I OWNED MY FIRST CAR for only a few months. It was a 10-year-old 1965 Ford Galaxie four-door with nothing overly exciting under the hood. But I was 17 and the car was all mine. Until one day when I invited the McVetty sisters to share the front bench seat. Being interested in one of them, Nancy, I let her take a turn behind the wheel. She was 15 and—not having previous driving experience—proceeded to steer it over a curb, rough terrain, and onto someone’s front lawn. The excursion mangled the front suspension and, without money for repairs, I sadly waved goodbye to the Ford as it was towed away.
The incident left me without a car until my senior year of college, when my dad suggested I use some of my student loan money to buy a car. Was that even legal? Well, if my law-abiding dad said it was okay, who was I to argue? So, off we went to various dealer lots, only to find an assortment of dull, practical cars. Then we
