Car Stories, the Secret Agent Man

 

I don't like to brag,
but the first new car I owned
was a classic British sportscar.
It may not have had
all the bells and whistles
of a modern automobile
and it definitely sacrificed
gas efficiency for horsepower,
but it did have a few cool features
rarely found on cars today,
like a bulletproof screen hidden in the car boot,

twin retractable machine guns above the front bumper,
and the always useful car accessory,
a passenger ejection seat.

It's a 1964 Aston Martin DB 5.
And remarkably, now after 6o years,
I'm proud to say that I still own it. 

Despite its age it has very low mileage,
has always been garage-kept, 

and still has the original tires.

The first models of the DB 5
were painted a silver birch colour.

But I paid extra
for one in gold.

When the film Goldfinger was released in the fall of 1964, my dad Russell, an officer in the U.S. Army, was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany and I was 10 years old. Though I might have picked up some advance promotion of the film, I doubt I paid much attention, as we did not have a television as the only broadcast signals were from German tv stations. So like most of the American service families, we got our news of the world from the Armed Forces Radio network. 

My folks and I saw Goldfinger at the post cinema where this spy thriller was a big hit with American servicemen and me too. A few weeks later around Christmas time the British toy company Corgi released this replica of James Bond's iconic Aston Martin DB 5 that was used in the movie. I couldn't resist buying one. It came in a display box along with secret instructions and an extra bad guy. Bond—James Bond, sits in the left-side driver's seat and levers on the chassis edge activate the car's special features. The ejector seat's power is quite impressive, easily the equivalent of 300 yards or more. In 1964 it was the coolest car ever. 

Yet the reason I cherish this toy car is not because of the film. It's because after I acquired it, with my own money I might add, I became hooked on reading all 12 of Ian Fleming's 007 novels. Whenever we took a long trip while in Germany, I was always in the backseat reading a new 007 paperback. Even on our return to America in 1967 when we crossed the Atlantic in an old converted troop ship, I spent the week in a deckchair with another Bond thriller. Though many years have passed and my taste in literature has evolved from secret agent thrillers to science fiction adventures to historical novels and now mostly real histories, I still attribute my first love of reading to Bond—James Bond.

Yet in my youthful daydreams
I liked to pretend I could be that secret agent
behind the wheel of a fast sportscar.

The little BMW Isetta, which I featured two weekends ago in Car Stories, the Putt-Putt, came out of hibernation when we moved back to the US in 1967. Our home was in Newport News, Virginia not far from my dad's work at Fort Eustis. For a few months I think he used the Isetta for his regular commute but during its time in storage the Putt-Putt acquired various engine and suspension ailments, so my dad was constantly having to take it apart. 

In my duties as assistant mechanic I was sometimes allowed to get behind the wheel, as seen in the photo above, but I never actually drove it. My right eye wink is an early symptom of my increasingly bad vision at this age. My folks finally took notice after my nose caught my dad's fastball during a game of catch. I never saw it coming. The doctor's diagnosis after he restored my crooked snoot with a quick twist was, "Your son needs glasses."

The Isetta didn't have any secret agent gadgets, but judging by this picture of my dad, taken by me on the same day as the previous photo, it could easily accommodate an ejection seat like Bond's DB 5. My dad wears his Sears Craftsman brand mechanic's coveralls and his favorite German felt hat. He's also chomping down on a pipe, a smoking habit he fortunately abandoned. Yet I have to admit that after he gave up all tobacco it made choosing gifts for him much more difficult. Shopping for smokers was so easy. Tobacco shops seemed to offer an endless choice of smoking paraphernalia with fancy lighters, novelty ashtrays, curious briarwood pipes, and assortments of exotic cigars. 

Here my dad is putting the Putt-Putt to bed for the winter out in our backyard. There's about a half-inch of snow on the ground and my dad is wearing his German ski pants and boots along with a colorful French sweater. He's taken the Isetta's wheels off and propped it up on cinder blocks, a condition that just about every car he owned suffered through. My dad also acquired a second Isetta at this time that was pretty rough and rusty. It was also a '58 model and robin's egg blue. I don't think it ran and he kept it in the garage like a Frankenstein monster in order to salvage parts from it. By the end of that winter in 1967-68 both little bug cars were sold and replaced by a bigger better beetle. 

It was a caffè latte 1967 Volkswagen convertible. My dad may have paid for it but I'm sure my mom chose it, and for several years it was her car, even though in this picture she's in the passenger seat. (The non-ejection kind.) It had a four speed manual transmission with engine in the rear. The top required a little effort to unhook and fold up, but it was super fun to drive in our part of Virginia which was close to the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. 

