Just drive the thing

I’m one to talk.

For years, even before coming to the fine Hemmings family of magazines, I’ve expounded upon the importance of getting out there and just driving your car – that the thrill of ownership is being behind the wheel and going for a cruise, enjoying the day with friends, family, or just by yourself. And yet, since I’ve purchased my ‘64 Dart GT convertible, going on three years now, it’s been one malady after another. Six months in paint jail. Suspension and 11.5-inch disc brakes that, for reasons too boring to get into, took over a year to get together (you may have read the story in Muscle Machines back in the Feb ‘09 issue; we left out the timeline because it wasn’t relevant). And a million little maladies after that, mostly centering around cooling and the transmission. I tried to get it going last month, but the pints of crimsony pink tranny fluid on the garage floor when I pulled out convinced me otherwise. All of the mods made so far have been toward improved drivability, and yet there’s always something that has prevented me from driving it: time, talent (to execute repairs), weather, name it.

My son, now 2 1/2, has gone for a ride in the Dart before, always fascinated and loving it. First time we went out, six or eight months ago now, all he would talk about for a week was “daddy’s red car.” This was a turning point: Previously, he was a serious mama’s boy, and wanted little to do with me, which (as the provider of half his genetic makeup) killed me. The Dart was his first inkling that maybe daddy was OK. Not going for rides for months on end meant my status was slipping.

So when it all came together this last weekend, I took it: wife in the back seat, son in front (where the seatbelt is), top down. First step: take off the car cover. This involved me rolling up fabric, and my son saying “Wake up car! No more sleep!” since we’ve explained that the car cover is like a blanket for when daddy’s car is sleeping in the garage. Hop in, buckle up, and first stop: ice cream. (We must all have priorities, after all.)

Once our ice cream cups were gently settling in our tums, we took off and ended in and around coastal Rancho Palos Verde, CA – windy roads, lovely homes and architecture, stunning cliff and ocean views. My wife let her brunette curls flow freely in the breeze, the boy was just thrilled to be there, and I got a workout.

The Dart was a sensory experience for sure. Sawing away at the manual steering worked the arms; I’ll be getting anchor tattoos like Popeye if I keep this up. Various scents hit me at various times: the acrid tang of brakes, the passing sweet lilt of coolant, the meaty palatte of burning oil, the … ooh, there’s a smell I don’t recognize. Yikes. The engine wasn’t much of a factor in the excitement; many of its 180 factory horses have long since been put out to pasture, making progress slow and silent. But the muffled toot of our horn caught the attention of another early A-body Dart at an intersection. They waved as we whipped by. The breeze in my hair and the sun on my neck were just a bonus. My back was soaked, though.

I’d had nightmares about getting stuck 40 miles from home, in an area with no cell service, with a malady that I couldn’t diagnose, on a blind curve, as the sun was going down. None of them came to pass: The Dart was marvelous and, other than a rough idle when cold, gave me no reason to second-guess its capabilities.

Those capabilities included more than mere driving quality. For some, this might just have been a cruise. For my family, it was a fun afternoon outing, the kind of which we need to do more of (and will probably do more of, now that the Dart seems to be a reliable runner). For me, it was an epic victory on multiple levels. The first, I hope, of many.