In a message dated 7/2/2002 8:00:39 AM Central Daylight Time, ImpSvcs@xxxxxxx writes:
Good Morning All,
Sunday morning I drove the '63 up to Bay City to meet my uncle for breakfast.
For the benefit of those I haven't previously bored with the story, my uncle is the last survivor on my mother's side of the family. My Grandfather was a DeSoto-Imperial dealer here in town up until early 1961, when the loss of DeSoto put the business under.
Anyway, I've been trying to get some good stories about the dealership and the business in general out of my uncle for years. He'd relate a piece here and there, about taking the train to Detroit (at the ripe old age of 14!) and picking cars up at the plant to drive back to the dealer. It seemed that I could never really get him very interested in talking about it.
My uncle is a great guy, if not a little eccentric. He'd just as soon stay home if not allowed to ride in a well manicured new Cadillac, and would much rather talk about social events and fine furniture than anything as mundane as automobiles or the like.
Well, I pulled into the restaurant parking lot with the '63 (still a solid #4 car, mind you), and you should have seen the look on his face. He was smiling so wide it must have hurt. The entire meal he kept looking out the window at my less-than-attractive '63 and marvelling at the car's graceful lines. Toward the end of the meal, he asked "do you, um... think, um... I could drive it?"
We proceeded to take a long, leisurely drive through the sunny streets of Bay City. He began recalling some of the vehicles he'd driven, and even the names of the people the cars were delivered to. "You should see if you can find that one", he said of a black Imperial he delivered that had a silver roof. He told me about a 1956 car - he couldn't remember if it was a DeSoto or an Imperial - but he was certain it came from the factory with a gas fired heater... on a cold Michigan day, it blew nice toasty air in about 30 seconds. He remembered Highway Hi-Fi, and how great the pushbutton shifters worked compared to the electric job on an Edsel trade-in they took. Looking at the roof feature of the '63, he asked "shouldn't there be a strip of chrome there"? He was simply all smiles and fond memories for that 30 minute drive.
The '63 performed flawlessly on that drive, showing none of the little quirks that I've been working on the last month... the passenger side window lowered quietly, the brakes were smooth and sure, not a clunk, tick, or squeak could be heard... I almost had to think that my grandfather was watching over the proceedings.
My uncle seemed to remember where he had some of the pictures from the dealership stashed, and said he'd look for them. I'm sure pictures will prompt some more detailed stories than I got Sunday.
The high point of the day was when my uncle asked me to accompany him to a Notre Dame football game this fall. Not specifically the fact that he asked me to go to the game with him, but that he asked if we could take the Imperial!!!
My uncle has ridden in many of my other cars, but I've never seen him respond as he did to the '63.
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network