The Summer of 1965 or was it 66?

I was watching one of those car restoration programs the one where one of the presenters goes out looking for cars to restore and sell. Once of the sites that he went on, drew me to it for some reason.

As I was thumbing through the pages I came across MY CAR.

How I would love to have that car in my clutches again.

It was not my first car, my first car was a 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible, let's see, jalopy would not be fair since it was complete with all the parts, the convertible worked although leaked a little. My parents didn't know I had the car, I use to park it down the street where my high school buddies would meet me in the morning and we would ride it to school.

I didn't have insurance for it, so we kind of took it easy getting too crasy in the car.
After I got out of high school I told my parents about the car and we did get it insured.

I don't quite remember the disposition of the car, but it was pretty neat for a first time car.

Since I was working after school at various jobs I saved enough money to start looking for some cool wheels.

It was the time when  muscle cars started coming out and somehow I found this dark blue GT0.  It had a 383 with 3 carburetors, mag wheels, a 4 speed on the floor and the best yet, it had a reveb for the AM radio.   FM wasn't too popular in the radios yet, and 8 tracks were just coming out.

Muntz had the first 8 track that you could bolt under the dash, but that was only for the real cool guys.....I wasn't at that level yet.

Anyway, we found this Dark Blue GTO and it had about 3000 miles on it, it was repossessed from someone and was about 6 months old. I had enough money to put a substantial down payment on it, and was able to get my family's credit unit to finance the balance.

The total cost of the car, with tax and license was.....

$3100 dollars.

 I put down 1500 dollars and financed for 2 years the balance.

Can you believe how the prices have changed?  That car restored is bring anywhere between 60 to 75K.
About 6 months into my ownership a fellow by the name of Hayes Trego smashed into the drivers side door while I was driving it. The car was laid up for about 6 months waiting for parts and stuff. It never drove the same after that, the door sounded tinny after they replaced it, and the paint never really had matched up that good. You could always tell that it had been wiped out.
I kept it for about another year, after replacing several clutches and realizing the poor gas milage I traded it in for another car.
Then a few years later I got a Dodge RT with a 440 magnum in it.....now that was a muscle car. In fact a friend of mine has it with the intention of restoring it one day.
We'll see.

Boy, I wish I still had the GTO but then again, with the price of gas the way it is right now, probably not...

I had the exact same interior except the 3 guages in the middle were not there.

Mine was stock, not having the electronic ignition which is mounted to the firewall. Same color, same wheels....

Those were the days when gasoline was  32 cents a gallon. So if you think about it, I paid 3100 bucks for the car. That kind of car now would be about 35K at least, and gas is running $3.50 a gallon.

So in 50 years stuff has gone up 10 fold...

Man I wish I had that car...