the fun wagon

i told you i would post up pics of my friend todd's next car, the fun wagon. i don't think that was it's real name, though we called it that. it was a 1977 ford pinto "sport" wagon. it had cool stripes on it (that today would be called completely, utterly, hopelessly gay, go figure) and little portholes in the back of the wagon part and neat rally wheels.

it was a pinto, which was partly based on the mustang II of the time. it came with the same cologne-built 2.8 v6, so it could get out of it's own way. we thought it was, ahem, "fast", but that was another time so we can be excused for that silly talk. it had a floor-shift automatic and in typical todd fashion, a killer stereo. i didn't know a whit about stereo's then, and still don't, but it sounded great when cranking out sammy hagar or the soundtrack from fasttimes, or the odd joan jett or billy squire song. alice cooper was never my favorite, but todd loved that dude and there was always some alice cooper available upon request.

the fun wagon drove us to the ends of the earth, and got pretty good gas milage, unlike the big 351 in the torino. we worried much less about gas and a lot more about where to go or hang out. and, of course, you could see us a mile away, given that the fun wagon was, well, unique.

i'm not sure i could recall the interior of many of the cars i have owned. there are certain aspects of them, yes. but i could pick out the interior and dash of the fun wagon like i sat in it yesterday. certain cars just do that for you. i can even remember how it sounded when it started up and when todd "got on it!" i also remember it always had the bad ring and pinion whine that so many fords of the time were noted for. funny that i would remember that, being 20+ years ago.

it's no surprise that america has a love affair with cars. they really just "fit" in with time periods in are lives and are synonymous with them. when i think of my late teen years, i think of the fun wagon.