philosophyonwheels.com

Nobody ever forgets their first.  My first car was a 1991 Volkswagen Jetta: red, stick-shift, manual windows and sunroof.  It wasn’t the most reliable car.  I remember when there was a massive leak in the cooling system.  Of course it happened at 2 am coming back from a party…I mean my friend’s house.  I could drive for exactly 30 feet then had to pull over and let the car cool down and try somehow to look cool while standing next to my car with the hood up.  (When a car came down the road I would bend over the engine and pretend to adjust the windshield-washer reservoir cap.)

I was a bit naive back then too.  While bombing down a bumpy side road there was suddenly a lot of rattling from the undercarriage.  Whatever was rattling fell off and I watched through the rearview mirror as it skipped off the road.  I found it in the woods and brought it to the mechanic the next day, sheepishly handing it over, waiting for the sting of the bad news.  The mechanic immediately chucked it in the trash and said “heat shield, don’t matter.  You’re all set kid.”  Of course.

The ‘91 Jetta had the kind of seat belt with the shoulder strap separate from the lap belt.  The shoulder strap was attached to the pillar of the door and the car wouldn’t start without the buckle inserted.  One day before a soccer practice I disconnected the shoulder strap so I could sit and change into my cleats.  After practice I was all set to head home but the car wouldn’t start…hmm.  In such a situation, my car not starting became a project for the entire team.  Jump starts, push starts and numerous ‘expert’ visual inspections of the engine were executed.   After about twenty minutes I realized it was the shoulder strap.  I nearly blurted it out but wisely kept silent and stealthily reconnected the shoulder strap.  And the very next push start worked!  “Thanks guys, that last push start definitely looked better than the other ones.  That must have been the difference.”

When you retracted the sunroof a one inch tall wind deflector popped up in front of the opening.  It blew my mind how much of a difference that little piece of plastic made on the highway.  I can still imagine some German engineer doing extensive wind tunnel testing to minimize the amount of aerodynamic noise coming into the cabin, screaming “Nein!” every time he wasn’t satisfied.  While on the highway I would reach up and hold down the wind deflector to appreciate the difference.  Then I began experimenting.  For any given speed I could find an optimal height for the deflector to be deployed, resulting in increased aerodynamics and fuel mileage…obviously.  Then the deflector became one of my drumming instruments.  (It was really satisfying to have the air pressure of the cabin pulse to the beat of Lenny Kravitz…saved money on buying a woofer!)  I did that trick one too many times and the spring in the deflector flew away.  

Shifting was tricky to get used to.  With the clutch depressed, the engine’s revs would dive almost as quick as you could lift your foot off the gas.  The revs wouldn’t ‘hang’ in the vicinity that you left them, waiting for the next gear.  It required an intimate feel for the gas pedal to drive that Jetta smoothly.  It probably saved a bit of gas by not having the engine spin needlessly.  But gas was cheap back then and nobody cared too much about that.  (86 ¢/gallon during my senior year of high school!)

That Jetta met its demise the day before Thanksgiving.  The temperature was 30F degrees and raining.  I would take a long curved bridge to get home and that night I was creeping over it at 20 m.p.h.  Suddenly there’s a full-size pickup in my rearview mirror and all I could do was cringe.  Anyone who has ever been in an accident will tell you it is paralyzing when you realize in a split second that there is not a thing you can do.  In my case there wasn’t even a tire screech.  Just the impact.  Luckily the only injury I had was some moderate whiplash.  The pickup didn’t even stop to see if I was alright.  Their destination was the higher priority or maybe they just didn’t have insurance.  The Jetta’s frame was irreparably bent.  Serious bummer.  Accidents are really unfortunately things in life, but hit-and-runs can crumble any faith you might have left in humanity.

Conclusions:  cheap gas is nice, heat shields aren’t necessary, don’t hit and run, and it can come in handy to know how to push start a car…definitely.