𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐑𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 9: 𝐒𝐤𝐲 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡!

 

𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐑𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫 

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 9: 𝐒𝐤𝐲 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡!

Alas, my sweet but temperamental little Frenzy blew her head gasket again and I decided to retire her. 

This time things didn't turn out so well for a replacement. I couldn't find a hatchback. There weren't any available. None in the local car lots. None in the Auto Trader. But, the Frenzy had blown her head gasket again and the route had to be done. I had to settle. My parts car yard now had the J2000, the Cavalier, the Frenzy, and a pair of J2000 coupes I bought for parts; one with no floor, the other having been in a front end collision, sitting in it. It would be kind of dumb to buy a Plymouth Conquest when I didn't have a single part in five cars that would fit it. There were no hatchbacks, but J Body cars were still plentiful in those days. A compromise had to be struck, but how much of a compromise? Right now, a hatchback was out. That left a few other body styles:

⦁ A four door

⦁ A station wagon

⦁ A coupe

⦁ A convertible

⦁ A Cavalier Z24 in either coupe or convertible

⦁ A Sunbird GT in either coupe or convertible

⦁ A Buick Skyhawk T-Type coupe

A four door meant short doors which meant small windows. No. Not that desperate. Well, not yet, anyway.

A station wagon meant the same thing, but had a great rear loading area. None were available anyway. I always wished they had made a 2 door station wagon. It would have been excellent with the big doors for easy ingress/egress, and big windows for follow through when hitting the boxes on the fly, and the fantastic rear loading area. If I was an auto body man I might have built one for that very purpose. 

A coupe was a 2 door, so had the large windows I was accustomed to. Not nuts about just a trunk instead of a hatchback. 

A convertible was a 2 door, so had the large windows I was accustomed to. Not nuts about just a trunk instead of a hatchback. Didn't want a leaky soft top. Rain and newspapers don't mix well. Also didn't want the mechanical and electrical complexity of a convertible roof. Then the trunk. 

A Z24 meant a V6 and way less fuel economy. Didn't want that. 

A Sunbird GT or a Skyhawk T-Type? In other words, a turbocharger on TOP of the already fragile 1.8L OHC engine head gasket situation? No thanks, man. I mean no way Jose. 

A 2 door coupe without a V6 or turbo it was, then. It was the closest thing I could get to what I was used to. Everyone recognized the sporty hatchback profile of my route cars up until now. This was going to be a change for sure.

A back lot in Pembroke yielded a good condition silver/blue 1984 Buick Skyhawk 2 door coupe. They were jammed full and needed to clear cars. That worked for me. 500 bucks and tax and it was mine. It didn't boast the convenience of a hatchback, but it still gave me a few things I really needed: An automatic transmission. That sure made my knees happy. Big doors with big windows, and they were power operated ones. Tilt steering for easy ingress/egress. Every route car up until now had that, even the Cavalier. A power trunk release so I didn't need a key. And, it was a Buick after all, so the seats and upholstery were nice and comfy. 

All that, plus, it had the fuel sipping 1.8L OHC engine under the hood, so it was going to be cheap to run... until it blew its head gasket, too, whenever that would be. Not 'if', but 'when'. Hopefully it didn't do it tomorrow. 

The likelihood of a blown head gasket coupled with the name of the car made its name easy: the Sky High. 

It turned out to be not a bad little car at all. Very comfortable, and very easy for delivering the route papers in considering the luxury of automatic transmission and large power windows. Not so much fun on Saturdays having to load the trunk and the back seat separately for the stores, but you can't have everything. And having to retrieve them the same way. But, beggars can't be choosers, and that's the way it was. The J2000 and the Cavalier had basically the same instrument panel other than the AM Stereo with built in graphic equalizer of the Cavalier. That radio was taller in profile, and required a different facia. It wouldn't fit in the Frenzy or I probably would have made the switch because it sounded so great and had power as well. The Frenzy and the Sky High had basically the same dash. Truth be told, as nice as the dash was in those two cars, I preferred the ones in the J2000 and the Cavalier because they had individual, recessed gauges, which I could see at all times. The Frenzy and the Sky High had an instrument cluster which was behind a full width window, and that window could produce glare from light coming in from the sides or the rear which made the gauges hard or impossible to read. And, with the 1.8L OHC, the temperature gauge was the one I needed to keep my eye on the most. 

