Jim Richardson

…most cars,

properly

cared for, will

last almost

forever.

Driving Home the Point

In the afternoons, as my neighborhood pals and I played “three flies up” in the street, an elderly gentleman named Mr. Levine (I only learned years later that his first name was Sam) rolled around the corner at a sedate pace and meandered past. We stepped out of the way to stand in awe of his 1929 Chevrolet threewindow coupe. It was painted gray, striped in yellow, and sported 20-inch disc wheels. It looked almost new, though it was 30 years old. It was tall and narrow, and looked as if it had been designed with a T-square and triangle. Only the fenders were curved. Such an old Chevy was a rare sight back in 1960. That is partly because Chevrolet bodies from the ’20s were braced with wood, and when these cars were left out in damp climates, their wood rotted over the years. As a result, you would see the remains of old Chevys laying out on the ground like exploded technical drawings. Also, during World War II many old cars were scrapped, so very few of them from the 1920s were still on the road. Ford Model A’s were still fairly common because they were almost all steel, but most other cars from the era had long since been relegated to the salvage yards. We saw Mr. Levine as an ancient man with an ancient car, though from my perspective today, I realize that he probably wasn’t that old. After all, he was still working full time. But I loved old cars almost from birth and was curious to know Mr. Levine’s story, so one day I walked down to his house while he was putting the car away and said hello. He had the hood open and was wiping down the old stovebolt six. It turns out 1929 was the first year for that famous long-lived engine. Mr. Levine was a bookkeeper at a local business and had owned the car almost from new. He was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and when he came to the United States, he got a good job, saved his money, and bought the Chevrolet. To him it was a dream come true: He had made it to America and had his own car. For much of his life on the East Coast, he and his wife only used the car for Sunday drives and special occasions, because he walked to work, and they took the train if they went away on vacation. It was only when he moved west that he started driving to work every day.

I found his old Chevrolet fascinating because it was simple, and Mr. Levine told me a lot about automotive technology from the early days. On occasion, he would let me come down to his place, sit on his garage floor, and sketch the old Chevy ’s suspension and running gear. The sketches were a way of remembering in detail what I had seen. And Mr. Levine filled me in on what did what, and why. He did all of his own maintenance and repairs and taught me a little about how it was done.

I still do sketches when I do restorations, so I don’t forget how things go together. But the most important thing I learned from Sam Levine is that most cars, properly cared for, will last almost forever. As a result, I have only bought two new cars in my life. One was a ’67 VW Beetle in my college days, and the other was a ’77 Toyota pickup to use on camping trips to Mexico.

We have a modern car for my wife, but when I am at home in the States I usually drive my 1955 Chevrolet, or when parts chasing, I have a 1958 Apache pickup. And when I am in New Zealand, I drive a 1966 Morris Minor convertible. I refuse to be taken in by the “designed-in obsolescence” strategy the automakers began years ago to make you feel deprived if you drive last year’s model, even though it is the same car under the hood, except they have figured out how to cut more costs and sell it to customers as “new and improved. ”

Too often we neglect our cars to death, and feel deprived if we don’t have the latest and greatest. But think about it. Even if you are driving a new Lamborghini to work, after a week or two, it’s just another car, except that you may have to sell your first-born to pay for it. And these days, cars are so complex that even the dealers have trouble maintaining them.

I learned some important lessons from Mr. Levine, and they have saved me a lot of money and vexation over the years. I can more than keep up with the Joneses in my 1955 Chevy with its V-8 and Borg-Warner overdrive, and I don’t have car payments to worry about. Indeed, I have become a modern-day Sam Levine.