraternity pledge class needed transportation, we managed to cram 12 adult males in the camper shell.

Throughout its life with me behind the wheel, I would get close to 34 mpg, but that was mostly highway driving. Even in my teens, I liked to take long drives.

The truck finally met its demise (insurance-wise…the truck itself was still easily road-worthy) when a women across the intersection turned left after not seeing me. The car suffered a mighty blow behind the driver’s door but in front of the rear wheel-well. The damage was enough to take my pickup away from me. But I certainly had fun, fun, fun until then.

Here’s some more information:
Wiki page.
An interesting Courier fan site