Taken in1982

Taken in 1982, that's me off to the right.

My handy body work in 1982

In May of 1970 my parents bought a brand new 1970 Chevelle from Nickey Chevrolet, in Chicago, Illinois.  It was their first new car.  They had rented a few different 1970 models, such as the AMC Javelin and Volkswagen Beetle to get an idea of what they wanted.  It was the TV ads that sold them on the Chevelle.  My Mom really liked an Astro Blue Chevelle sitting on the dealership showroom floor,  but it had a cloth interior, and seeing I was a toddler at the time, vinyl seats seemed to be a better choice.  Nickey Chevrolet didn't have any Astro Blue Chevelles with a vinyl interior.  So they finalized on a Fathom Blue Chevelle with a black vinyl interior.  Over the years the Chevelle took us on road trips across the US, it was a daily driver for our one car family until 1979.  My parents bought a conversion van that we used for long hauls.  The Chevelle had seen it's fair share of daily use and brutal Chicago winters.  In 1980, at the age of 11 my Mom took me to a large parking lot and let me drive.  I got hooked on cars that were bigger than the Hot wheels I had normally driven.   After being rear ended while parked in front of our house, clipped by a red light runner and loosing the bottom 6 inches to rust, the Chevelle had begun it's decline.  When the red light runner clipped the front end, my Mom suggested we head to the Victory Auto Wreckers (a somewhat famous salvage yard that would tow away your car and pay you $50)  to find a headlight extension, chrome headlights bezels and new head lights.  Needless to say I found myself in heaven.  There were about 8 to 10 1970 Chevelles scattered all over the yard.  My younger sister and I were having a field day sitting in all the cars and pretending to drive them.  Needless to say, while Mom was away, tossing an occasional rock here or there to some glass was exciting too.  It was the first time I had acknowledged a SS, there was a Super Sport in another part of the yard protected by a fence and my sister and I found our way into the drivers seat.  Growing up with the sweep dash and a bench, I thought the SS was a "freak car."  Remember I was only about 12 at the time.  Mom found a donor front end and the process began to get what we needed.  Once home, I helped my Mom sand the fender extension down and paint it as best we could.  After it dried we reassembled the front end, I was pretty proud of myself.  Why I had "put" the Chevelle back together.  This unfortunately started my fondness for Chevelles.  Since I could "sand and paint" I could fix the dents and rust too.  So at 12, I began body work on the Chevelle, to me rust removal was only remove what you can see and hide the rest behind bondo.  Looked pretty good to a 12 year old.  As my interest continued with the Chevelle, the Chevelle began to fade.  In 1983 with 136,000 miles and 50 miles per quart she died, never to be started again.  My parents had decided it was time to find a replacement.  I was devastated as she was a part of our family and like our family dog we had put to sleep that same year, I didn't want to give the Chevelle up.  Knowing nothing about the engine I tried to figure out what was wrong, my Dad handed me some tools and the Service Manuals he had collected and off I went.  Of course I made it worse, my efforts didn’t help.  My Mom posted an ad at the local grocery store seeing I made a fit about not calling Victory Auto Wreckers to come get her.  Someone called and offered $50, he came with a tow rope and pulled her away.  I bugged my Mom every other week to take me by her new home.  And every other week we found her sitting in the same place.  After a few months, the Chevelle was gone never to be seen again.  The phone number disconnected and the guy gone.  I never knew what happened to our Chevelle, as I got older and was able to drive I found myself occasionally salvage yard thinking I might happen to see the old family Chevelle.