My First Car

By Gary Osborne

Wow!  What a feeling!  I couldn’t believe it, but I now had my own car.  As long as I could remember I had dreamed of the day that I would be the owner of my own ride.  What young man who possessed a new driver’s license didn’t have dreams of holding the keys to a vehicle that they could call their own?

I had been tinkering on cars with my father for several years back then.  He was doing side jobs on friend’s cars in what we had called Ozzie’s Garage.  I learned a lot about cars during that time and was looking forward to the day that I would be able to work on one that was my own.  My father was a Ford man and had a friend who owned a Ford dealership in the Northern Suburbs, so I knew that my choice of a car was going to be limited.

The day came to go get a car.  For that matter, any car!  We all know how desperate we can be when we really want something.  Well, the car that caught my eye, and was within my budget was there in the back lot (what does that tell you?).  It was a 1968 Ford Mustang.  What a cool car for a young man to own.

It was Forest Green in color with Gold stripes and a black vinyl top.  Under the hood was the venerable 289 V-8 tied to an automatic trans.  The interior seats were covered with very shredded  black vinyl. I don’t remember the car’s mileage, but I’m sure it was high. Total price for the car was a whopping $400.

As any guy thinks when he gets his first wheels, he’s as good as A.J. Foyt.  I burned off a lot of rubber from those tires during the time that I owned it.  But, I sure had fun!  You would have thought I had the fastest car on the planet, when in actuality it was just a lowly 289 Mustang. I even remember plugging off the trans modulator valve, and tightening up the bands in hopes that the trans would shift harder.

One funny story is how I was able to get rid of those shredded vinyl seats.  I worked at a gas station at that time.  That was when they actually pumped gas for you.  There was another guy in town that owned a 1967 Mustang that had very nice looking seats in it.  One night he came in to the station, shall we say a little a little bit on the tipsy side.  A friend of mine was with him and was trying to convince him to sell me the seats from his car.  So he said that if I bought him a carton of “smokes” that he would give me the seats.  Of course I agreed, not thinking that he would really do it.  They left the station and I just forgot about it.  Well, about an hour later they showed up with the seats in the trunk and he was sitting on a milk crate.  I was quite surprised that he went through with it, and told him that I couldn’t take my seats out for him yet because I was still working.  He said it wasn’t a problem and that he would come back the next night to pick up the seats from my car.  So, for a carton of “smokes” and swapping out of my shredded seats I got a couple of great looking ones.  Sometimes you never know how you will get parts that you may need for your car.  You just have to ask! 

After owning the car for about two years I sold it for $500 and never saw it again. I’m sure it probably finally made it to the old “crusher”.