If my mother had a dollar for every time some guy asked, "Hey lady, you selling your car?" she would have enough money to buy that old Chevy several times over and take her friends out to a really nice lunch.
But she’s not selling that car.
In November, Chevrolet is marking its 100th anniversary, and the celebration has brought forth a treasury of personal stories about "the quintessential American car."
If my mother told the story of her 1964 Chevelle Malibu Super Sport — black with white interior and red trim — it would be an ode to the greatest car she ever drove. My relationship with the Chevy was more complicated.
She first saw it up on a ramp at Hilo Motors, shining like the crown jewel of the lot. My father was working at Hutchinson Sugar in Naalehu, they had been married a few years, no kids. That brand-new Chevy was worlds away from dusty plantation jeeps. They called her "Blackie" and spent Saturdays polishing her, taking a toothbrush to the fancy spoke rims.
This was the car my parents drove home from Maui Memorial hospital after I was born. There probably wasn’t an infant seat, but Donald and Dorothy felt their new baby was safe riding in that heavy steel body. When the doors close on those old Chevys, it’s like the sound of a vault. The radio was AM only, the seat belts went across the lap and there was a passing gear so fierce my mother used it only once.
Going anywhere in that car meant you were going to have to walk half the way. My mother would find the parking space at the farthest end of the lot. She would rather drag two kids and a cart of groceries all the way across the tree-root-rutted asphalt at Ah Fook’s than risk a door ding in the lot’s front row.
When I was old enough to drive, I begged my parents to let me drive something else, anything else. During the years I had been driven to school, the car was a source of ridicule. My schoolmates called it "The Black Max" or "Batmobile." But somewhere around my senior year, Blackie went from old to classic, from lame to cool, and the boys paid attention in a good way.
Hawaii is a unique place for old cars. Here, cars don’t get buried in snow drifts or driven on icy roads covered with salt, and mileage tends to stay low on an island, but the sea spray and the humidity can make rust bloom on the fenders. Still, Hawaii residents tend to be nostalgic, and there are so many stories of old cars that carried babies and grandbabies, made it through hurricanes and floods, sparkled on prom night and in parades.
For the record, my mother isn’t selling her car. It is bequeathed to my sister. It sits in her Koloa, Kauai, carport providing shelter to cats, lizards and cane spiders. Sometimes a rooster will climb in behind the steering wheel and it’ll look like he’s driving. It’s not shiny anymore and it sits on four flat tires, but still, it is a jewel, the kind of thing you dream about fixing up, and probably once a month, someone will ask to buy it just to see if she’s changed her mind.
Lee Cataluna can be reached at lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
