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Dad and I bonded over automobiles the way other families bonded over fishing or church—ritualistically, opinionatedly, and with just enough disagreement to keep things interesting.

As a mere lad, he taught me how to change a tire in the driveway. He stood there with his hands on his hips, nodding solemnly as I struggled with the lug wrench.

“Beyond that,” he said, “find a good mechanic.”

He was a manly man, don’t get me wrong. Navy. Square shoulders. Firm handshake. He just wasn’t mechanically inclined, and he did very little to keep those genes from being passed down the family tree.

Once—once—he decided to replace the shocks on our 1966 Chevelle Malibu coupe himself. Dead of winter. The car jacked up in the garage. Much cursing. Then a loud, metallic crash that sounded like Detroit giving up.

My mother, without looking up from whatever she was reading, said, “You should probably go check on your father.”

The Malibu had slipped off the jack and nearly crushed him. It took several minutes for him to catch his breath, thank Jesus, and swear—loudly and creatively—to never attempt anything so foolish again.

Every fall, when the new models came out, it was tradition to visit all the new-car showrooms in town. We’d walk the lots like art critics. I gathered free catalogs by the dozen, most of which still sit boxed up in my attic like a paper archive of lost dreams. We talked through potential purchases before he made them. He was always a new-car guy. I don’t remember him ever buying used—until much later in life, when I dragged him into the classic-car hobby.

“You’re just buying someone else’s problems,” he’d say.
“If it still ran worth a shit, why were they getting rid of it?”

At ten years old, I didn’t yet possess the economic foundation—or the nerve—to challenge such airtight logic. Following his lead, I bought new cars too. For a long while. Then one day I did the math and realized I could get a much nicer car for less money if I bought something a few years old with low miles.

The first time I showed up in a used Volvo, I was met with a scowl.

“Driving someone else’s problems, huh.”

Popping the hood to show him the inline five-cylinder engine did nothing to help my case. He muttered something about it not making a damn bit of sense, and then we went inside and had a beer. A safer subject.

Whenever it was time for one of his new-car purchases, he took me along. It was always interesting. Educational, even. I’d give him my opinions—uninformed, irrational, and delivered with the confidence only youth can muster. He’d nod, seriously, as if every word was being weighed by a committee.

I doubt any of it made a difference. But it made me feel heard.

Over the years, there were two automotive issues we found ourselves on opposite sides of, every time, without fail:

Poverty hubcaps.
Vinyl tops.

The ’66 Malibu was a perfect example.

It was well equipped: Lemonwood Yellow with an all-vinyl black interior. AM radio. Air conditioning. Automatic transmission. V8. Whitewall tires. For a while, it was the nicest car on our block—until someone brought home a new teal Mustang and ruined everything.

It also had a black vinyl top to match the interior. And poverty hubcaps.

Even as a kid, the dog-dish hubcaps looked cheap and low-rent to me. The little bowtie in the center didn’t help. And the vinyl top disrupted the clean, flowing Coke-bottle lines of the coupe like a bad haircut.

“Why the vinyl top?” I asked.

“It makes it look like a convertible,” he said, irritation creeping in.

“If that’s what you wanted,” I said, “why didn’t you just buy a convertible?”

He rattled off reasons: my mother’s hair getting blown around, the added expense, Texas being too damn hot to ever actually put the top down. His voice was tight now. I countered that March and October were perfectly good months, my mother could wear a scarf, and really—what was a few extra bucks?

The truth finally came out.

“I don’t want to have to wax the damn top.”

I should have left it there. Youth, however, is not known for restraint.

“And those hubcaps look cheap,” I added. “They belong on a Nova, not a Malibu. The hubcaps look like cheap tennis shoes and the vinyl top looks like a tuxedo.”

Completely ignoring my gift for metaphor, he said he thought he heard my mother calling me.

I was older and wiser when he bought the 1972 Impala.

He, however, was not.

Mojave Gold. Decently equipped. Four-door sedan instead of the sport hardtop—an obvious concession to cost.

“The windows rattle and leak in the hardtop,” he said. “The sedan’s tight as a drum.”

I appreciated the attempt at metaphor but remained unconvinced.

“And the poverty hubcaps?” I asked. “Full wheel covers and rear fender skirts would at least make it look like a Caprice.”

Dad wandered over to the garage refrigerator, where he kept a case of Lone Star. He muttered something about the expense of raising children keeping him from enjoying the finer things in life. I assumed he meant full wheel covers and rear fender skirts. I briefly considered asking how much the vinyl top had cost him over the years, then decided I valued my safety.

By the time he retired from the Navy, started a better-paying second career, and my sister and I were married and gone, he was done with Chevys.

He went straight to the Buick dealer and ordered a brand-new Riviera.

It was stunning. Light yellow over Buckskin tan leather. Sixth-generation Riviera. One of the best-looking cars on the road at the time—and a bold one, too. Buick had finally embraced front-wheel drive, making the Riviera the first front-drive production Buick in the company’s long history. Downsized but still expensive, it carried either a V8 or a turbocharged V6 that, on paper, sounded like the future.

The best part?

Factory wire wheel covers.
And not a hint of vinyl anywhere near the roof—not even the optional Landau cap.

It felt like vindication. The older he got, the wiser he became. I took quiet pride in believing I’d had something to do with it. He even admitted the Riviera was the best-looking car he’d ever owned.

Sadly, it was also one of the worst.

The turbo V6 was temperamental. The fit and finish reflected GM’s darkest hour. Reliability became a rumor. Before long, he’d had enough.

He traded it in for a Toyota Cressida.

At least it didn’t have poverty hubcaps.  Or a vinyl top.

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