Ray Goff doesn’t have his first car or his second
or his thirtieth . . .

Many years ago, I bought Ray this little statue of Garfield the Cat, clutching a mouse in one paw, while holding another mouse with his other paw. The statue’s base is emblazoned with the words, “It’s not the having, it’s the getting.” That describes Ray’s relationships with cars exactly. We’d be filthy rich if he had kept all of his cars to sell in today’s market. Sadly, he had to sell one to buy the next one he wanted. But we had fun driving them. Oh, yes, we did!

Understand this: I am married to a man who felt he had to own — at least briefly — every car he coveted in high school and later. My website has a page “Real Steel Autos” under Posts by Topic which describes many of the cars we have owned and includes the tales that only they can tell. The above paragraph and the photograph provide an introduction to that page at www.jestforgrins.com.

We had a car exactly like Bob’s Studebaker Speedster. About our Speedster: Ray wants you to know that the Speedster was aptly named. The top speed on the speedometer was 160 mph and he says it did every bit of that. Whether Bob has pushed his speedometer that high, I do not know, but I know that Ray did and I admit it only because I’m confident the statute of limitations is up on that offense.

I learned a lot about cars from Ray, but some things I learned from experience. For example, the noise I hear coming from the engine isn’t there until Ray hears it. Also, do you know that cars have the ability to sense estrogen sitting behind the wheel? We owned a 1983 Cadillac Seville that proved they do. The Caddy? We still have that car. I don’t think it’s been driven since 1996 but we have it in case Ray decides to take up car restoration again. In truth, I’m the one who didn’t want to sell that car for a hefty price when we had the opportunity. Pretty silly of me but I really liked the Caddy until it was totaled in a hailstorm.

Anyone else have a car story? Send it to me along with a photo and we’ll use it on this website.

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