The Sky High never took a frenzy. It had the exact same engine as the Frenzy, but it never acted the same way once. Even though it was a Buick, I don't think the Sky High had cruise control, so that's got to be what caused the poised and refined Bruce Wayne of the Firenza to become well... the Joker. Maybe it was more akin to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

There really weren't any events with the Sky High that were worthy enough to be committed to memory. It was just a well behaved little car. I just wished it was a hatchback! It did its job, and, for the lack of a hatchback, did it really well. It was easy on my knees. It was easy on gas, just not quite as easy on it as the Frenzy because the fifth in the Frenzy's 5 speed was an overdrive. Still, it was easier on gas than either the J2000 or the Cavalier. Oh boy, the automatic was such a luxury and relief after countless thousands upon thousands of miles in the 5 speed Cavalier and 5 speed Frenzy. It was just keep an eye glued on that temperature gauge as much as possible or she'd blow the head gasket Sky High... 

Low and behold, what put the Sky High literally out to pasture wasn't the head gasket. She blew the automatic transmission. I gotta say, I didn't see that coming. The automatic in the J2000 didn't give me a lick of trouble. As a matter of fact, I had a bunch of J Cars after the Sky High, and it was the only one that ever gave me transmission trouble. But, the expense of changing the tranny in a front wheel drive car versus just buying another whole car meant that was the Sky High's Waterloo... 

By this time, I could buy almost any J Car in a dealer's back lot for 800 bucks or less. It would cost that much to replace the transmission, so why bother? Especially with that ticking time bomb OHC under the hood. It ran cheap, but for how long? That was the thing. Stick another tranny in it and have the head gasket blow the next day? Not a gamble I was willing to take. So, as much as I liked that mild mannered little car regardless of the lack of a hatchback, she had to be retired. 

Should we have pulled the good engine out of the Sky High and dropped it in the Frenzy? Maybe, but while that would have put me back in a power window hatchback, it also would have put me back in a 5 speed and the painful routney problem which, believe it or not, I didn't happen to hold in the highest of regard and esteem. If the Sky High's OHC blew its head gasket anyway in the Frenzy, then what? Nope. Not worth the risk coupled with the routney. 

A search of everything available failed to turn up a hatchback again. Darn it anyway. I don't know where they all went. The supply of them just seemed to dry up. There were still scads of 4 doors and 2 door coupes, so it was watch for another coupe. It seemed the days of luxury and convenience of an automatic, power window hatchback were over for me.

The Auto Trader offered up a 1984 Sunbird coupe. The owner had brushed a guard rail with the driver's side, but there was no mechanical damage, just cosmetic. After years of just being a paper carrier, and, being, well, just me, I didn't have enough pride left for that to be a problem. The thing was, this was an automatic power window coupe. I'd take a dinged up one any day over a shiny 5 speed crank window example. I did most of my looking at the car from the inside anyway, not the outside.

Pictured is a dirty one. Mine was dingy, not dirty. The interior was as clean as linen in the closet, and smelled just as nice.

The engine was the same as in the Cavalier, so very reliable. Not nearly as fragile as the OHC of the Frenzy or the Sky High. Not the same fuel economy, but no keeping a paranoid eye on the temp gauge either.

We met the seller in Arnprior at McDonald's. They drove it there from Ottawa, so that was nice of them. Yep, the driver's side was kinda rough for sure. No, make that rough, period. But not so rough that the door or window didn't work or that the side marker lights were missing. Just rail rash. A pretty vivid scraping imprint of an Armco guardrail, to greater or lessor effect depending on body panel resistance, all the way down the driver's side. They were too ashamed to drive it. I wasn't. Quite.

The car ran and drove great. Absolutely zero mechanical harm done by the brush with the guard rail. 

Y'know, some things carry their own prediction. The initial appearance of that car was a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The first cold Fall night on the run, after a very light snow, as we were heading back out towards 653 from the twisty graveled end of the Fourth Line, a big, BIG buck came tearing out of the woods to the West. I got one good look at his face through the windshield over the hood as he wham-slammed into the passenger side so hard he turned the car sideways. Everything out the passenger windows was just DEER. And his very, very startled face in the windshield. The car being turned sideways sent him down the road in front of us. His body hit the passenger side of the car and turned alongside it, and his neck bent around to put his astonished face right on the windshield. 

