John S. Rehberg, 8/31/1956 to 9/14/2022, Dad you may be gone but you're always with me...

[PlymCrazy]

Car #57 dad owned...

2010 Mazda3 s Sport. I was able to search the VIN online today and find actual pics of this one. It appears it has been for sale at least twice since dad owned it. According to the internet, it has a manual transmission, 2.5L.
Go dad, another stick shift. Driving truck for the last 4-5 decades, I guess manual transmissions are just in your blood.

 

[PlymCrazy]

So this past Sunday, mom and I were reminiscing about an event that took place back in the early 90's which triggered the memory of this vehicle. I know it's out of the order that I have been posting them so far. I apologize for that. But it was one of the vehicles dad owned. So I believe it deserves to be here.

We'll call this vehicle #58 dad owned...

1984(ish) Ford Ranger
(c/o google)

Dad's looked close to the one above. Don't think his had the towing mirrors though. I can't recall the year precisely, but this is pretty close regardless. He owned it for a short time in the early 90's. Dad wasn't very happy with this truck IIRC. Can't recall if it was given to him or if he picked it up real cheap. But he didn't put much effort into keeping this one running very long when it started giving him mechanical trouble.

 

[PlymCrazy]

Car #59 dad owned...

A google search of all but the last (6) digits of the VIN tell me it was a 2012 Honda Civic.
(c/o google)

The registration tells me it was blue and it was a 4DR. I'm going to guess it was dark blue, knowing some of dad's history in color taste.

 

[PlymCrazy]

Car #60 dad owned...

2015 Volkswagen Jetta. I had to search the VIN to determine the model on this. The registration says it was a 4DR, and it appears this was likely a blue car as well.
(c/o google)

 

[PlymCrazy]

Car #61 dad owned...

2017 Jeep Patriot Latitude. Yup, you guessed it...it was blue too.
(c/o google)

 

[PlymCrazy]

Well, we are nearing the end of the list of cars dad owned. In my initial post here, I estimated he owned 60-70 cars. And it appears to be pretty accurate after all.

This is car #62 dad owned...

2020 Nissan Murano. Both the registration and a VIN search indicate this car dad had was white.
(c/o google)

 

[PlymCrazy]

Well, we made it. We now know just how many cars dad owned in the 66 years he lived.

Dad's last car.
Car #63 dad owned...

2022 Mercedes GLE350(actual photos)

Looks like Dad bought this car brand new on 8/29/2022.

Less than 3 weeks later, on 9/14/2022, this car had only a few hundred miles on it. Dad worked a full day that day, washed his new car and went home to be with the Lord shortly after.

Dad,
As much as I wish it, I know I can never have you back here with us physically. My hope is that I can keep the memory of you as alive as it has been in writing this tribute to you. Any time I'm under the hood of a car it's as though you're right there with me. So I will continue to be under the hood often. Man dad, I sure do miss you…

 

[PlymCrazy]

If you’ll recall, in the very first post here, I said that this is where I wanted to hang my dad’s hat.

And this is the very hat he was wearing his last moments alive.

Driving a brand new Mercedes and wearing his Chevy hat. Never met anyone quite like you dad…

 

[PlymCrazy]

You all are welcome to share cars you had in your family growing up right here in this thread too.

And thank you again for sharing the journey with me.

- PlymCrazy

 

[moparedtn]

Nick:
You've obviously done your father a great honor here.
By opening your heart and being persistent and thorough in the task at hand,
your efforts are not only honoring your dad here, but you're granting all of us
a gift as well and I for one am grateful you did!
It feels like knowing him almost, if only just a little bit....
We're allowed to commisserate and to help you mourn a bit as a result.
Thank you for this.

God bless you and yours,
Ed

 

[68BabyBlue]

Nick has helped me assemble photos of the cars my dad, a member of the greatest generation, had during his lifetime. Like many fathers of this group, he started out with other makes, but gravitated to Mopars from the 1950s on. His first was a 1931 Ford Model A he owned jointly with several neighborhood friends in NYC during the Depression.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #2. Dad returned from WWII, married, and took a job at Penn State as a staff photographer in 1948. For the first time in his life, he need a car to get to work. He paid cash for a 1941 Chevy.

 

[PlymCrazy]

… he owned jointly with several neighborhood friends …

That’s a new one for me. How did that work with ownership documentation?

 

[68BabyBlue]

That’s a new one for me. How did that work with ownership documentation?

They held the title jointly. Dad said it was a measure of how the immigrant families in the ethnic neighborhoods in Depression era NYC stuck together. The other boys all became wealthy business owners. I met them at a wedding in 1967, and they were all driving new Lincolns.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #3 In 1950, dad decided to stay at Penn State. He took out a loan to build a house from scratch. The bank convinced him to take out a car loan, as he was now a good credit risk with Penn State as an employer. Dad told me years later that his Depression roots scared him silly in taking on the debt. He took the plunge, and bought a brand new 1951 Ford. The picture was taken when he and mom moved into their recently completed home.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #4 The '51 Ford went through four radiators before dad got fed up, and traded it in on his first Mopar, a 1952 Dodge sedan. Ours was light green. Dad bought this car shortly after I was adopted in 1954, and could no longer afford new car payments.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #5 Dad bought a 1953 Plymouth Suburban after my sister arrived in 1956. He wanted a two door station wagon so we couldn't open a door and fall out. He drove it until 1961, and never could get the water leaks sealed. The floor boards rotted out so badly my sister and I used to try to poke our toes through the holes. During this period Dad bought another '51 Ford for my mom's use. That lasted about a year. The car was prone to vapor lock, and dad sold it after it left mom sitting constantly. Left me with a bad early impression of Fords.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #6 After the '53 wagon literally rotted out from under us, dad bought a used 1956 Dodge Sierra in 1961. Money was still tight, and he couldn't afford new car payments. This would soon change, when he was promoted to his former boss's job the following year. This photo of me shoveling the car out, was taken on a weekend in 1963. We lived on a mountainside, and dad always parked headed downhill, so he could get to work without clearing the driveway on a weekday. On a workday, the car would be plugged into a battery charger, an engine heater, and the windshield covered so dad could launch without issues.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #7 The 1964 Jeep Wagoneer was a significant milestone in dad's car journey, and though I didn't know it at the time, my own. It was dad's first new car since I'd arrived, and it had the most plush interior available, and a load of luxury options. Knowing dad's predisposition toward used cars, I had expected him to pop for a '60 or '61 Chrysler New Yorker wagon now that he was feeling flush. Compared to the lines of a Forward Look wagon, I felt the Wagoneer looked like a shoe box on wheels.

This car was the first of many that dad would buy from Clark Motor Company. It was a dealer demonstrator. And the person who had driven it prior to dad was the dealer's wife, Julie Clark. I have a color photo of the Wagoneer, which was blue. But I can't get to it because it's buried behind a pile of used GTX parts in my basement. They came off the GTX that Julie would start driving in 1969, and would become mine 53 years later.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Car #8 The Wagoneer turned out to be the worst car dad ever owned. Highlights were second degree burns he got in the face when the corbin clamp on a heater hose let go, and a dash fire while my mom was driving. The car was in the shop so many times for warranty work, that in 1966, Bill Clark sold dad a 1960 Valiant below cost so he wouldn't need a loaner car. Dad started using the Valiant as a daily driver, mom had the Wagoneer when it was running. I learned to drive on the Valiant. Picture is from 1969, the year I got my driver's license.