A Storied Olds 442

The “if this car could talk” cliché always raises interesting imaginary possibilities, but Ed Gillette’s Oldsmobile would likely have more to say than most.

“I bought it in June and we went on vacation a year later in June,” said Gillette, who’s owned the 1986 Olds 442 since it was new. “I’d been in the Navy out of Newport, Rhode Island, so I told my wife, ‘let’s go to Rhode Island. I’ll show you where the Navy was.’ We had our youngest daughter with us...

“I showed them the Navy base, but there was nothing left, and the guy at the motel where we were staying? I saw tattoos all over his arm and I said, ‘Obviously, you had something to do with the Navy.’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ and he told me, ‘When Nixon was in, that’s when they closed this base and if you want to see a destroyer, take your family over to Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. They’ve got the U.S.S. , they’ve got a destroyer like the one you were on, they’ve got some submarines,’ so we went over.”