“Ol’ Red & I, Caught in a Time Warp”

Although I have a preference for 50's cars.....and considering some of the "classic iron" we have around here, a "plain Jane", paint-faded, scratched & dented old 4-door sedan might seem an unlikely choice for what I'D consider a true "Mikey car."  But it is.

Rare cars like "Oval Window bugs are fun to drive around.......and the Olds is a show car and Saturday night "cruiser"

And of course, I'm at liberty to take any of Donna's cars out from time to time.....

But the car that fits me the BEST is this old "nothing special" 1964 Ford Fairlane 500...and it's just a plain old 4-door stodgy-looking sedan.

On it's own, there's nothing special about this car to the average person, it's not a "musclecar", not even a "collector's item" either.  It's just an old 4-door sedan.

Instead of today's plastic, it DOES have "real chrome", but doesn't have the newer fancy wheels.....just 4 old low-option hubcaps........

Like ME, this old Ford has a lot of miles on it, it's faded, scratched up and dented in places.  It's a car you don't have to "mother" to make sure nobody BREATHES wrong on it.  And it's right "at home" next to cars like my good friend's '53 Dodge.

And I'M "right at home" behind this ALL-STEEL dash, simple instrumentation, "3-on-the-tree" manual transmission, comfortable bench seats and LOTS OF ROOM! .......(I learned to drive in cars like this, and every time I slip behind the wheel of this old Ford, it's like a "re-union with an old friend").....and I've driven cars like this all my life (see the "real steel" blogs....).

The days of the "shade tree mechanic" are all but gone, so the typical "Mikey car" isn't something that needs a dozen degrees in physics and thousands of dollars in special diagnostic equipment to keep it running right.   EXAMPLE:  In MANY new vehicles, replacing a fuel pump requires dropping the entire FUEL TANK!......see the fuel pump above?----two 9/16 bolts, two clamps, about 25 minutes and you're back on the road with THIS one!

Air/fuel mixture not quite right?  A simple flatblade screwdriver----not a computer chip, is enough to adjust it.  (right):  setting timing, points and dwell is a lost art today........but you can do it yourself under that same "shade tree."  ("Dwell??....what's THAT?....someplace you live?")

And there is "ample trunk room" in a "Mikey car" as well, for your tools.   In 1964 for example, $2,406.00 bought you a car with enough trunk space to carry tools, luggage, whatever you needed, INCLUDING a FULL SIZED SPARE TIRE........not some little "50-mile DO-NUT!"

(left:  what my friend, the mechanic works on for a living...........

(right:  what my friend the mechanic has under the hood of his '53 Dodge!-----you don't need much more than 2 screwdrivers, pliers and a crescent wrench!).....and nearly 60 years later, it's still RUNNING!

Back to the Ford......with the "window wing" open ("window wing????-------yep....something that doesn't exist anymore).......it's up into high gear and out on a lonely stretch of road.  This is a real special time for me.....................no traffic, the old factory "AM" radio pulling in a radio station "occasionally" when the tubes warm up!

This car was brand new when I was first learning to drive, and these "backroad drives" in that old Fairlane is a chance to "re-live" a little bit and just sort of "reminiscence" about "what USED to be", as that old "260" purrs along, as it has for the past  FORTY-SEVEN years!

"Ol' Red & I have each come down a long road.  Neither one of us are "fancy or complicated", and we've seen a lot of great highways, people, 15-cent tacos and 102-octane gasoline.  That old Ford & I have lived through what I consider to be the best times this country has ever seen.  We didn't get to do it TOGETHER, but with things turning to crap all around us.......I found this car at the RIGHT TIME a few years ago .

With things the way they are today, I always finding it "calming" to get out there on the road with this car............yet sometimes, an old car like this is just a good place to SIT quietly somewhere, ease back in that old sofa-like bench seat, gaze at the steel & chrome in front of you.....and just "think things over."

Yeah......I enjoy a Saturday night cruise and car shows in the Olds.............but there's just something very special about that old Ford.  "Ol' Red" & I are definitely caught up in a time where neither one of us really belong.

But that's ok.........'cause we've both been blessed to have  "been there and done it"...as they say.

It only gets around 21 miles per gallon, but I figure for the cost of a NEW CAR (that I don't want), I can put a lot of gas in that old Fairlane................and I own it............not "me & the bank!"