On and Off the Car-Ousel

We got a new car. When I say new, I’m not referring to the age of the eight-seater station wagon adding to the general aesthetic of an overcrowded driveway, but the fact that we now own a car we did not own before. The new car is a 1994 Buick Roadmaster, which, when it sits beside the 1995 Cadillac DeVille, gives me full evidence that I have woken in the future, living out the rest of my days at a retirement community.

We are no strangers to the buying and selling of not-new cars, a lifestyle most car enthusiasts will understand entirely. Growing up, I often shocked friends by telling them of the nine cars lining our driveway. Never mind the fact that the sum value of all nine cars was less than the two sitting in their heated garage. Having a lot of cars is never the same as having nice cars. But coming from a family of lifelong enthusiasts, I have begun to use the cars in our driveway as markers of my own life. The Volvo was my childhood, coupled with the Corvair. The Thunderbird and the Eldorado together were my early teens. The Volvo was essentially transferred over to me when I hit driving age, only to be replaced with the Minivan, when we sold the Volvo (the same week we sold the truck).

We are now selling the Minivan, bringing the Civic back to life, and introducing the Roady to a mismatched family of cars that include luxury (Cadillac), off-road (Wrangler), classic (Thunderbird), Muscle (Mustang), and the Ford truck that is slowly becoming one with the earthen driveway. It is not just the cars themselves, but the roles they played in the larger automotive family dynamic, that have, time and again, acted as snapshots through the years. The Cadillac Eldorado was used to take my first trip to Boston to look at colleges. The Minivan was used to move me into my first apartment junior year. Some summers were spent driving the little red Jeep top down. Others were spent at the helm of the Ford or S-10, as we worked for my mom’s gardening company, the smell of mulch and sweat never quite dissipating from the dirt enriched bench seat.

It is no secret that cars bear witness to the most important parts of our lives. When my long distance boyfriend moved from Boston to New Jersey, his green Cadillac DeVille (named Nessi for the Loch Ness Monster it resembles in size…) told of a new era of our lives. When I took the Volvo and then the Minivan off to work at sleepaway camp for two summers, the driveway dynamic shifted again. We sold the Tercel, who sat on a little perch at the end of the driveway, sold the Volvo to a woman who worked on Volvos, sold the S-10 to a guy who might have done time after getting involved in a car chase. Shifting. Another turn on the ride.

There are other cars too. The friend who spends the night a few times a month has moved from a little red Jetta to RAV4. My brother’s best friend’s green Malibu has been replaced with a silver SUV. We have car sat for Volvos and Celicas and Lexuses. We are a halfway home for cars that need a little work.

And so these small photos, snapshots of a long and uneven driveway, lodge themselves as important details into my mind. Every car enthusiast has played the on again off again dance of buying and selling, and will continue to do so. Hopefully soon, my boyfriend and I will move out, and that green Cadillac will find a driveway of its own, changing the dynamic yet again. My brother might get his license. I might get the Jeep/Fiat/Ferrari I always fantasize about. The shifting roles of our beloved workhorses will come to represent our family dynamic as it changes with the season, time and again.

Perhaps it is overly nostalgic, but I see that driveway as a family portrait all its own, each car at each time with a special, pertinent meaning. They may be old, rusted, not running right at the moment, they may be classic cars, emissions exempt, a pain in the ass, but they are as relevant to our family as the people we have dinner with, as the pets we remember fondly. I’m not ashamed to say that I am going to miss that Minivan, a car my parents swore to the heavens they would never buy. (They didn’t technically buy it), but the Roadmaster will fill a new space in the ever changing dynamic, as we ride, yet again, on and off the car-ousel. I look forward to seeing what that space will be.

Buick photo selected from Alden Jewell.