My classic wagon taught me everything.
Many of life’s lessons I learned from my car.
Patience. It takes a while to fix things up. You have to have the money and the time, which sometimes don’t come at the same time or very quickly. Time is on your side if you keep at it. Sometimes these thing take years.
Work. If you want something done you either have to do it yourself or pay someone to do it. There won’t be any work done by the car hobby fairies overnight. Also, the things you don’t like to do, your mechanic won’t like to do either.
Setbacks. Sometimes you do something and break another thing while you are doing that. That is hard to accept. Sometimes you do something and think it’s done, but you have to do it over again. One good thing is it never takes as long as you think it will to do it over because you just did it and know how to do it and the bolts are all not seized up. That is a good thing.
Self image. Lots of people peddling self image books and such say you have to shoot for the best and be the best and want the best, but someone will always have something better. The people who love their old cars seem to be the ones who have put a lot of themselves into something and feel the thing was made better or saved from some lesser fate because they existed on this earth. Also it seems like the guys with the really fancy stuff are not always that much fun to be around. What if it gets wet? What if someone drops a dab of tarter sauce on your seat? And I really believe this: On the subject of self worth, can your car really prop yours up? Or can it bring yours down? I don’t think so.
Staying in love. Anything can get stale, even your dream classic car. I play a game to do something to improve the car, or pretend I have to turn it in at the end of the day and I will never see it again and really notice the nice things about it,and then “fall back in love with it” Maybe this could save a marriage or friendship also.
If you don’t use it, you don’t deserve to own it. When I go through my closet or garage cleaning I ask myself have I used this thing in the last six months? Unless it is seasonal, the chances are I won’t use it in the next six months, so I give it to Goodwill. Note I am not trying to sell it at a profit, but just keeping things simple for the sake of simplicity. It seems like a lot of old car guys will say. “Oh, I am going to fix it someday” Right. Many of these people have five or six “projects” that sit untouched for five and ten years. It seems like a false affluence to hoard things you have no use for when someone might be able to use it. When I look at a new project, I think who will drive this, and when? I bought a very solid 1964 Comet from a widow whose husband had at least two comets and probably many more. She sold the cars very cheap as they had been sitting unused. I fixed it up and designated one son to be the one to drive it who was getting his license. This unused car now is now used up at college and has logged over 30,000 miles in various adventures.. Maybe the old man’s spirit lives when it goes 3 hours to the beach with five guys in it. At least he didn’t crush it. Will your widow be the only one with the common sense to sell your unused project cars at a fair price so someone else can use it and enjoy it?
Your car can be a great teacher. What kind of pupil are you?
Posted by: ASWOA
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