THE FAMILY CAR has been a staple of the American family for decades. My brother, Tim, and I have created a new definition for it. Cars pass between us like sisters swap blouses.

Family Car No. 1

It started with his 1976 Honda CVCC, which I bought for $100. It had a little four-cylinder, four on the floor and a choke. It's the last car I saw that had a choke.

I bought the car in 1983, the summer I got my driver's license. It was a mostly reliable car, and about six months earlier, I had helped him replace the window in the hatchback. He got a replacement window from the local junk yard. I later put in a new clutch. A disrupted seam on the Parkway East in Pittsburgh left two slabs of concrete misaligned vertically. The car hit it so many times that it knocked the axle out of the transmission.

The Honda ran pretty smoothly until the engine mounts tore away from the body. I bolted them back down with strap metal, but those tore too. I traded it in on a spanking new Mazda B2000 pickup. I ran the Honda as hard as I could on the way to the dealer. I think I got $100 on the trade-in. I later traded the Mazda for a one-year old 1984 SVO Mustang, which I still own.

Family Cars No. 2 and 3

The year Lin, Georgia and I went to Hong Kong, I gave him a four-door Ford LTD Crown Victoria. It was big, bad and gray. It was very much like driving around in your living room. When I handed him the keys and title, I was fairly certain that I had seen the last of it.

Two and a half years later, I got laid off. So I came back to the U.S. without a job or a car. It was time to get back the Crown Vic. Tim couldn't do much about my lost job, but it felt comforting to be behind the wheel of a car again. I had some ideas, regarding the lost job, but it involved gunfire and a long prison sentence. I decided I liked homemade food and not sleeping with my back against the wall or a shank between my ribs, so it was just a fleeting thought.

Ironically, the Crown Vic originally came from my wife's brother-in-law who had gotten it from a friend. I think we still owe someone some money for that car. They shouldn't be holding their breath.

Family Car No. 4

We drove the Crown Vic for another couple of years, picking up my parents' Chrysler Fifth Avenue. At first, my mom gave me the car, but then asked me to pay a portion of the expenses from my father's funeral. Another family car. In early 2004, the brakes failed on the Crown Vic. Kaching!

Family Car No. 5

In 2004, I gave the Crown Vic to my brother a second time. He and his ex-wife, Tina, were throwing a graduation party for their daughter, Meghan. The Crown Vic arrived in mostly deplorable condition. Parts of the bumper were hanging off. Several power windows no longer powered, and it hadn't been washed in months, maybe years.

Family Car No. 6

Sometime around 2005, my brother mentioned that he might be selling his Mercury Grand Marquis and was I interested. We were down to just one car, so hell, yes, I was interested. In January, we drove up to get the car. On the way back, the brakes went out on the Chrysler. Didn't this just happen to the Crown Vic? Kaching.

The Big Merc has been pretty good since replacing the cracked windshield and the brakes. Kaching! Kaching! Then in the summer, the nylon intake manifold cracked. A BIG KACHING on that one to the tune of $1,300. Ford later offered to make repairs, but I missed the cutoff date. That figures.

Family Car No. 7

In the latest transaction and back to the beginning of this story, Tim and his friend, Nick, dropped by to pick up the Chrysler after Tim's truck had been stolen in Toledo, Ohio. It later turned up in Kentucky, burned to a crisp. Actually, I don't know how badly burned, but Tim told me it was a total loss.

Tim and Nick were making a big deal of the fact that I hadn't changed the oil, checked the transmission fluid, radiator fluid, battery levels, blah, blah, blah. Whatever guys. I don't care. If I did, all of that stuff would have been up to snuff. Guilt level: Zero.

I figured the condition of the Crown Vic would have had them prepared for this.

My parents would have been highly embarrassed by the cracked windshield ... another cracked windshield. In the trunk was an emergency road kit that my dad had put together plus a small Styrofoam cooler with a few things in it. My mom always complained that she lost most of her trunk space to "all that junk."

When some rain came in the driver-side window one time, my dad had attached a piece of plastic over the controls for the windows and door locks using some surgical tape. I didn't have the heart to remove it. I told Tim why it was there. He immediately reached over, ripped the plastic from the door and stuffed it into his pocket. Obviously, this moment had been lost on him.

Tim slammed the trunk, and I immediately thought of my dad, who often said, "Just press the trunk down until it clicks. The car does the rest." I was going to say something, but based on the plastic incident, I saw it as another futile exercise in sentimentality.

In an odd way, I sort of miss that car. It was the last automotive connection I had to my dad. It's odd that I would say that, because my dad wasn't a car guy. He didn't drive that much, except to and from work and a very, very occasional trip to the store.

My last good memory of my parents together was at a car wash in McKeesport. After running it through the car wash, I spent a few minutes vacuuming the interior. They seemed truly grateful that I had done that. Why wouldn't I? I would have done anything for them.

 
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