There are reliable cars, luxury cars, economy cars, sporty cars, two-doors, four-doors, sedans convertibles. Then, there are cars that are just ‘fun-to-own.’ We had one!
We bought it used from my husband’s boss when he worked at Chittenden & Eastman in Burlington, IA. The boss had bought it new, and was in the position to replace it with a brand new vehicle, so that put us in the position to buy a one-owner vehicle that had been well maintained for an affordable price. We jumped on the deal in a heartbeat.
From first sight, I loved that car. It was a dusky blue Cutlass Oldsmobile Supreme, a 1964 two-door, hard-top. The car body had a sporty look to it, fully automatic, power-steering, air-conditioning, bucket seats. To date it was definitely the nicest car we had ever owned, and because it had been well taken care of, the body still looked new. I used to close my eyes and imagine I could still smell the ‘new car’ smell it would have had the day Mike’s boss drove it off the sales floor.
Need I add, it was a fast car? We were young, with that audacity of youth that firmly believes we are indestructible and will live for ever, so Mike and I both had floored the ‘pedal to the metal’ to see how fast it would go at some time or another. It was a V-8, so it would ‘go fast’. I personally had seen the needle hit 115 mph. I don’t want to know how far Mike watched the needle fly.
We were blessed with an experimental type turbo transmission, so it was definitely a car designed with performance in mind. Considering the fact it was a high performance engine, the vehicle got amazing gas mileage.
Because I owned a 1964 black Plymouth Valiant, we were now a newly-married two-vehicle, family. Armed with a new car, we headed to Wisconsin for a long holiday weekend. Mike had put in a long day with overtime so I was driving on an interstate highway in northeast Iowa when a pheasant flashed up out of a roadside ditch across my windshield. I slammed on the brakes, and woke Mike up.
It was so close we heard the wing slap on the roof of the car. Pulling to the side of the road, turning my emergency flashers on, I fearfully got out of the car. I expected to find a new dent along the roofline of our new car, but to my huge relief there was no evidence of the pheasant’s near miss. I suspect the pheasant wasn’t so lucky, but we didn’t see it floundering anywhere along side the road.
“We still have a new looking car,” I assured my husband with a relieved grin. We drove the Cutlass Supreme hard for four years, and always wished we’d found another in such meticulous condition, but we never have.
