Do you remember your first car?
Was it one you picked out or your parents? Mine was the latter. I wanted a
Mustang. A red Mustang. A used one would have been okay. Big
problem. The two hundred dollars I had to spend on a car didn’t stretch that
far. So Dad convinced me to buy an ugly blue-green Mercury. I never liked that
car.
Four years later, I bought the
next best thing to a Mustang (which I still couldn’t afford)—a red Cougar. Sporty,
great for a single girl. I didn’t care that it was two years old. I loved that
car. Then that bane of automobiles back in those days attacked my favorite car.
Rust. My beloved Cougar rusted so badly when you opened the trunk you could see
through to the pavement. Hubs said he married me for my “mill” car. He worked
at a steel mill where the pickling acid in the air ate cars. Since he drove my
very rusted Cougar, I got to drive his brand new Monte Carlo. I definitely got
the better part of that deal.
In my books, my
characters' vehicles tell something about them. In Switched, Jessie puts her money into growing her business so she drives
a truck that’s almost as old as she is. Straight-laced Marcus, however, when
he’s not captaining a starship has a candy apple red Speeder—an indication that
he isn’t always so uptight. In The Pilot,
Celara’s vehicle is a cargo hauler that she resurrected from a junk heap. After
spending every spare minute repairing it, the starship became the first thing
she owned as well as her home.
Over the years, Hubs and I have owned
many cars. Some were just for transportation, some practical. But I never did
get that red Mustang. So I did the next best thing. In Switched, the Aftermath (next book in
the Switched series) Marcus’ mother drives my dream car.
What was your first car? Favorite
car? Dream car?