We were still moving. A few very rapid lock to lock applications of the steering wheel brought the fishtailing of the car back under control on the snow dusted gravel road, and a "Whew!" out of me. Besides his highly alarmed face, we got a good alternating look at both ditches out of the encounter. We were fishtailing and he was spinning ahead of us as we each got picture window my side/your side views of his calamitous, all legs slayed out progress.

The attached insurance report isn't mine, but it describes what I saw perfectly. The "OHHH KRAPPP!!!" expression is exactly what I saw, just our view was a little more up close and personal-like with his surprisingly long tongue slapped and splayed on the windshield like a wet rag for a moment that I permanently snap-shotted in my mind for future posterity. Deer, as it turns out, can have very expressive faces. That big fella sure did. Very impressive. 

Speaking of impressive, he made quite the impression along the passenger side of the car. I mean he single handedly or hoofedly wrecked the entire passenger side of the car. He didn't leave one square foot - or is that hoof? 'one square hoof'? Never mind... of it unmarked by his high speed, high impact encounter with it.  

Back to that. Hooves aren't square, so I guess it can't be a square hoof. But feet aren't square either. Oh yeah: linear measurement. One square 12 inch unit. I got mixed up there with appendages like paws. Paws aren't very square either. Okay, now I'm just confusing myself so I'm just going to leave that alone. For the time being anyway. Don't count on me not getting back to it but breathe a sigh of relief if it escapes my strange choice of memory and focus. 

Anyway...

He made one heckuva mess of that car. Not that it wasn't already, mind you, but he sure added his personal touch and flare to it. Tallying it all up, his impact broke both headlights and the grille insert, caved the front fender in under the hood, thoroughly wrinkled the whole passenger door, and added an irregular wavy texture to pretty much the entire rear quarter panel. Other than the sealed beam headlights he somehow very fortunately didn't break any glass. How that happened is beyond me but I was grateful for it. I mean, as grateful as you could be to a critter for otherwise pretty much removing any remaining vestige of decency and civility and presentability in that vehicle. 

After basically completely demolishing the entire passenger side of a car I had only owned for less than 12 hours, he had the unmitigated gall to just pick his bulky carcass back up before it even came to a complete stop after it spun down the road and continued hoofing it off in the exact same direction he was going when he first smashed into us. If that don't beat all... Not even one measly venison steak for a totally mangled car. 

Speaking of totaled, any insurance adjuster with eyesight any better than Mr. Magoo would have written that car off with only one glance from 50 yards away. Nope. Not me. I just got the darn thing. One quarter of the way around the route and his hind quarters made contact with our rear quarter panel and now our whole car was only worth quarters. That critter gave no quarter. I better stop while I'm not ahead. 

The biggest problem that presented itself was the passenger door wouldn't open. He had caved the fender in under the leading edge of the front of it. The window still worked, so that was good. Besides all the slobber from his tongue, there was an amazing amount of thick deer snot all over the hood and the windshield. I don't know where he stored it all but he couldn't have had much left in reserve after that. We didn't knock the snot out of him so much as he did it to himself. I saw it fly out of his flared black nostrils in a big cloud of grey goo and splatter all over the windshield. And hood, as it turned out. I don't think I ever was so happy for a thin layer of glass between me and the elements as I was at that moment. Especially when the elements were basically comprised of copious amounts of hot mucus the thickness and consistency of warm axle grease. Or cooling porridge. 

It probably was therapeutic to get all of that out of his lungs, so I guess you could say we did him a favour by being in the wrong place at the right time. Or the right place at the wrong time. I wish I could say the same in kind. That said and by the way, I am not recommending going out and getting hit by a car as a cure for the common cold here, so if you try that, don't blame me for the outcome. Just getting a little potential legal issue out of the way there. That should cover it. Moving on... 

