Re: IML: Imperial love / hate relationship

["Tom Scott" <shelbyguy@xxxxxxx>]

Hugh,
I feel your pain with small garages.  My wife and I decided to relocate 
(retire?) to Myrtle Beach, SC.  We went down last April to do some house 
hunting but I quickly became disappointed with the 19' garages which were 
common.  Upon arrival at each of the 50 or so houses we looked at, the first 
stop was the garage and a quick measurement to see in the Imperial would fit 
in.  Only found a few and they were either ridiculously priced or not 
acceptable to the boss for some reason or another.  Finally decided to 
build.  Garge is 25x25 and has a 10 foot ceiling....lift maybe.  My queen 
will fit in with a few feet to spare.  My friends think I'm crazy building a 
house to fit around a car...I know you guys understand.
Tom
60 Crown 4dr Southampton
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hugh, 58 Imperial" <imperial58@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 2:12 PM
Subject: IML: Imperial love / hate relationship


> In the vein of Laurie's recent contribution, let me just say that bringing 
> "my" 58 into the family was never a deal breaker but it has caused some 
> intense emotional responses along the way.  First thing worth saying is 
> the car does not belong to me.  It is owned by a museum.  I used to be the 
> chairman of the board and am now it's manager, part-time, badly paid but 
> loving it.  I fell for the 58 hard.  After a long time working on it at 
> the museum, it became runnable enough to bring it home, which at that time 
> was an apartment.  I never wanted to own a house, but my wife did, and my 
> way in was a garage for the 58.  I turned down several house because the 
> car would not fit into the garage or the entrance was too awkward. 
> Anyhoo, soon enough we found a place when the car could squeeze in with 
> inches to spare on each side, and almost none fore and aft.  The funny 
> thing is that the house and the car are contemporary to each other and all 
> cars were pretty big back then but there you have it.
>
> My daughter, now 13, loved the car from the get go, especially being 
> picked from school in it.  I'd let her sit on the arm rest in the middle 
> of the back seat with a wee strap to keep her in place.  Twas she who 
> named it Mrs. Blueberry.  My best compliment on the name came from a real 
> head turner female member of my local Mopar club who said it took a real 
> man to have the guts to call his car Mrs. Blueberry and introduce it as 
> such to anyone and everyone.  I hadn't thought of it that way until then 
> but was happy to be given the idea and the ego stroke.  However, my wide 
> hated the car, completely and resolutely.  She referred to it as my girl 
> friend.  When people phoned she'd say, "Oh, he's under his girl friend, 
> let me get him for you."  My boss called once and that took more than a 
> little explaining.
>
> Anyhoo, things changed when she started riding in it.  Folks would go nuts 
> as we drove along.  Hooting, hollering, waving, big thumbs up, honking, 
> the whole tilt.  Funnily enough, I hardly noticed.  I've been in so many 
> parades and other events over the last fifteen years, I just don't see it 
> anymore. But my wife loved the attention.  She waves back and does the 
> whole happy owner thing.  The fact that spending money on the car counts 
> as a donation to a registered charity and gets us tax breaks doesn't hurt 
> either.  Now she wants me to get the car painted so it won't be so 
> embarrassing to be seen with it.  From pull back to push forward.  I'll 
> take it.
>
> Another sweet response came when my parents came to stay.  My father hated 
> the car.  It represented to him, the stolid Englishman, the worst excesses 
> of Americana.  Loud, large, and a waste of the earth's precious and scarce 
> resources.  Not my mother though, she was happier than my daughter.  Sat 
> there in the back seat doing the royal wave like she was born to it.  She 
> thought the time I spent polishing a newly acquired set of 67/68 hub caps, 
> which go so well with the 58's grill, if you happen to have 15 inch wheels 
> on your 58 and not the original 14s, was total madness.  She said she 
> wished I'd spent so much time on my studies.  Now the drop-out has written 
> and had published one book and is working on another.  I'm desperate to 
> get the Imperial onto the cover.  Time and money, as ever, are the 
> problems.  And so it goes.
>
> Hugh
>
>
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