The Sasserlite

The picture to the left is my very first car.  It was a 1969 Plymouth Satellite 383.  That car could fly.  It had Crager mags with knock-off spinners.  I thought I was the stuff.  My dad and I went to get me a car around my 18th birthday.  We were going after something sensible.  Sensible?  What 18 year old is sensible?  I WANTED a Kelly green Oldsmobile 442 convertible with white interior.  The local Olds place had one...My dad and I were on our way there when we passed this car on Dixie Hwy(US1).  He wheeled into the parking lot of the used car place and about 30 minutes later...I drove out with one of the finest pieces of metal Detroit ever made.  My mother was shocked when I drove up in this red fireball.  Remember, I grew up in the era of muscle cars and street racing...and believe me I did a bit of that.  In the first three months I owned the car I actually had to get a new set of tires from burning rubber at a red light.  It had so much power.  My friend Carol, dated Jeff...and Jeff had a red Camaro...it was hot too.  I have some wonderful memories of growing up in South Florida...and that car.  I had it a little bit over a year(age 19)....I was rear-ended while waiting for a traffic cop to go by so I could turn into my sub-division.  A Volkswagon Beetle hit me from behind.  It hit me so hard that it knocked the gas tank completely off the car and moved me 168 feet from where I was initially sitting.  The girl driving the VW went through the windshield and ended up on the back of my car.  There were some construction workers nearby and they had to bust the glass on my window to get me out of my car.  I was wearing my seatbelt(remember...they were lapbelts back in the day)...but it kept me in the car.  I hit my face on the steering wheel, had two black eyes, a broken nose, and a fat lip, pulled mastoid muscle...but I was alive.  The girl who hit me lived too....and had over 100 stitches on her face.  My beautiful Sasserlite was totaled.  I was distraught.  Sigh!  Do you have a favorite old car story?  I actually have several I can tell you...but I will save them for another day.