If I had made an insurance claim - which I of course didn't - I don't think they would have believed me that so much damage was caused by one errant Bambi, no matter how Rambo he was. That said, it wouldn't have been as crazy an insurance claim as the one where a doe crashed through a guy's rear window, gave birth to a fawn in his back seat, then vacated the car again - at speed. That one was proven - I mean, it would have been a little difficult to deny the presence of the newborn fawn - so maybe mine would have been plausible. 

    

This was going to be a different kind of pit stop when we got to the farm. A few by now completely prideless applications of a wrecking bar to the fender got the passenger door opening again. It also got the fender pried out from under the hood to take the pressure off of the hood release so it worked again. Pride in the appearance of the J2000 and the Cavalier and the Frenzy degenerated into pried in making the hood and passenger door work again in the Sunbird. From pride to pried. How low can you go? A parts J2000 offered up two good sealed beams and a grille insert. After all the other cosmetic damage, what did a missing plastic half of a grille matter? But, hey, I did it regardless because I could. I had to take it out anyway to get the sealed beams out, so might as well put it in with them too. The void in the front of the passenger door produced two whole paper carrier bags full of scraped off deer hair. Deer fur? I guess hair. Like horse hair. That buck must have run off with one heck of a bald spot on one side of him. Kind of a bad time of year for that. He wouldn't be turning that side to the wind for a while; I can tell you that much. Shaved him as clean as a Gillette commercial, and did it in a split second to boot. The content of those bags would have been good forensic evidence for my insurance claim, I suppose. Like, how do you come up with a half a bucket of Bambi booger and two bags of deer dander at the same time? I would have stamped that claim 'Approved'. 

A good hot soapy water scrub of all the thick snot off of the hood and the windshield that the wipers and washer only grossly smeared around, and the 'Buck' Baker pit stop was over and it was back out to finish the run.

If buck booger was greenbacks and deer drool was dollars, that little encounter would have brought me very close to a comfortable retirement. I forgot about all the deer dander. I should be living on the Riviera.

That was the most unique pit stop I ever made on the route. I never had to pry anything other than brake calipers and I never had to scrub anything, period, up until that point. That was the only impromptu body work pit stop I can ever remember.

Welp, now the passenger side pretty well matched the driver's side. A slightly different flavour and spice of demolishment, but about the same distribution of it. It was actually kind of artistic in that regard. Picasso. In my quirky Frenzy-like mind's eye, I can just imagine new age arty-fartsy types regarding its Frankenstein appearance in a gallery, with their fingers on their chin and lips and seemingly knowledgably extolling its various visual virtues as if they were on purpose. You know how actors and actresses talk about their 'good side'? Well, that car no longer had a good side, Period. Or anything even close to it. It was just plain mangled. Warped, twisted, disfigured, gnarled, marred and scarred. Bent, buckled, and blemished. Think of a zit the size of a baseball; that kind of blemished. Like, "She's not really all that pretty." If she was Igor. Or the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

While this car and the Sky High shared the exact same body and profile except for the grille and the taillight panel, that's where the similarities ended, appearance and presentation-wise. The Sky High was refined but reserved, neat, tidy, polite, unassuming, and completely inoffensive; Mr. Rogers on wheels. Could fit in anywhere and be welcome. This... thing... was now none of that, or any version or dilution of it. It was the very absolute polar opposite of it. Joe Dirt. On a bad day. A beat up orphaned wastrel uncouth of a car that was somehow still hanging in there. 

The funny thing is, for how wrecked it looked, it would have passed a safety check anywhere. There was absolutely nothing mechanically wrong with it whatsoever, and it was virtually rust free. 

• Sound suspension and steering and brakes ✓
• Parking brake working ✓
• Good tires ✓
• All lights working ✓
• No cracked or broken glass ✓
• No holes in the body from rust or damage ✓
• No holes in the exhaust ✓
• Windshield wipers and heater working ✓

Fit For The Road ✓

Whether it looked like it or not it was. I'm sure some mechanics would have handed me a safety slip with a sneer on their lips because it was beneath them to pass something so nasty looking but they had to because there was nothing legitimate they could deny. 

Regardless it was so bad I didn't even bother to give it a name it even though it had more character than any route wreck I ever had before it. Or since. 