A few years later it became the car in which my dad taught me to drive. We lived in Virginia Beach then and my dad found an secluded area at Fort Story free of traffic and pedestrians where the army trained soldiers to operate heavy equipment. It was there I learned to master the art of the clutch, three-point turns, and turn signal etiquette. Within a few months I earned my folk's trust to drive it solo during my last year of high school. 

When I started university the VW became my regular wheels, while my mom moved to another car we will meet in a moment. The Beetle was a reasonably safe vehicle but in my first year commuting to classes I put it to the test. On returning home over my usual route, I failed to notice that traffic was stopped on my exit ramp. At the last moment I slammed on the brakes but it was too late. I collided with another car stopped on the ramp and damaged both vehicles. My dad took a picture of course. It's just one of thousands of photos my dad took of vehicle mishaps. 

The smushed bumper and hood may not look like much of a dent but the front suspension was distorted and the expense of repair was not worth the value of the car. Volkswagens in those days were cheaply made and hammering out those metal curves was expensive work. Instead my mom got a new car and I inherited her orange wonder car.  

It was a car that only a secret agent might drive.

This orange 1970 Honda Z600, was a two-door coupe that my mom Barbara initially used for her regular commute as an elementary school art teacher. It had a 598cc two cylinder engine with 5 speed manual transmission with the stick projecting from below the dashboard. The Z600 was 123 inches long, 51 inches wide, and 50.4 inches tall. Basically a breadbox on wheels. It only weighed 595 kg (1,312 lbs) and powered by its little motorcycle engine it literally screamed down the highway. 

The top speed was maybe 90+ mph, though I will never admit to trying to exceed that limit. It's real virtue was fantastic gas mileage, usually 40 mpg and sometimes over 60 mpg! Yet despite its small size I can attest that this tiny car could  hold an entire horn section of four men and their instrument cases too. At least for a short trip to a late night doughnut shop.

Here my mother stands beside the Honda wearing matching orange shorts and floral top. She looks a bit distracted as if she hasn't yet realized my dad is taking a picture. Both color photos are scanned from 35mm slides taken when the car was brand new and had a temporary license plate. The driveway and car in the background belong to our neighbors.

Readers may have noticed a vintage car in the background of the first photo. Of all the cars, trucks and vans my dad owned, over 25 on his list, not counting the second junk Isetta, this dull green sedan with its chrome radiator grill and unmistakable hood ornament was his favorite car. 

It's a 1959 Mercedes-Benz 219 four-door sedan or saloon car in European terminology. I don't know exactly where my dad found this car, his notes only refer to the purchase year, 1973, and that he became its second owner. This car had all the superior qualities we've come to expect from the Mercedes marque, but it also included a number of inferior traits of a vehicle made in the 1950s. 

The heavy doors made a sumptuous and satisfying KLUNK when they closed. The bench seats were upholstered in a smooth Germanic version of "Corinthian" leather. (Here's a bit of automotive trivia. The phrase, "rich Corinthian leather" made famous in 1970's Chrysler commercials by celebrity spokesperson, Ricardo Montalbán, was a made-up name for a common upholstery material manufactured in New Jersey. It was coined by the Chrysler ad agency to imply their cars had premium luxury qualities.) 

Though this Mercedes was not a luxury model it still had classy German engineering elements that set it apart from American cars which is why my dad admired it. Like the Isetta, the VW, and the Honda, when you drove this car people took notice.  

The steering wheel was a huge narrow ring made of faux-ivory plastic. Beeping the horn was easy to do on a ridiculously large chrome circlet. The shifter was a 4-speed stick mounted on the steering column and the clutch was gentle and silky smooth. The dash was made of real wood, either teak or beech, I think. A large analog clock occupied the center which seemed a particularly luxurious frill as most American cars did not have such things. The leather bench seats were sprung in a way that gave the car a plush pillow ride. Though I didn't drive it much, its driving qualities were impressive.

However the big problem with this car was that it leaked. A lot.  Engine oil, transmission fluid, radiator coolant, brake fluid, even windshield wiper fluid. My dad kept a box in the trunk filled with extra containers of oil/fluid in the event of emergency. Any one of these issues would have been reason enough to get rid of the car. Nonetheless my dad accepted it as a challenge and he was determined to keep it running.  

