<VV> Another Corvair story

[mark at noakes.com]

I learned to drive in my Mom's 63 Corvair Monza with Powerglide. However 
I've never been fond of automatics except for tow vehicles.

In the early 80s we had just gotten rid of my wife's 74 Plymouth Duster 
(225 slant 6 with auto) that she had gotten from her father when she was 
in high school. We had my 66 Monza coupe and the newly restored 61 
Lakewood, originally a 80hp (I think) 3-speed manual car; we converted 
it to 102hp/4-speed.

My wife was still not doing too well with the manual shift, but I kept 
pushing her to practice saying that she would soon get used to it and 
good at it. One morning the car was parked in a down hill facing parking 
slot. She left the apartment but came back in with a rather odd look on 
her face and directed me to the parking lot. Instead of backing up the 
hill out of the parking slot, she had hopped the curb in front of her 
and both front wheels were off the ground with the car resting on the 
curb about a foot behind the wheels (no real visible damage though).

While we were trying to figure out how to deal with this, four members 
of the University of Tennessee football team came walking by (at this 
time we lived right off campus because my wife was in school full time, 
and I was working on a MS in part time evening school). The football 
players just picked up the front of the car and rolled it back to where 
all four wheels were on the ground.

Moral of the story...believe your wife when she says she can't do 
something and keep a herd of football players handy for when things go awry.

Any vehicles after that that were specifically for my wife or that she 
was also likely to drive have always been automatics. Anything that only 
I drive is still a manual.

I still have the Lakewood put away but suspect that it is too far gone 
to redo again. I hope to find another one at some point. I miss the 
uniqueness.

Other stories besides this and the "we don't fix no Corvair radiators" 
but so does everyone else...

Mark N