My very first car out of high school was a Renault Le Car. It was an oxidized orange color, but basically looked like the picture below. It died at every stop sign for a while until my dad turned up the idling, which kept it from passing smog. Let's see, it was hot-wired, so when all my college buddies jumped in to go with me I had to reach for the wires under the dash to start it, and later the wires were connected to a button to push. Often times it also had to be push-started. Now imagine trying to impress your friends while trying to start a clutch car that had to be hot-wired and push-started at the same time. Let's just say that my friends were true friends and not fair-weather friends.
My brother David called it the "orange tomato" and was just a bit embarrassed of it. I think he just liked to tease me.
Another car I had was a little white car (a Dodge Omni). Thankfully, this car did not die at every stop, nor was it hot-wired or needed to be push started. No, this car just didn't want the driver's side door to work. For the longest time I had to roll down my window to open the door to get out of the car. When it was on its last leg, or wheel, it finally didn't let me open the door at all. I had to use the passenger's door to get in and out of my car.
Somehow I still managed to make it through college! Although I am not sure how it happened. Never did it fail that my car would break down on finals week. Never. So, almost every semester during finals week I had to drive my dad to work in Clovis (30 miles), then drive to Reedley College (20 miles), drive either home (30 miles) or back to Clovis and wait several hours for my dad to get off work, and then drive back home (30 miles) while still studying for finals.
My friend Sherrie summed it up quite well. She told me, "What do you expect when you drive a Phillips Car?
