Ride Engineered

The 1980 Mercury Zephyr Aaron and I drove during high school has become something of a legend. The red vinyl seats, the oxidized paint, the leaky power stearing, the push pin ceiling, and the custom carborator gave the Zephyr a personality of its own. But it wasn't merely an old run down jalopy, which it certainly was. It was the vehicle that continues to drive many of our funniest memories. For example, the Zephyr caught on fire twice, once during a smog check. The Zephyr, old as it was, had a first rate stereo system via which we listened to Paul and Phil in the morning and got traffic reports from Commander Bill. The Zephyr carried the best car pool in school.

The beautiful thing about the car was that it never broke down. It leaked every fluid - water, oil, power stearing, brake, and transmission, but it never let us down. It seemed only fitting that it was taken away by a stranger in exchange for an easter basket full of worthless collectibles. I still hope that the Zephyr continues to cruise the roads looking for more adventures.

JoLee and I decided to name our cat Zephyr. Partially because JoLee wanted to name it after a greek god. Zephyr was the Greek god of the wind. Of course, I was partial to the name, and can only hope that the cat lives up to it (except for the leaky part). So far, so good. The cat is loud, rather hard to control, and appears to be bigger than it really is. We are getting used to the cat, just as we had to get used to the car. The only thing left to do is to get her ride engineered. This could prove difficult seeing how we don't really know what this means. One thing is seems clear, our cat will be as reliable and (hopefully) as maintence free as the car. We just hope we don't have to paint it blue some day.

The Zephyr was "Ride Engineered". I'm sure this was a great selling point for the car. I mean, who wouldn't want a car that was "Ride Engineered"?

I really wish we had kept the hood ornament. It would be nice to have a souvenier of our first car. I always thought this hood ornament looked a little like the end of a double barrel shotgun.

Our car was light blue, not a crazy mix of colors on this one. However, our car did produce it's fair share of flames and smoke. I know Dad didn't think this was very funny at the time, but it seemed like an especially fitting behavior for the car. No harm was done, I think it just had to burn off some fluids. At least it never exploded like a Ford Pinto.

The Zephyr name lives on. You can buy this one right now for $30,000. Apperantly, the guys at Ford/Lincoln/Mercury think that it's a name that should live on. JoLee and I agree.