First Car Memories

Happy holidays everyone!  I hope everyone made it to and from Thanksgiving destinations safely and enjoyed time with families and friends.

Well, it's been 17 months since my last post, but today I was inspired and figured I'd get my thoughts down on a subject that's close to heart.  Currently, Chevrolet is running an ad campaign entitled "Chevy Runs Deep," where they're showing scenarios where people are choosing to save or recalling their old Chevys as fond memories of their childhood or first adult car.

Their latest commercial is a story of two brothers who search for and find their father's 1965 Impala SS, a car he had sold to finance his sons' education.  For five years, Jared and Derek Younger searched for their father's Impala across the country, always one or two steps behind it changing hands and being sold and relocated.

Their final US contact, an older man in Maine, informed them that he had sold the car a month beforehand to someone based in Canada, and they had brought it across the border.  In a last-ditch effort, Jared searched online and found the car for sale in Montreal.  The outcome is depicted below, the 1-minute TV commercial.

I would be remiss if I didn't admit the wave of emotion that hits me every time I watch this commercial.  Watching the father's reaction to seeing his car for the first time in 30 years is enough to bring any grown person to fighting back the inevitable tears.  It hits home for me because I think about conversations I've had with my brother about restoring my father's 66 Corvair in the past.

The 5-minute full documentary type film tells the story behind the motivation for the search.  In short, both brothers grew up to be successful because of the sacrifices their parents had made to put them through school.  They wanted to give him something to repay their father, and what better way than to return the prized car that he had given up for them.  This is my motivation behind the Corvair restoration.  My father has held onto it since his days at SU.  It is the only car he held onto through his college career, as he constantly rebuilt and sold cars to pay tuition.

The amount that my father (and mother) did to put us through college and now help us post-college is incredible, and a level of support I hope to give my children one day.

What this commercial also does is bring up the question - what is it about a first car that is so memorable?  Is it the initial freedom that it brings?  Is it the right of passage that a license and car represents?  The memories I have of my first car are so vivid that I wonder why I ever sold it.  I also think about my second and now third car, and I don't have nearly as many memories in those.  I remember bringing my Blazer home like it was yesterday.  My first big road trip was to Rochester for a recruiting trip at SUNY Brockport.  I had my first kiss leaned up against it.  I can still remember how easy it was to do oil changes and all of the "upgrades" I put on it.

Now I can still remember working on my first Jeep, and some of the trips made in that, but no where near as many as that first Blazer.  I guess there are many reasons to remember the first car, but there will always the next one as well.  All that we can hope is that the memories made in the new ones are as good as the memories made in the first.