You wanna believe I swallowed my pride driving that car anywhere, even in the black dark. The darker and stormier the night the more grateful I was. The driver's side was rashed, and the passenger side was bashed. But, put through the ringer and dinger as it was it still ran and drove just dandy. You want a getaway car that can take it for your upcoming bank robbery? Look no further than a Sunbird or J2000, baby! Oh - wait - it has to be really fast too. Scratch that. You're never going to make it in a Sunbird or J2000. You'd have a better chance on a donkey with tin cans tied to its tail. Better make it a Camaro or a Charger. Not that I have any aspirations of being a bank robber. Yet. 

*LEGAL DISCLAIMER* I, Daniel Stephen John Bowes, Esquire (self-proclaimed), am not suggesting anyone of any walk consider, take up, or employ, bank robbery as a career choice, income supplement, gifting option, or hobby. 

The things ya gotta take into account when you say anything or especially put it into print these days. I tell ya...

Anyway, as I was saying, that heap still ran and drove perfectly. Just flawlessly. I almost resented it for that for the continual embarrassment of being seen driving it. Almost. The mail must go through. Or the newspapers, that is. Swaller yer pride an' git'r'dun, fella. Buck up. *ahem* That's the stuff. 

In the summer it would have been fine; take it on the route but drive my beautiful cream and tan '85 Firebird SE for personal use. But, I wouldn't drive the Firebird in the winter, so wherever I went in the winter in that bashed up Sunbird it branded me a bum. I was used to my Firebird turning heads. It was one gorgeous set of wheels, even by sports car standards. I was not, however, prepared for the way this thing turned heads. I could feel their thoughts burning into me as they turned to watch me make my way by;

• "Is it illegal to drive a car that ugly?"
• "That must be a hit and run driver!" 
• "I wouldn't be caught dead driving a piece of crap like that!"
• "That must be a guy from Canada's Worst Drivers!" 
• "How come I don't hear sirens?"
• "I thought welfare bums had more pride than that..."
• "Where's a cop when you really need one?"
• "How did he get that thing down off the heap at the junkyard?"
• "Did that thing fall out of an airplane?"
• "They must be shooting a movie in town!"

Yadda yadda yadda... 

If that stupid buck hadn't demolished the passenger side to such apocalyptic completion, the people on the sidewalk would have seen a perfectly passable, ignorable car of no particular import drive by, blending into the masses, and would have never been privy to the state the driver's side was in. Buuut... 

Thankfully, for how terrible it looked on the outside, it was really nice inside with thick, dark blue velvet-y upholstery. Ironically it might have been nicer inside than the vehicles of some people looking down on it. Don't judge a book by its cover. It wasn't maybe quite as nice as the Sky High or the Frenzy because they were, after all, Buicks and Oldsmobiles, but it was definitely nicer than the Cavalier, and the Cavalier was as clean as a whistle on the outside. Maybe on the level of the original J2000 or just slightly plusher, but without the sporty print of its seats and door panels. It was downright Uncle Buck shameful on the outside, but comfy on the inside, and that's what really mattered, I 'spose. No, we're talkin' 'bout bottom dollar paper delivery here; functional is what really mattered. And its heater was the best of any to this point; I don't know why. But it really made driving around with a window down more bearable when it was minus 20 and a crosswind. 

You know how an embarrassing situation sometimes just refuses to let go of you? Like you relive it more than you ever want to? That was the case with that car. It looked like something the worst loser in a 1990's down and outer movie would drive. Then the engine let go. The bottom end went out. Not so reliable after all. It was the only J Car I had where the engine actually mechanically failed other than head gaskets in the Frenzy. Any of the cars in the field, including parts cars I bought, would start and run if you boosted them. Even the OHC's with a blown head gasket or blown turbo in the case of a parts Sunbird GT still ran. Not this one. It started to knock loudly one morning and that was it. 

Well, no it wasn't. Guess what? Nothing was available at the time in my preferred J Body line of cars. And I needed a car. Bad. What I wouldn't have done for an automatic power window hatchback... Because it still drove perfectly otherwise, I rolled my eyes and we pulled the engine out of another J2000 in the pasture and installed it in the buck bashed body of that one. Sometimes you just have to swallow what precious little shred there may be left of your pride and dignity and be practical and keep going. So my bashmobile lived on. 

At least the half bucket of buck booger wasn't permanent.