El Camino

Starting my freshman year of high school, my dad and I began to look for a car for me to drive when I turned 16. Even though I was still almost two years from getting my license my dad thought it would be a good idea for me to get a car that needed some work so I could learn a little about cars. I, having to pay for the car myself, decided to agree since I figured it would end up being a lot cheaper. After just a month or so of looking, my dad showed me a listing for a $2,000 glossy black 1983 El Camino. Within a month, I decided to buy it and I was now the proud owner of a car that could barely make it down the road. Thankfully, I had two years to get the car in working order so my dad and I got to work right away.

The Restoration

For the past 8 years, the car had been sitting in some guy's front yard (with gas in the tank) so it had a lot of sun damage and some rust (something we decided to address later). The first thing we did was replace the oil and siphon out the old gas. Next, we replaced the alternator and power steering. Thankfully the car only had 96,000 miles on it (or maybe 196,000 the odometer only had 5 digits) so it didn't take much to get things in working order. By the time I had my license, things were in working order and I drove the car everywhere. Needless to say, this caused a fair amount of problems for the 36 year old car and I ended up having to replace the back breaks (which were drum brakes) five times as we eventually discovered one part was missing. The alternator ended up needing to be replaced again and the passenger door stopped working. We replaced the distributor once as we thought the cap was leaking and finally reached our limit when the oil pain started leaking (we didn't have access to a lift). I drove the car for the last two years of high school before leaving for college and by end of its intended life span, I drove the car nearly 15,000 miles.

The Memories

For all the trouble the car caused me throughout the years - my tire popping on a valentines day date (and being forced to fix it on the roadside so I could get home before curfew), the countless times I sat in the freezing Ohio winter letting the carburetor warm-up, and even rolling down the crank windows to try to cool down the black car that someone had removed the AC from - I still loved it and was devastated to see it go when I sold it before leaving for college. All in all, I learned a lot about cars from the experience and it gave me a lot of appreciation for the ingenuity that goes into mechanical systems. I hope its next owner enjoys listening to classic rock in the middle of nowhere while laying in the truck bed gazing at the stars as much as I did. And I hope one day I can find the money and time to work on another old car.