My 2nd, 1st car.

I guess that this is truly my first car.(The Vega, not the giant baja bug!) It's the first that actually got license and insurance. I bought it in the little town of O'Keene (sp?) Arkansas. Metallic chocolate brown (most people thought it was black). It was wreck in the right front and had a blown engine. I had a sleeved engine and was on a raoad trip with my dad looking at potential candidates for an engine transplant. We passed on a couple that he had seen along highway 67, but spotted this one on a detour. I paid $75 for it and towed it home. I had lots of fun with it-it ran surpisingly strong, but I went through transmissions like crazy. '72 and earlier Vegas used Opel transmissions that just weren't stout enough. I used up every 4 speed I could find within a 100 mile radius and ultimately had to settle on a 3 speed. The gear ratios were far enough apart that it took some of the wind out of my sails, but it held in there. I bought a Buick V6 to put in it, and had rebuilt it for the swap. On a drizzly evening in December of '81 I was heading home from work, sitting at a stoplight at the foot of a hill when I heard the sound of tires sliding on wet pavement. A '68 full-sized Ford rearended me, totalling the car. I drove it for a while longer (until the four-banger blew a head gasket) and used the insurance check to buy a slick Vega wagon (again in Arkansas) to put the V6 in ...but that's another story. This picture was taken just west of Salem (a place that is currently within the city limits) MO, on highway 32, in the winter of '80-'81. The big bug was an advertisement for an off-road shop. I recall that when I got out to take this picture I noticed that the Vega had "chalked the pipe"- something you don't see since they took the lead out of the gasoline.