In the background of the first photo of the Honda Z coupe are wooden braces leaning against small pine tree. This was a makeshift engine hoist my dad made. In this photo the Mercedes' engine block and transmission hang from a chain hoist making it look like an eviscerated animal carcass at a slaughter house. To remove an engine everything around it had to be carefully disconnected while taking a careful account of all the nuts, bolts, and brackets that were fastened to it. How it went back together I don't remember, but somehow my dad did it. My participation was holding the flashlight or handing him the correct tool when he was on his back wedged under the car. This required learning the difference between imperial and metric measurement, a skill that still occasionally needs study for my own projects. 

Before retiring from the army, my dad was assigned to a unit in Atlanta and for a year put tens of thousands of miles on the Benz, as he called it, driving back and forth from Virginia to Georgia. Like most cars built in the '50s the Mercedes had no air conditioning, just the triangular vent windows. Driving around Georgia in the summertime was a sweaty and uncomfortable activity. 

After retirement the effort to maintain the Mercedes became more difficult for my dad. So it was  installed on cinder blocks high enough to keep it above floods brought on by storms and high tides which were a regular nuisance at my folks' home situated on an inland saltwater bay next to the Chesapeake. My dad converted the car into an auxiliary shed where he stored cardboard and newspapers for recycling. Eventually he sold it to one of my mom's colleagues, a school teacher who restored vintage Mercedes. I hope its wheels are still rolling. 

In my last year of college, while still driving the Honda, I started earning extra money by working for my horn teacher. He needed cheap labor for his real estate side-venture of remodeling old apartment houses. At the time my limited carpentry experience came from building a few tree houses, but I had a few tools and enough time, if not skills, to be useful. I soon discovered that I enjoyed making sawdust, breaking up old plaster, scraping paint, and crawling around dank moldy basements. However the little Honda was not the most practical vehicle for this kind of construction occupation. 

One day a newspaper notice for an auction caught my attention. It was at an old industrial building near my university and the listing included lots of power and hand tools. So I went down to see what I might pick up. Most of the factory's stuff turned out to be beyond my budget or needs, but one of the last items up for auction was an antique cylindrical stove, the kind found in country stores or old barns. It was small, about four feet tall, and crudely made of cast iron and steel, but it didn't seem too heavy, maybe around 50-60 lbs. I can't explain its attraction, but maybe because this was around Mother's Day I decided it would make a novelty ornament that my mom could display in her garden. So I bid on it and in seconds I bought it for $15. Now I only had to get it home.

What I had not observed was that this stove was made of mostly rusty sheet steel riveted around an iron base. It presented no problem lifting it into the back hatch of the Honda, but even with the back seat folded down the stove occupied more space than I expected. As I took off I quickly  discovered the stove contained decades worth of coal and wood ash. Within seconds I was enveloped in a black dust storm and opening the windows only made it worst. Somehow I got it home where my mom graciously accepted my gift as she laughed at my soot covered face.  It took several attempts at vacuuming and cleaning before the car was halfway decent again.

For many years that old stove served as a bird/squirrel feeder and plant stand in my mom's garden until it finally disintegrated into red dust, but its real value came just a few months after I bought it. 

My parents decided if their son
was going to augment his musical talents
by becoming a junk dealer and jack-of-all trades,
he needed a new vehicle. 

The secret agent man became the guy with a truck.

For my successful graduation from university, with a diploma that says Summa Cum Laude, but I don't like to brag, my parents presented me a new 1977 Toyota pickup truck. It was green. At the time Toyota trucks were manufactured in Japan but assembled in California. This model was a long bed, a foot longer than the regular Toyota Hilux but both were a compact design that was then very different from American pickup trucks. It was from the second generation of Toyota trucks with a 2.2 L straight four cylinder engine with a five speed stick shift. As you can see in this black & white photo where I'm parked in the same place as the Honda, there was no back seat, in fact the bench seat had no useful space behind it. My instrument and tool cases rode in the passenger seat. It had AC but I had to add a radio/cassette player. 

This truck changed my life in more ways than I can describe. Not only did it prove practical for my early adventures in house renovations, woodworking, and music too, but it made me everyone's useful friend whenever they needed to move something too big for a regular car. Refrigerators, sofas, patio furniture, hot tubs, upright pianos and pump organs. I carried it all in this little truck. This next picture shows me and my best friend Jeff Shepard unloading an antique pump organ  from the Toyota which I then restored for him. Despite intricate mechanisms and lots of brass reeds, a pump organ case is mostly air compared to a similar-sized piano. My story of Mister Jeff includes more adventures with this truck. I miss him more than I can say. 

