I learned to drive by driving a Massy Harris tractor. After taking a driver’s ed class in high school, I went to the county courthouse the day I turned 16 and got my driver’s license. At the time, my parents had a 1951 Oldsmobile Rocket 88.
I did not have a car during my freshman and sophomore years in college, but sometime after I transferred to New Mexico State, I was given a 1951 Ford coupe by my grandfather, George P. DeVinny.
In 1962 I traded the Ford for a green VW bug. Shortly after Linda and I got married, the VW threw a rod just north of Socorro, New Mexico and we had to have the engine rebuilt. Then in 1965 the same thing happened on a trip from Seattle to a meeting in Eugene, Oregon. This time I called Linda in Seattle and she wired the money I needed to get a rebuilt engine installed.
In 1966 we traded the VW for a Chevrolet Chevelle for a trip to a summer workshop in ring theory in Boone, North Carolina. On Thanksgiving weekend in 1967 we were on our way to Montrose when a car coming downhill did a 360 on the icy road and ran into us.
We rode in the wrecker to Morrison, where we bought a used Mercury, which we called the Blue Phantom.
In Montrose we talked with Coky Hartman at Hartman Brothers and traded the Blue Phantom for a VW Squareback. It took a couple of months before the Chevelle was repaired.
Our most interesting car was a Morgan, which we bought with Mike and Lisa Woods as an investment. We sold it a couple of months later and we split the proceeds, all in $100 bills. The Morgan had a wooden frame and would have been fun to keep, but the money looked even better at the time.
In 1976 we bought a Saab 99. On July 31 the Saab dealer sponsored a road rally. Linda kept reading the clues and managed to keep us on the correct route, which included several bridges over the Big Thompson River that were washed out later that night in the Big Thompson flood. Back at the dealership, we were awarded the first prize in the rally.
We weren’t always so lucky. The Saab was a wonderful cold-weather road car, but it tended to overheat in the summer. Once we were in line in Juarez, Mexico, to cross back into El Paso when the Saab overheated badly and we ended up pushing it across the border at the inspection station.
Our next car was a white 9-passenger Ford wagon with a 390 V8 and center-facing rear seats.
When Janet and Brian outgrew the tiny rear seats, we bought a Fort van with four-on-the-floor. I decked it out with four captain’s chairs and an overhead compartment for a CB radio.
When Janet started driving, she joined the car-of-the-month club, some of which we managed to inherit as hand-me-ups, including a Honda CRX, AKA motorized skateboard, and a Toyota 4×4 pickup. Somehow, we never got our hands on her classic red 1967 Ford Mustang.
Our other car was usually a Jeep. Our first was a Jeep Wagoneer with a torsion bar front suspension. We had a second Wagoneer, then a red Jeep Cherokee, which somehow got transferred to Janet, and we bought a white Jeep Cherokee.
We bought a Mercury LN7, which was described at the time by Frank DeMeyer as a “sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
After that we bought a Saturn coupe.
We traded the Saturn for a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix. Eventually, this car went over 200,000 miles Linda and Darel, then Brian, then Sarah.
We bought a 2000 GMC Sierra, which was our primary work vehicle while we built our cabin. We also used it to help us explore some Colorado high country.
After the cabin was built, we traded the Sierra for a 2010 Honda Pilot so that we could carry more people, which we did several times on trips to Lindsborg, kansas, where our granddaughter Sarah was going to school.
In December 2012 we gave the Grand Prix to Brian so that he could let his son, Brendon, drive their Honda Accord. The Gran Prix had over 160,000 miles on it when we gave it to Brian, and the car continued to run great. We bought a new 2013 Honda Accord to replace the Grand Prix.
After the Honda Pilot, we bought a used GMC Canyon Crew Cab.
