Ode to summer car shows and the jalopies of years past

by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI

The thundering roar of machines from yesteryear, either muscle cars, or Harleys or Indians, rumbling down your street in tandem, makes one thing clear. The classic car show season is here.

Some will say “great.” “Maybe the Knight Rider will show up.” And the Knight Rider will show up. Much to the glee of onlookers, and groans from real car enthusiasts.

But while an all-black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with that red swooshing light on the front may bring out nostalgia in a random Jewel-Osco parking lot on the Northwest Side; it will bring out the same nostalgia at a car show in the middle of Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side.

I like car shows, because you can really get a taste of the community. Everyone, and their mother is at these things. Neighbors we like, neighbors you don’t like, people you’ve seen around the neighborhood, families with kids, all the beautiful dogs, the teenagers, the drunks, the party people, and of course, the cars and the motorcycles.

I’m a lifelong Northwest Sider, but now I live on the Southwest Side. The pandemic had something to do with it. But I’ve noticed a stark difference between cars that show up North, and the ones on the South.

You can see many muscle cars on the Northwest Side like Chevelles, Novas, the Dodge Chargers, cars from the 1940s, Jay Leno style “steam engines,” the Ghostbuster car, or the Bluesmobile, minus Jake and Elwood.

But have you seen the low-riders on the South Side, complete with the Virgin Mary and Mexican flags, Azteca art, and some deep beats pounding through the neighborhood?

It’s an interesting comparison, Northwest Side vs. Southwest Side. Up North, most people have a Cubs hat on and shorts and sandals. People care how perfect their lawn is. Many drink Miller Lites, talk about the problems of the country, politics, economics, property values, divorces, alimony payments, birthday parties. People smoke weed. The hardcore bring the whiskey. Everyone is ready to fight in the street.

On the Southwest Side, most people have a White Sox hat on, black T-shirts, and big beards. And usually big plastic glasses, just seeping in a Mexican culture that somewhat doesn’t exist up North. Food trucks serve tacos, lots of kids want some ice cream. They drink Bud Lite up there. People smoke weed. You can probably get into a fight here as well.

The thing that brings both sides together is that everyone celebrates their best cars at these neighborhood shows, drinking alcohol or perhaps smoking pot in public, cops don’t seem to care, they are helping after all, and usually making time and a half on the weekend.

But nobody ever talks about bad cars. The ones they would rather forget.The beaters.

Men often have a different relationship with their cars. It’s a lifelong love affair that begins during youth and carries over throughout their entire life.

Some like to tool around in a 1940 Ford on the weekend if they are rich. Some love their muscle cars because they remind them of a different era. It’s usually the 1970s, complete with rock ‘n’ roll, and a screw-all attitude, and a belief that somehow, we will get back to this era again. We won’t.

From youth to old age, that relationship with vehicles changes, and switches. Needs change. Tastes change. Financial  fortitude changes. I like this one, not that one. I crashed this one. I sold that one.

So here’s an ode to the ones that don’t make it to the car show.

No Studebakers here. No Camaros. No Novas. No Hemis. No 78s, no 68s, not even an old school Toyota, or your dad’s Dodge Dakota. 

We all remember that beater we had in high school when we first got the license to drive.

I got mine after enduring hours in those hot 1970s driving simulators at Prosser High School. You know the ones. A black steering wheel and trying not to run over pedestrians wearing bell bottoms. And then practicing around cones in some Dodge Shadow in that unpaved Prosser parking lot. Seems like we probably needed an off-road vehicle back then to learn how to drive. Money in the 90s in Chicago Public Schools went to the top and not the bottom.

Just like now. Some things don’t change or go out of style.

And we remember the cars of our 20s, and then 30s, and our 40s. And we seek the dream car in our 50s. Most of us never get it. Guys at the classic car shows do. And they can’t wait to tell you about it. Go listen to them. Those crazy drunks.  They have a story. “I love Buicks” “This is a Hemi.” “I got married because of this car.” “She left me, and all I wanted was the car.”

In the spirit of cars, I wanted to run down a few models that I have driven throughout my life and their significance or lack thereof. Don’t worry, everybody will get a chance to chime in online later, or on Facebook. And post pictures of their cars. This is what community journalism is all about. Reader feedback. Engagement. We might run a few good ones in the newspaper.

The first car I drove was a Fiat 126P

It was the Communism car in Poland. “Maluch” or “small one” as they called it. And it was small. Americans don’t understand how small this car was. Polish know. It was 10 feet long, 4.5 feet wide, and 4.4 feet tall. It weighed about 1,300 thousand pounds, according to the reports.

A strong man or a couple of drunk Polish fellas could lift that thing off the ground during a wedding. Or out in the field, to drag it into a garage. I’ve seen just regular people flip it over in the back yard to work on it.

