| Subject: My first car... |
Author:
Martyn Muller
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Date Posted: 05:23:19 04/18/05 Mon
As a foreign student I did my internship to do my final assignment for polytechnic ME at a company in Costa Mesa, CA in 1997. Totally new in the USA, far far far away from home. I was with two other student from the Netherlands and we shared an apartment. The first two weeks we were looking for a car and quickly found out about the Auto Trader. Meanwhile we did our shopping by foot, regretting to answer 'paper', hauling big paper bags with groceries along the sidewalk and through dirt where the sidewalks ended (how weird was that to us). As we were not used to those big ol' American cars in Europe, we decided to go for a big old American car. We saw plenty as we travelled by bus to meeting points after phone calls we made from a public phone. I guess our budget made us see a lot of dents, rust, smoke, oil, broken glass and worn out tires. We finally met with a very nice person who sold his 77 Cadillc Sedan DeVille. He drove up from, I believe, Dana Point and we made the deal at a 7/11. Only $1100. We got ourselves a lot of car for that money. Though, we also found out that this Cadillac was more of an 'Old Men's car' so we came across a bit cheesy in it. So I ordered Custom License plates saying CHEASY. As we came from #1 cheese country Holland, the car was light tan kinda cheese colored and we had to drive it easy on down the road. I waxed and polished it and cleaned it out. It used a lot of oil and it wouldn't go faster than 75 mph. It didn't even make it to receive it's license plates, as it was totalled two weeks after we bought it. We were standing in line for traffic light when a lady in a Dodge Caravan blacked out and drove into the back of our Cadillac with 40 mph. And even damaging two cars in front of us. With the rear all bent down to the ground it looked like a big banana. The insurance gave us $1800 for the car and I found exactly the same Cadillac within two weeks. Same year, same color. From an old guy in Huntington Beach. This light tan colored 77 Sedan DeVille did get the license plates CHEASY... and it took us from LA to San Diego, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Big Bear and Las Vegas during our half year stay. I was planning to ship this car to Holland, but my budget did not allow it back then. We lent it out to a french student who forgot to put oil in it, ending up along the freeway. She sold it somewhere in Orange County, but we never received the money. I kept one license plate, but the other one is was still on the car. Anyone seen it?
I lost my heart to Cadillac ever since and I owned 4 more Cadillacs after that. Two I lost. I bought them 1 1/2 after the accident, when the law suit finally settled for a lousy amount. I bought a dark green 70 Eldorado and an apple red 64 Coupe DeVille. A friend of mine was suppost to drive 'em to the shipping company, but never did. They got towed away and sold after being wrongly parked for too long, without me knowing. When I came to AZ for flight academy I bought another 70 Eldorado in Stockton, CA and drove it all the way down to Tucson, AZ. That one I shipped to Holland after my half year stay and I still have it.
Martyn Muller
The Netherlands
Ease on down the road...
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