I stopped into Barnaby’s Barber Shop for a trim. The shop, located over at the corner of Quinn Street and Martin Boulevard is kind of a production to get into, but he’s got a steady stream of devoted customers coming in.

If you’re worried about the quality of haircut you’re going to get, you probably want to go over and see Trixie at the Klip-N-Dye. But if you want to be able to sit and talk cars while you get your ears lowered, Barnaby’s is for sure the best place in Fort Stockton to go, the Grounds for Divorce coffee shop notwithstanding.

Anyway, I was up in the chair with the striped cotton cape tied off tightly around my neck and the smell of Pinaud-Clubman and sandalwood filling the air when I pulled up this listing on the iPad. I thought Barnaby was going to butcher my eyebrow when he glanced down and caught sight of it.

“By golly,” he shouted, “I haven’t seen one of those in years. What a beauty that one is!” He clipped my ear while I was scrolling down through the pictures, but you learn to take one for the team when you’re talking cars. “Bought a brand new one just like it back in ’73. Drove it all the way to 1980. That was back when men were men and cars were coupes and the two went together like Starsky and Hutch.”

“You actually bought one of these new?” I asked him somewhat incredulously, of course knowing I’d hear the full story.

“Damn right I did. Was living in LA at the time. Had a little private detective agency back in the day and this was the perfect car to drive. Blended right in. Never stood out in a crowd,” he explained. “A buddy of mine was in the PI game, too, but he drove a big ol’ Continental Mark IV. Stuck out like a turd in the punch bowl, but then he was a pretty big ol’ boy, anyway. He’d a probably stuck out no matter what he drove!”

“You went with a 2-door coupe, heh? I ‘d a thought most of these would have been sedans back in the day,” I said.

“Gotta remember, those were different times. Cordobas and Continentals. Monte Carlos and Thunderbirds. Grand Prixes and Toronados. We all thought coupes were sexy, especially those of us with a little snow on the chimney. A full-sized coupe would make you look like you’d earned your stripes in life, but still had room for the whole damn family when it was time for the annual trek to the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore. It was the best of both worlds,” he went on as he put a chestnut metallic colored razor burn down one side of my neck.

“Smash that accelerator all the way down to the rubber floor mat and that 351 V8 would plant your arse back in the ginger brocade covered seat. In no time, you’d have that perp bent over the hood of his white van down by the river before he could say Hawaii 5-0,” Barnaby remembered.

“If memory serves me right, in 1973 Ford cranked out 528,270 of the full-sized sedan LTDs and Galaxies, and 193,543 of the coupes,” he said, shaving off a mole that had previously been on the back of my neck. A little dab of bergamot helped the clot the blood before too much of it got on my collar.

“I never knew you were a private eye,” Chad said, waiting in the chair next in line.

“Oh yeah. I’d been in oil before that. That’s what took me and the whole family to Los Angeles. Hollywood. Movie stars. A cement pond in every backyard,” he went on. “But that got old. Needed something to spice up my life. Nothing does that like fighting crime and driving a copper LTD coupe in your golden years.”

“Next you’re going to tell me you were a song and dance man before you got into oil,” I replied.

Barnaby just snickered and tap danced off to get some band-aids.