New Car, New Home and New Baby!

Wow! Did we fall for this ad hook line and sinker. I saw this ad in Time magazine and fell in love with this car. This was the first year that it had a V-6 and it was made in Cologne, Germany. It got incredible gas mileage (when compared with a 428 cu. in. V-8) and I convinced Janene that we we should trade in our '67 Mustang on our first new car. She didn't need a lot of convincing - she thought it was cute, and she always has liked fast cars. We went to Bountiful Motors and got the best deal we could, then we drove to Ogden and told a different dealer what the deal was. We went back and forth a few times and finally ended up with one that was a light metallic blue from the Ogden dealer. I went to Ogden a month later to pick up the plates and noticed our Mustang in the shop all torn apart. I asked the shop manager what was happening with that car and was told that some guy traded it in and then a week later the engine blew up while it was out on a test drive. I figured someone probably blew a shift and wrapped it up pretty high. At least that is what I told myself to justify trading it in.

Janene loved to drive it, but we were worried about getting it scratched and dented. I told Janene to park it at the end of the parking lot where there were no cars around to ding the doors. She did that one day at Grand Central, and then a shopping cart got loose and rolled all the way down the hill and plowed into the side of the car. It did a whole bunch of damage and we had to get it fixed. Janene had mentioned that people couldn't see her in the blue car, so.... we painted it "Competition Orange" (really a Camaro Rallye Red)! It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. I was backing it out of Maaco's parking lot after picking it up and sideswiped a fire hydrant in the parking lot. Do over! Then we had them repaint it again because the paint had an orange peel texture the second time around. It was a fun zippy car to drive, even though the car payment was more than our house payment. I even got myself a little Tam-0-Shanter hat so I would look like a sexy European driving it. Janene required no such accoutrement. Soon we would have a new baby boy Shon to go with the car and we kept this car until Heather was born and we ran out of room. This was an exciting time in our lives with lots of new experiences.