I was young, in grammar school in Krakow, and by that point most kids had driven a “maluch.” My dad hated it. But also, he loved it, because it was the only available vehicle that you could buy “new” in Poland before the fall of Communism in the 1980s. That was his prized possession. An orange/yellow Fiat 126P. I always thought the P stood for “Polak.” He called the “maluch” a “wheelchair” or “wózek inwalidzki.”

He let me sit on his lap and drive several times, until I was able to figure out how it worked. My dad would later do his best to buy much larger vehicles. But that’s another story. Skoda, anyone?

Festiva

 My first American car was a Ford Festiva, but don’t get excited because it wasn’t exactly a “panty dropper.” That’s the one my parents bought for literally $300 from a neighbor. It was the late 90s, I was in high school, and I needed something to drive a few blocks to Steinmetz High School. This was around the time Adam Sandler’s “Ode to My Car” song came out. Look it up, it’s a funny song. I can’t print it in a family newspaper.

The Festiva was such a clown car that I remember driving and doing wide turns in front of the school and then jumping on top of the roof screaming obscenities. It was punk rock. It had a radio. It was before the Internet. Nobody cared what you drove if you drove a vehicle. I know the gearheads drove around in Mustangs. But people who were into the X-Files or Jay and Silent Bob either had no car, or had no choice. How else can you get to the Fireside Bowl on a Friday night?

Volare

 But by senior year, I saw a car on sale parked on Belmont by the former Holy Cross High School. It cost $900. It was a 1976 Plymouth Volare, with racing tires. My mom wrote the check to the guy, and there were pot roaches still in the ashtray. What a great car. I only had it for a few months before I crashed it. Call it youth. Call it growing pains. Call it bad decisions.

But the Volare was a thing of beauty. Cream white, with a burgundy trim, black Michelin racing tires, and just a big boat of a car. It took so much gas for a V8 that it only had four markings on the gas tank. Full, half full, quarter full, empty. Seems fitting, considering how much gas is now.

The Volare lived in its 8-cylinder glory on the Northwest Side. For a while. Much to the detriment of neighbors. It had racing tires. It almost makes you think about what the kids are doing these days doing donuts in the middle of intersections. That won’t get you laid.

For me it was the end cap of my high school years. The car died somewhere in a junk yard in Schiller Park after I crashed ita  few blocks from my house. Mom wasn’t happy. I had a talking to.

So much for “rock ‘n’ roll.”

Ford Tempo

 So I graduated to a Ford Tempo, such a college beater, that I can’t believe that it got me through the things that it did.

Seriously, this Ford had seen some things. A victim of a robbery, other girlfriends, Columbia College, my first job here at Nadig Newspapers, blood, sweat, tears, and above all, reporting.

I’ve covered so many assignments in my green Tempo, with a “Press” sticker proudly displayed on my windshield like it was nobody’s business. Out of college, and a general assignment reporter, you do what you can to make a living, and to get the story. And make rent. Even a co-worker drove a Tempo. Or a version of it, a Mercury Topaz. Same thing. Same problems.

It was during an assignment on deadline day the Tempo ate it.

I pleaded with the editor at the time that the car was broken and I couldn’t do the story, a tire rod probably.

And like every editor whose blood has run ice cold over the years he said “sounds like you need a mechanic.” Click. He proceeded to fill the newspaper with some other story.

My next car was a Suzuki

You heard that right. It was a Suzuki Aerio. A buddy of mine once saw it and said in disbelief “You got a Suzuki??”

Some now defunct Polish dealership on Milwaukee Avenue in Jefferson Park made the deal. I loved the Suzuki Aerio wagon.

Suzuki eventually pulled out of the American market because of poor sales. But I have lived those years. And for a while, I flew under the Suzuki flag proudly. I didn’t even care they sold motorcycles.

The Zuk took me to places that I never dreamed of. It helped me move. It got me a new girlfriend. And another one. And an apartment. Things were looking good.

And then the Aerio was totaled. It was heartbreaking. Some drunk dude in a black Silverado decided it was over for the Aerio on Irving Park Road and Cumberland. Right by Lonnie’s Pizza.

Some lady in a dealership in Glenview, who looked like the bad guy from “Poltergeist II: The Other Side,” sold me the replacement.

 Suzuki Kizashi.

 The Kizashi was the car I loved the most. It had pep, nothing was ever wrong with it for years. It had a Japanese battery, complete with Japanese writing on it, the car ran fine. It had a good pick up, and I drove it for years, through my stint living on the North Side and  through trips down to the Smoky Mountains, it was the best car.

It was so rare at the time, that it eventually became too rare to maintain. Nobody had the parts.

I eventually got a Ford Fusion. It is a fleet car by any standard. I’m fine with it.

No matter the car, the point is that it tells your story. And you can’t see that at the car show. All you can see is the Knight Rider again. Can we stop it with the Knight Rider?

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