Tag: car

The BatMobile (My Car) is a dependable vehicle, with some peculiarities.  It has had a few major repairs and a few parts replaced; but it runs reasonably well for an 11 year old car. However, the locks freeze and seize in cold temperatures; and this morning they locked tight.

I ended up having to pour warm water over the locks to get them loose (there was a satisfying/scary “crack” noise when the water hit the lock).

After getting the car warmed up and the windows clean I was away.

I’m going to have to invest in lock-deicer and a better window scraper for this winter it seems.

Tell us a little something about your first car.  Do you have any photos you can share?
Submitted by tamara.

I do have pictures of my first car, when it still looked okay.

It was a midnight blue 1988/89 Ford Tempo.

However, you don’t care about that, seriously.  It drove my up and down from Toronto to Kincardine to see my friends and carted me to work and school during the week.  All of which is pretty standard stuff.

You want to hear about why it had a two-tone hood;  which I wish I had a picture of.

It must have been February 1995 or 1996, I was driving home from Toronto on a snowy February morning after working at RPS and being away since the morning before.  I was excioted to see my “friends” and get the weekend started.  I was also driving into the sun and really tired.

As I crested a hill in a small town on highway 9 I ran right into the back of a snowmobile trailer.  The only thing I rememebr about it is seeing the hood of my car buckled up in front of me.

Dazed, I went to the nearest store to call my ‘rents and tell them I had had an accident.  The police showed up and almost charged me with reckless driving, but instead gave me following too closely.  I’m sure I was crying about it or something, I was so out of it.

I drove home, freaked out and hoping the car would limp home.  I was promptly informed that the car was to be taken to the Jones house, as they had a garage and I was going to be without a car all weekend while we found a replacement hood.  While driving there, the hood flipped up and bent out of true, a total write-off.

I noted up there that I was there to see my “friends” as none of them made the slightest effort to come see me.  Which proved to be the nail in the coffin for a number of relationships for me. Too bad for them.

We eventually found a hood from a similiar car (a white taurus) that har wrapped it’s rear passenger side around a pole, killing the passenger that was there.  Nice huh?

We got the parts back to the garage and used a come-ahead to pull some of the kinks from the body and set about attaching the bone white hood to my midnight blue car.  It fit with some elbow grease and I had a driveable car again.

With some other work (lights and cosmetic work) I was back on the road to Toronto and school and work.

I wish that this was the end, since the white hood looked stupid, but not challenged.

I tried to paint the hood.  I bought some matching paint from the local Canadian Tire (spray cans) and set about trying to cover the white with the proper midnight blue.  I had no illusions that it would be perfect, but I never thought that I would use more than 6 cans.

So I had a hood with white on one half and blue on the other. For about 6 months.  I was pretty poor.

Once I finished the paint job it still looked bad up close, but from a distance it was deal-able.

I ended up driving ther car almost into the ground, and with the help of a crooked garage I was constantly funnelling money into it.  SO in March 1997 I gave it away to my Sister and Borther-in-Law to sell.

I loved that car, and have a number of fond memories attached to it, losing it meant losing a great deal of freedom.  Oh well, I have a new car now.  Bon Chance!