Let me tell you, these had very little engine, but didn't weigh anything either, so their pickup wasn't bad. And you could take corners at near full speed. No power anything -- brakes, steering, windows, locks, nothing. Four on the floor with rear wheel drive. The right frame of mind is go-cart. Man, I thrashed that little thing like crazy and it took it. Doughnuts, 360 dgree handbrake spins on gravel roads, off road excursions, full 4 wheels off the ground jumps over back road bridges. Once I plowed to a stop on gravel almost quick enough to avoid hitting a phone pole, putting a distinctive billy idol sneer into Lucky's front bumper.

The engine block had like 6" to a foot of space in all directions and you could look at it for five minutes and understand exactly what every part was doing and why.

The key broke off in the ignition so I could start it with a butter knife, convenient for a grounded teenager. "Sure, mom," I'd say "Here are my car keys."

One day my uncle was working on it and he snapped the flimsy aluminum bolt which held the distributor in place. So from that point on, it was held in place with a variety of ultimately ineffective means, ranging from duct tape to fishing line. It'd be great for a while and then the timing would start to drift and eventually it would begin to backfire. I'd pull over and pop the hood and tune it by ear, re affix the duct tape or whatever and I'd be good for a couple hundred miles.

The car went 180k miles in the family with nothing but oil changes, mufflers and the occasional brake job. The thing that finally killed it was rust. The body was in ok shape but the floor pan was rusting through. There was a hole behind the driver's seat that grew and grew until it consumed the rear 2 supports for the driver's seat. One day I saw in the rear view a fairly large math textbook which had recently been in the backseat flapping down the road. At one point I wedged a 2x4 under there to keep me from falling through to the road, but you can't live like that, so I sold poor Lucky for $20 to the scrapper. A couple of months later I saw Lucky parked in the local community college lot, so maybe someone repaired the floor. It was definitively the same car on account of the distinctive maroon stripe, rust pattern and bumper sneer.

Great little car indeed, one of the best cars I ever owned.

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A few months after buying it I had a run-in with an old Dodge Polara at an uncontrolled intersection. The GLC's front bumper got tossed about a half block, and all of the front end sheetmetal got shoved to the left. I think I cried. It was never quite right after that, so it got traded off. sigh.

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Damn you, modern car buyer! DAMN YOU!

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