Hot Rod Lincoln
Going through some pictures the other day, I came across this one from when I was in college. I went through a motorhead phase in high school, and souped up an old 1968 Lincoln Continental that I bought from a friend after his grandfather passed away (it had been sitting in his back yard for years - the trunk was so big he used it to store firewood!). That car was my passion for many years. Part of the reason was that it was just so cool and unique. I’ve never quite understood the specialness I see people feel about themselves when they buy something they think is cool and show it off. As you can probably tell, I don’t have a problem with showing off, but I don’t get jazzed from it unless it’s something I’ve worked on myself - I have to create or alter something to feel proud of it. The other part of the reason was that it was my first semi-adult attempt to master something new. Before buying it I didn’t know much of anything about cars, but I wanted to learn, so I enjoyed the challenge.
When it was time to start college, I drove it cross-country with my friend Chris, from Rhode Island to California. I’ve done 4 other cross-country drives since then, but that first one was by far the strangest and most memorable. I don’t have time to tell that tale now, but I will try to come back to it in a future post…Anyway, I had the car for about 10 years - I finally sold it around the time I finished grad school, as I simply couldn’t afford the upkeep, and my passion for it had dissipated by then.
That car is also the reason I have a scar under my left eye. The hood had a jammed hinge, and when I removed the hood to work on it, the hinge shot up in my face and hit me so hard it knocked me flat on my back (those old solid metal hoods were heavy, so the hinges were meant for serious lifting). This happened not long after I had received some other minor injury working on it, and when I showed up at school the next day with stitches on my face, a friend commented, “that car’s going to be great when it’s done - too bad you’ll be dead by then.”
For those too young to know the reference, Hot Rod Lincoln was a hit country song (I didn’t know it myself until I started getting comments on the car).
