The $50 Car
Apr 02 '00
My son's grown now but we still laugh about his favorite gift--a $50 car.
It was a present for his 15th birthday. Like all boys, my oldest was excited about the prospect of turning 16 and, in our state, being able to drive. He already had his beginner's license and enjoyed driving my car with me along. However, I knew that he was also looking forward to having his own car and as a single mother with four other children younger than my 15-year-old, I didn't know how I'd ever be able to buy any of them cars when they were in high school.
So, for his 15th birthday I bought him an old Mazda that didn't run. The seller pulled it to our house in the country without charging me extra once he found out why I wanted it. It was probably the ugliest car I've ever seen--a hit-you-in-the eye bright, bright green. I don't remember now exactly how old the car was (although my son probably knows to this day) nor do I remember what was wrong it. I don't even remember where I got the idea to do this although I kind've think a male friend might have planted the thought in my head.
However, I presented the car to my son on his birthday along with a screw driver and some stipulations and explanations. I handed him the title, saying, "This is your car and you can do with it what you want. It's to help you learn about automobiles, how they run, how to fix them and so on.
"The car's already broken so you can't break anything on it. If you want to try to fix it up, that's fine, but I have no idea if it's even possible to ever get it to run. If you want to, you can take it apart and sell the pieces and that'll be a start on being able to buy yourself a car when you're sixteen. Or if you want to, you can get the hammer and take out your frustrations on it. It doesn't matter to me as long as you don't get hurt fooling with it. It's all yours," I said.
Well, my son was very mechanically inclined. As a child he was always curious about how things worked and would even take things apart to see how they ran, an activity that often earned him spankings. (This was in the 70s when parents were considered neglectful if they didn't spank.)
Well, anyway, my son did what I thought he would do. He decided to see if he could get the green bomb to run. He even took his birthday money and bought a Mazda manual. I wish I had thought of buying him that manual to go along with the car but I knew next to nothing about cars. I didn't even know that a Mazda was a terrible choice for me to buy for such a project. As my son later informed me, it has a rotary engine, which made it all the more difficult to fix or learn on.
I asked my father to talk to my oldest about safety and working on cars and he supervised my son's work, especially in the beginning. That entire year was spent working on that car and at times I regretted giving it to him. He got so frustrated because he couldn't figure something out or get it to run.
Keep in mind that I couldn't help him at all and except for some assistance from my father, who had never worked on any of his cars, my son was on his own.
A short time before his 16th birthday, I witnessed what was probably a miracle. My son actually got that car to run. It ran the entire length of our long country drive.
I'll never forget the look on my son's face that day.
It never ran again and shortly afterward my son sold it (for $50, I believe).
Recently my son (who's now in his 30s) was overhauling the transmission on his car and he started talking about that old Mazda; saying he wouldn't have been able to work on his cars like he does now if it hadn't been for that first car.
He and I had a good time that day, laughing and reminiscing about that old green Mazda--his $50 car.
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