My first car, and the one I occasionally lust for, was a 1978 Ford Fairmont two-door. I had never driven a stick before, which led to some interesting stops and starts at the stoplight when I tried to pull away in third gear. It had a three-speed, but my friends would always kid me and ask ",you sure it isn't a four speed? Does it start to whine when you get to about sixty?" Ha ha ha, mmmble grmmble...


It had a plethora of electrical problems, and we had to replace pretty much everything that would spark or hold a charge under the hood, but eventually it was reliable enough to drive away to college and on road trips under 300 miles. Towards the end I had to drive around with a small can of gas in the trunk--when it sat for too long and I went to crank it, if it didn't catch right away I'd have to pour some gas down the carb. When I did that, she'd fire right up. A friend saw me do this after a wedding and commented to another friend of ours that he was impressed I knew exactly what to do to get it running. I was pretty flattered, because this was coming from a guy who fixed a broken throttle linkage in an MG with a shoelace. But that's par for the course owning an older car.


Eventually it ended up behind my uncle's barn, and one spring when we went over for Easter dinner it was gone. I wish I would have taken off the steering wheel or something for a souvenir.