It looks like my wife was paying more attention than I thought. She wrote below on the history of the car.
“The Gold Car”
A story about a 1968 Dodge Coronet 440.
When my dad was 26 years old, he bought a brand new 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 car to accommodate his growing family. Since she was my family’s only car, I imagine she was simply called “The Car” until my dad purchased a second Dodge Coronet in 1973. This time in green. To distinguish the two, the ‘68 model became known as “The Gold Car,” and the ‘73 model became “The Green Car.” Fancy car names were obviously not a thing with my dad.
Some of you know “The Gold Car”well. She and I share the same model/birth year, so she’s almost like my twin sister. A sister who provided rides, but almost always made me carsick. A sister who was kind of cool because she was similar to Bo and Luke Duke’s ride, but an embarrassment to me in my teenage years as she aged and became a clunker.
She spent a good bit of time on the road, but sat in the driveway of my childhood home on weeknights and weekends. She’d sometimes provide warmth to our neighbor’s cat. The cat liked to jump inside on cold, winter days and bask in the sun under her back window.
Her large hood and trunk provided sitting areas for my brothers and their friends when they’d socialize in the driveway. And when they’d play basketball, she often got smacked by the ball because she sat dangerously close to the goal.
Like any car driven for a long time, she had her fair share of trouble. My older brother, Mike, learned all about car mechanics because he held the flashlight for my dad every time she was worked on.
One time she caught on fire at the Atlanta airport. My dad put out the fire with his jacket, had an airport attendant park the car, and went and got on the plane, smoldering jacket and all.
She was my dad’s daily driver for 25 years, but in 1993, she was retired to my parents’ garage, where she sat idle for 27 years- much to my mother’s dismay.
William started expressing an interest in “The Gold Car” when he was a little boy, so in late August of 2020, just before his 15th birthday, the car became his- and my mother got to see her garage floor for the first time in ages.
Fourteen months later, Bert and William have brought her back to life. I have no idea how many man hours have gone into this car in the last year, but let’s just say that the car has been worked on for hours and hours almost every single day since she’s been in our possession. And yesterday, for the first time in 28 years, she ran on her own power!
The car and I are both 53 years old, but she seems more like a younger sister than a twin now. Amazing what attention, new parts and fresh paint can do.
I pray that her heavy steel
keeps my boy safe as he cruises around metro Atlanta in the very near future. I also hope my dad, who recently turned 80, takes a spin in the car that he purchased as a young man. And I really hope that William enjoys her as much as my dad did for many years to come.
She’s almost like new and looks good in blue, but she’ll always be “The Gold Car” to me.