Following my dad's example, I did all my own oil changes and regular maintenance. After a few years in Virginia Beach's saltwater climate the green faded and rust appeared. I fixed that by hand painting the whole body in two tones of grey Rust-Oleum paint. Inspired by my dad's perseverance in repairing his cars, I even rebuilt the Toyota's carburetor adding three years to its life. 

In 1985 when I won an orchestra position in Savannah, Georgia, this truck hauled all my music gear and woodworking tools 400 miles south to my new home. It took four trips. A couple years later I taught my English bride how to drive in a foreign land, she having never needed to learn in rail and bus friendly Britain. The Toyota might have lasted longer but the advent of my son in 1989 meant we needed a larger vehicle.  So with 111,000 miles on the odometer the Toyota was traded for a silver Mazda truck that had a king cab with enough space for a child seat. Three trucks later I have a 2006 Nissan Frontier sitting in my driveway. It has its own stories to tell.

This last photo was taken in the fall of 2018 with me and my mom sitting in the back of her final car, number 23 on her list, a 2018 Honda Fit, not much bigger than the Z600. My cousin took it as she and her family were leaving after a short visit to Asheville. It's a theme shared by thousands of similar family photos. A camera never comes out on an arrival but only at a departure. 

This picture is bittersweet as my mom and I both knew she would soon lose her right to drive. At age 87 her physical and mental abilities had diminished to a level that meant she was no longer safe behind the wheel or even to live alone in her little house, 15 minutes from my home. With great effort she accepted me as her chauffer and cast away truck loads of stuff in order to move into a one-room assisted living apartment. It was not easy and at times very painful but in the end we did what was best.

But I want to finish with a happy car story. This silver Honda was purchased brand new in May 2018. Only two years before she had decided she needed a smaller car and I helped her trade a Volvo sedan for used 2016 Honda Fit. It was fire engine red, her favorite color. But she wanted a better car.

One afternoon that spring she and I took the red Fit into the Honda dealer for regular service which ordinarily would take only 15 or 20 minutes. As I perused a car magazine in the dealer's waiting room I looked up and saw that my mom had disappeared. I found her out in the new car lot talking to a young woman, a sales agent. Before I could stop her, she was negotiating a trade for a new deluxe model Fit that included leather upholstery, heated seats, and moon roof. I couldn't persuade her differently so we were escorted to the manager's desk and began arrangements to close the deal.  

This gentleman was a very kind fellow who seemed genuinely attentive to all my mother's stories. And she had a lot to tell. She began in 1951 with the story of choosing a car with my father, a Willys station wagon. This was followed by the great road trip of 1953 in the second Willys jeep when she, her mother, and my dad's grandmother drove cross country from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles. Then came stories of driving in France, Washington state, Kansas, Germany, and more. 

After over an hour of waiting she had only reached 1968 on her car timeline and it was now past 6:00. With apologies I broke in and insisted we finish up. I knew that once she started on the tale of the two VW  campers; the tragic biography of the Peugeot diesel sedan; the long chronicle of the seven Volvos (the seagull story takes at least fifteen minutes to tell); and the comic anecdotes of my dad's VW Eurowagon we would be there until midnight. 

Within minutes we signed the virtual papers on a gigantic desk tablet, my mom delicately using her little finger to sign her clear cursive signature. For the remainder of that year she got to drive it around Asheville using her innate sense of direction to navigate even the most confusing of shopping mall parking lots. When I finally took away the keys, though she resented having to give up her freedom, I know she understood it was for her protection and the safety of others. 

For this month's Sepia Saturday series on Old Cars I've dispensed with my usual focus on antique musicians' photos in order to show off a few of the vehicles that contributed to my family's history. Maybe in olden times I might have written about horses and mules, but I don't have photos of them. My mom and dad both loved driving cars, enjoyed traveling, and always had a story to tell about each car they owned and every trip they made. If there is one sentiment that they taught me it is that in life it's the journey and not the destination that counts.

To conclude this multi-car story,
here is the scene from Goldfinger
when Q, the irascible quartermaster of
the special weapon and gadget division of Britain's MI6 secret service,

first introduces Bond—James Bond, to his Aston Martin. 

And of course,
I must include the scene where
the Aston Martin demonstrates all of its tricks.

Pay attention to the cars driven by Goldfinger's minions.
They're the same Mercedes-Benz sedans
that became my dad 's favorite vintage car.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where every car has a story (or two) to tell.