When I was growing up I loved cars. I assume it was because my dad loved cars, and when he spoke about them, he did so with enthusiasm and excitement.
I had pictures of 2 corvettes up on my walls before Stevie Nicks joined them. A late 50's in red trim and a classic coke bottle shape in yellow.
After spending my summers in the Riverland picking fruit, I saved enough money to buy a 1600cc Celica in bright yellow. It wasn't the Corvette I dreamed of, but at my price point I needed a little imagination, and the girl I drove around in it made up for everything it could have lacked.
I loved that car, but as time passes priorities change. So, one day it was gone, and replaced with a car you could get that pram in and out of. I keep the girl. I don't regret it, you move on, but the door of my youth was closed.
Many years passed, I still collected pictures of Corvettes, but the pictures of Stevie had been long replaced by a smarter, prettier, stronger woman. And one day, I'm not really sure how, a consensus of genius or madness (hard to tell apart) led to that couple buying an unseen and un-driven car from thousands of miles away with money they didn't have. I said she was a keeper.
As I write this, I can hear the car being unloaded from the truck at the bottom of the hill, as the truck couldn't deliver the car to the house. The guy who drove it up to the house asked if we wanted him to drive it around some more just to make sure it was 'all good'. We politely thanked him and said, no.
And there it was - a time capsule of our youth, unspoilt by the years, with all the yet unseen changes that come with age.
It took my dad 6 months of daily work to ultimately get the car passed through regency. I hope that it took him as far back as it did me.
