Purchasing Our Rambler
On a trip to Auburn to buy chicken feed today, we saw a Rambler parked on
Main Street with a For Sale sign on it. The paint was funky, but the body
looked pretty straight and it even had the Rambler wheel covers (on the
street side at least). So we pulled over and had a look at it. Only $500!
The body was good, the chrome all there, and the interior trashed. We
wondered if it even ran. It's a 1963 American, two door.
Back when we were barely old enough to drink, we got a white Classic
wagon, a 64 as best as we can remember. We may have been drinking at the
time. Our friend bought it from the wrecking yard where he worked and
he put an engine in it and got it running. Then we ended up buying it
from him for $100 or something crazy like that. The wagon had a humming
sound like a flying saucer and the dash gave off an eerie green glow.
It had a three-on-the-tree and was lots of fun to drive. It smoked like
people did back in 64, constantly and unapologetically. Alas, we had
to give the Rambler up because we couldn't afford to keep it running, much
less fix it up. And the apartment building where we lived did not provide
parking spots for long-term storage of dead cars. One day, we called
the wrecking yard and sold them the Rambler for $50. They towed it back.
The back of the car was full of empty beer bottles that we'd tried to take
back for deposit at the grocery store but were rejected.
We've dreamed of getting another Rambler ever since.
Today was the day. We called the number, left a message, and got one back
that said we could come by that evening if we wanted to hear it run. HEAR
IT RUN. Woohoo! We went back, listened to it run and even took a spin
in it, with the guy who was selling it driving.
A deal was struck.
Everyone seemed pretty attached to "The Ram" as they called it,
and seemed a little
sorry to see it go. The kids had driven it when they were teenagers, and
nobody had done a bit of work on it since they bought it 12 years ago.
It wasn't easy getting it up the hill on the way home... the car was going about 5 miles an hour by the time it got to the top of the hill. Oh, and reverse doesn't work. And the brakes are really soft. We found an Alf air freshener in
it. I can tell it has good karma.
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