Sooo, one day in 1975 my sister and I went to the Oldsmobile dealership and we both walked off of the parking lot brand new owners of 1975 Olds Cutlass Supreme's (we actually just signed the papers on that day and had to come back later in the week to pick up the cars). It was my very first car and I didn't even have my permanent driver's license yet! I had my temps becaus up 'til then I took the bus everywhere I went. I was 21 years old and a either a slow starter or just plain too cheap to buy a car hahahaha My sister's Cutlass was a nice light blue while I bought this beautiful metallic forest green Olds Cutlass Supreme - the pinstripes were added on later, they weren't original to the car. Shortly after buying it the car got a name: Shaughnessy. That was the first and only time any of my cars were given a name.
Unfortunately it was the '70s and buying an American made car was kind of a crap shoot. My sister ended up with a lemon! It lasted only one year and she traded it in for a Buick. And ya know what? Yup, she got another lemon! Good grief. My Cutlass on the other hand was a wonderful car: small block 8-cyl engine, no air conditiong, padded Landau roof. IMHO this was the pinnacle of body design for the Cutlass series which had been a top seller for Oldsmobile for quite a few years. One of the reasons I chose it was that my Uncle Mark had one and I loved it!
I made mention of wanderlust in a previous post and it was this car that helped me satisfy that urge. Let's see if I can do a quick rundown of some of my travel highlights.
Starting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
Multiple trips forth-&-back to Shawano,WI
Green Bay, WI
Several trips travelling the perimeter of Michigan's Upper Peninsula
Gurnee, IL
Dubuque, IA
Anniston, AL (via Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennesee, Alabama and back home)
Milwaukee to my first air base in southern California (via Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona - that's a story all by itself!!)
Starting from California:
Multiple trips around SoCal including Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Universal Studios, San Diego, Death Valley, Joshua Tree National Monument
Colorado (to Denver, Golden, Garden of The Gods, exploring the Rockies a bit) and back
Getting orders to Germany and driving cross country from SoCal (via Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, home to Milwaukee for a couple of weeks, then onward to Illionois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland - Washington D.C., then to the port at New Jersey to drop the car off for shipping to Germany) also another story!
Germany:
Picking up the car at Bremerhaven and driving back down to Zweibrücken Air Base.
Multiple trips to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and of course the Westerwald where Bettina hails from. We never made it to The Netherlands or East Germany back in the days before the fall of The Wall. American G.I.'s liked to drive to Berlin and tour East Berlin which was still under Communist control, but Bettina was frightened of going there so we never went.
The end: This car did admirably considering it had a small engine. Driving the Alps under those condions (as well as the Rockies and Appalachians for that matter) was a challenge, but doable. I know from experience driving the Autobahn that Shaughnessy couldn't go faster that 115mph :-) But by 1991 it was no longer just Bettina and I. We had a growing family and an aging vehicle which couldn't accomodate long trips anymore. I bought a 1991 Plymouth Voyager mini-van to replace the Olds. When Zweibrücken closed I struck a deal with one of the SSgt's I worked with. We would drive Shaughnessy to Rhein-Main AB and park it in the terminal parking lot. I would sign over the title to him, leave it in the glove compartment, and he could pick it up from the Rhein-Main (I gave him a set of keys off course). It had 195,000 miles on it!
To this day I regret letting Shaughnessy go - I should've had it shipped to the States but...
Enjoy! Opa Fritz
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