Brigid has a great post up on cars and travel HERE, which brought back a lot of memories…
Back in the day, we bought/traded/swiped deployment cars…
These ‘things’ were only cars in the ‘nominal’ meaning of the word, and a passing resemblance to their automotive heritage…
Some of the more infamous ones I personally remember are the $25 Guam Bomb, bought from an outgoing crew. This thing was a late 50’s Chrysler something or other, all four fenders flapping in the breeze, and pieces of plywood nailed together to cover the missing back floorboards (and provide a ‘little’ stability to the seat cushion)… The trunk was totally rusted out, no spare, and the lock was long gone. The trunk lid was tied down with safety wire to the back bumper and never used, but it ran (kinda sorta), and you could pile 8 people in it as long as folks braced their feed on the frame rails…
Up in Misawa one year we got a ’73 Honda Civic for $50. It was a first year car, I think 50hp, and rusted all to hell and gone… And we were there on a winter deployment… Max of four people (especially in parkas), and I’m not sure the heater EVER worked! We rolled this particular car on a road trip to Aomori to see the castle, and we just got out, flipped it back over and continued on. I do remember all four side windows were broken out, but we had parkas…
Switching coasts, we did a Kef deployment, and the price went up, we paid $100 for an old 164 Volvo, all the side windows gone, and again a winter deployment, BUT they included a broom to sweep the car out with! 🙂 We drove that POS all over the place, out to the Blue Lagoon and even down to Reykjavik the one weekend we had off… Great car, other than being a ‘tad’ drafty at speed…
Bermuda didn’t have crew cars, but they had motorcycles/scooters/bikes… Suffice to say there were some ‘interesting’ days with those… Carrying golf clubs on a 100cc Kawasaki is an experience is all I’m gonna say! And the rides back from the Swizzle Inn sometimes turned into walking and pushing the bike because you couldn’t maintain your balance (and didn’t want to get a ticket for drunk driving), much less have the Doc scrub the coral out of the road rash with a wire brush!!!
Italy was another set of crew cars, and ‘quite’ the lesson learned about driving without rules… We picked up a little Fiat Abarth, for ummm… Nothing I think… The two bases were split by about 10 miles so it made quiet a few trips between the two, both on the main highway (SCARY), and the back roads…
I do remember the XO got hit by a Fiat Cinquecento that was passing a car that was passing a truck that was passing a bus that was passing a car, on a bridge! The XO was up against the guard rail and slamming on brakes when he got hit (but walked away with no injuries). AND the Polizia tried to find him at fault!!!
Sadly today most bases ban crew cars and crews are NOT allowed to drive or even rent cars in a most places (safety and all that crap)… So the folks never get a chance to get out and actually interact with the locals (buying spare parts, getting repairs made, having interesting conversations with the police)…
But there was one ‘good’ car that got borrowed! Utapao, back in the day, the AF wouldn’t give the OIC a vehicle. One got ‘liberated’ from the motor pool, painted Navy Gray and acquired a ‘stock number’ that was, I believe, the OIC’s serial number… Last trip through there it was still in use and still being serviced by the AF motor pool… 🙂
The Cinquecento – that was a small car.
We had G.I. cars. They changed hands about every eighteen months. They had to be insured and pass a safety inspection. The usual transaction price was $50 to $200.They tended to be less than pristine.
The Germans were aghast. They took such pride in their vehicles, even to the point of watching oil changes. Then they would drive like they were on the way to a demolition derby.
When I arrived Hickam AFB as the new shop chief, my assistant informed me the rust bucket Ford Falcon in the parking lot had belonged to the previous shop chief and the one before him. The assistant was holding it for me if I wanted to buy it (I arrived a few weeks after my predecessor left). He’d paid for it and would keep it if I didn’t want it, but the deal was I had first dibs. I bought it. 2 of 4 windows inop, patches of paint held the rust together, would overheat if attempting the Pali Highway, trunk had an odor of cat urine. When I left I sold it to my replacement for a dollar. Thankfully there was no inspection system.
It saddens me to see such rites of passage and morale going by the wayside. I guess that makes me an Old Fart but if so I’ll accept it. I miss stuff like this.
BP- Yep, four of us picked one up and moved it…
WSF- Good point, in Italy however, not so much pride…
Bob- LOL, yeah I forgot about the Hawaii bombs, but they were there too!
Six- True! The new PC and play by the rules Military is NOT our military!!!
Bermuda, Moped, lighting flash of memory.
When I was on the Willy R, DD-714 William R. Rush, we had steamed on a show the flag mission to Bermuda and were tied up to a pier at the US Navy Base. Of course we rented mopeds because we were young and indestructible and in the Navy. I had the duty on the second day in port and I remember I was taking in the sunshine ondeck and watching the action on the pier. Said action was a recreation of the chariot races of Ben Hur with the Navy playing the part of Charlton Heston, and the mopeds standing in for the chariots. The XO, LCDR ******* came out on the pier and said “Want to race for the pinks?” Well, game on XO. The race lasted about one half of one lap and the immediate result was the XO veering off course and off the pier and he and the moped making a nice landing in the water. Oh yes and the bounce off of the fuel barge prior to the water landing did not help him or the moped. A second of stunned silence ensued and then QM3 Sutter, (if I remember right) with the instincts and skill of a retriever, dove into the water and rescued the XO. The bosuns mates rescued the moped and the XO was off to sickbay.
I had not thought about that incident for a lot of years.
Could be I am mixing up when Sutter rescued another XO’s child who had fallen off the pier in Newport Rhode Island. Sutter had amazing handwriting, It looked like a machine had printed it and I do recall that Sutter had won one of the prizes for the best New Years log entry in poetry form.
John in Philly
John- As I sit here chuckling, that’s a great story, and I can ‘see’ that happening… Thanks! 😀
Gosh, this brings back memorys! The 1950 Austin 4 door(not Austin Healey)that 4 of us chipped in and bought for $85. The old sister suffered a fatal breakdown that same day. The base commander decided that in the interest of safety all vehicles with a base sticker had to have seat belts for the front seat, securely bolted to the floorboard. Kinda hard to do when the floorboards are rusted thru! Cars were routinely sold when troops shipped out. We didn’t have our “noses so high in the air”, back then. Hell, I even owned a Renault Dauphine. I came out of the chow hall one day & my buddies had moved the little huzzy up onto the sidewalk! The barracks parking lot could have easily passed for a junk yard. Those were truly the “good old days”. Cars were rented out for a date or a road trip. I could go on, but those that “were there” are smiling!
You just described a Saturday night at the drive-inn in the Ozarks.
Woody- Good one, and I can imagine trying to find parts for an Austin…
CP- LOL…
WWII, somewhere in the Pacific, a “Jeep” with Marine markings suddenly belonged to the Navy. Then the war was over, the ship returned to San Francisco, and there was that dmnd “Jeep”. What to do? The Chief told a lowly seaman to take it to the motorpool, park it, and leave. Which he did. Somebody’s still doing the paperwork.
My Dad always smiled – not that he had anything to do with this [and how they moved that dmnd car from one end of the ship to a quieter corner, painted and numbered it, is another story.] OldeForce
LOL! Good stories. My brother actually had a ’73 Civic that was in slightly better condition than you describe. I’d like to see the look on the guy’s face who bought it from him though. We frankensteined the crap out of that little car.
Olde- ROTF… see, we had ‘tradition’ to follow… 😀
Michael- LOL, he probably never noticed…