New Car Blues

So let’s start with my very first off the showroom floor new car. It was a black and white 1974 Plymouth Duster that I bought from the now destitute Fort & Shock dealership in Pekin.

I paid $4,000 out the door for this beauty and on the way home I noticed the gas gauge read Empty. So I pulled into the nearest gas station and it wouldn’t take but about 25¢ (about a half gallon) of gas. I thought that was really strange and assumed something was wrong with the gauge, but by the time I got home I realized about half my gauges didn’t work and my radio didn’t radio.

I also discovered the heat vent just below the dash was cracked. I took the car back the next day to get these things fixed and it turned out the electrical problems were just a blown fuse. The cracked plastic vent took much longer and several arguments to get repaired. They wanted to just tape it up with duct tape. Fine way to repair a new car! Duct tape!

I loved the car except for one “feature” that finally drove me to sell it. It had a switching system tied into the front seats that wouldn’t allow you to start the engine unless you put on the seat belts. That was annoying but wasn’t too bad at first, but then right after it was out of warranty this stupid switch system started acting up and the car wouldn’t start regardless.

I finally sold it off in early 1977, but I often think of that speedy car and broken gauges that weren’t broken after all.