IF A man compares cars to women, and some do, he will note that there is something to love in each of them.

My loves have included cars that were true, honest and decent creatures like Voivos and carly Datsun 510s. J also had an affair with a sleek, sultry Jaguar. She was expensive to keep but the very sight of her steamed men’s glasses.

The Austins, frightfully British, were frigid. You could get a chill in an Austin even in warm weather.

An exception was a convertible coupe called the Austin Atlantic. Atlantics were jolly creatures who enjoyed a romp. I once cohabited

with three of them simultaneously.

But for every man there is a first time. She is unforgettable and, because first, in a way un- matchable.

TL lost my virginity to a 1926 Model T Ford which had been sit- ting on blocks in a garage fora few years.

It is not true that Henry Ford said people would have a Model T any color they liked as long as it was black. This one was olive green, in a bilious way. (On the other hand, it is true that when Henry was asked why his cars cost $100 more in Canada than in the U.S., $400 instead of $300, he an- swered ‘‘Because the Canadians will pay it.’’)

My second hand Model T cost me $15. There being no time payment plans then, I saved up the money from my Toronto Weekly Star paper route.

I had not learned to drive at this time and had no licence to

try. But in the "30s governments took little interest in such matters. Law was not supposed to concern itself with trivialities, as it now does.

A friend and I pushed the T out of the barn and onto a country road where [| cranked it to life without breaking a wrist. I raced around to the driver’s seat and leapt in behind the wheel before she left without me. She might as well have, as we went right into a ditch anyway.

We pushed her out and hit a fence on the other side of the road. No damage was done. Model Ts did not bruise easily.

After a while, she didn’t ramble off into the rhubarb any more and was content to stay more or less centred, even on corners.

My adrenalin level went down. I unpeeled one sticky hand from the steering wheel and dangled it out the window, as I had seen men of the world doing.

After learning one-handed steer- ing, 1 graduated to working the windshield swipe, which was hand-operated, and doing sudden stops which was accomplished by jamming her into reverse gear.

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PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

{ became indifferent to barking dogs, which outran us on short distances, and it seemed no time at all until I was as good a driver as | was to get to be for a year or so.

Friday, August 10, 1990 - North Shore News ~ 9

izzy and the loss of virginity

In memory, I compare that first day of driving with my first bed- ding of a girl, an event that oc- curred in the sand dunes not far from that very road. I think J was more at case with the car. f fumbled, but not as much.

Her charms — no, silly, the car’s, not the girl’s — abide with me to this day. So do her faults. And sometimes it’s hard to tell which was which.

The gearshift was called planetary. By pulling on the handbrake you were supposed to be able to put the car into neutral.

Model Ts were never neutral, about anything. While you crank- ed, Lizzie would edge forward against your shoulder, nuzzling you like an old horse looking for sugar in your pocket.

The carburetor was equipped with an adjustable needle valve which you could crank down so fine that the car ran on almost nothing but air, the engine head running hotter than the hinges on the gates of hell.

Economy was important in the Thirties. Gasoline was getting up toward two bits a gallon. We made gas go even further by mix- ing it with kerosene, which came cheaper.

A friend named Billy Kuhn owned a more adventurous Model T which was fitted which a Rexall axle, guaranteed to produce twice the fun.

Billy used to drive his car off a ramp in the barnyard so that all four wheels left the ground and passengers sometimes fell out. But he was one of those exceptional! people. He could also tie grocery store string around his arm and break it by flexing his bicep. It’s hard. Try it some time.

Lizzie and [ went through the late ’30s with me hanging both feet out the window while driving, a sophistication only possible in cars with hand throttles. Then came Mr. Hitler, the son of a bitch, and he parted us.

I will never forget her.

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