Welcome to CampTN.com

It has wheels, but will it run?
by Kim Leady

The Leady’s household has lived through yet another one of life’s little milestones – our oldest bought his first car.

This particular stone began rolling down the hill when Steve, Jr. excitedly announced at dinner that he had found a killer deal on the Wal-Mart advertisement board - a ‘79 Chrysler Lebaron for $300. The card also claimed that it ran ‘good’. I don’t know why, but the image of Greg Brady’s first car flashed before me. If I remember that particular episode correctly, Greg bought a convertible that came with several, shall we say challenges.

I scanned the faces around the table.

I could tell my husband had reservations about this car running ‘good’ for $300. Steve’s look said it all – ‘good’ only if you are pushing it down a hill. Tim showed more excitement. It was obvious our youngest was already dreaming about getting his hands on it to tear it apart. He gets this honestly from his father.

It was obvious by the look on Steve, Jr’s face he thought this car met all his needs - cheap and had four wheels - at least he was assuming it had four tires.

As I looked at our son’s pleading eyes, I had my doubts if this gem would meet his mother’s safety inspection. I mean, how much protection could $300 buy?

Contrary to what our children thought, we had been once sixteen too, so we agreed to go take a look at the car.

I must admit, when I first laid eyes on the car I was very surprised – pleasantly surprised. It had four wheels, the body didn’t look bad for being twenty-one years old, it had seatbelts, and to the surprise of all standing around the vehicle, it roared to life when my husband went to start it.

After doing all the things one does to a car you might buy, we shook the man’s hand and told him we would let him know the following day if we wanted the car. When we called the man to let him know we were interested, but we wouldn’t be able to come for a couple of days, he offered to go down to $250 if we would come that night.

This was either a man needing money or, there was something very wrong with the car. We agreed to come that night. I only prayed that my gut instinct was correct and he was just a young man needing money. And who could fault him for that?

We have been there a time or two ourselves. In fact, while we were going to college my husband and I had a car that we had to manually run the wiper blades by a rope system Steve had rigged because we didn’t have the extra money to repair the motor.

Those were the good old days. Yeah right!

To say the drive home with our son’s ‘new’ car was an adventure is an understatement.

Let me set the stage for you. It was dark, cold and raining. The driver’s door didn’t have a window and before we even could drive it home, we had to put oil, water, and gas in it.

We had not even gone a mile down the road when the aged wiper blade on the driver’s side decided it had enough and flew off. We pulled over and my husband found the worn part and fastened it back on with cable ties.

After a few more miles, I saw a beam of light bounce around the interior of the car as I followed him. When we reach the first gas station, Steve stopped to put air in the tires. Curious about the light I had seen, I asked him about it. He flashed me his charming smile and explained the dash’s light bulb was blown so he had been using a flashlight to check the gauges and the speedometer.

I smiled back at him and informed him the right brake light didn’t work, but left did, and left backing light was shot, but right seemed to work just fine.

Our repair list was growing with every mile we drove.

The following day Steve and the boys went over it with a fine toothed comb. When they were done the repair list consisted of – four new tires, driver’s window, a couple of fusses, many bulbs, a new tire rim, wiper blades, a review mirror, a horn and a lot of TLC, all of which with a little time and money could be taken care of.

All in all, I would say this little experience has been good for my guys. Now if you’ll excuse me, I better go and see if they have found anymore items the BEAST, or what I affectionately call THE MONEY PIT ON WHEELS, needs to be added to the restoration list.


Kim

Believe it or not, our son still looks back on that car with great affection.