My Five Black Cars

This was my first car, the one in which I learned how to drive. It was passed on to me by my dad in 1963. It had an in-line six-cylinder engine and was solid as a rock. The photo might have been taken during a Far Rockaway snowstorm. Note the split front windshield.

This was “my” first car, purchased in the fall of 1965, when I was a senior in college. It had a 327 cubic inch V-8, a red interior, and a Hurst 3-speed shifter on the floor. It was styled in the “coke bottle” manner that was very popular then. Its big brother, the GTO, was the creation of John DeLorean.

My new wife Wini helped pay this one off, as we were married the following year. This car was sold when we moved to Switzerland in 1968. So up to this point I had owned nothing but black cars.

Some would come to call this my “mid-life crisis car,” although I maintain that I never had any such thing. It’s just that I got to the point of wanting a nice, shiny black car again and could finally justify it in the family budget. Yeah, I was 38 at the time, but that had nothing to do with it. Our boys thought it was cool.

I really did enjoy this car. It was an older Alfa body style with a new aluminum V-6, 195 hp and 205 ft-lbs of torque, and a perfect 50/50 weight distribution. The DeDion rear suspension made for great handling. Mine had a tan leather interior and less fancy wheels than the one in the picture. The designer was Giorgio Giugiaro, one of the best in Italy. We gave up on this beauty when the upkeep overwhelmed us. This is the only vehicle I have actually gotten airborne.

James Bond drove a grey GTV-6 in the 1983 movie Octopussy.

Things come full circle, I guess. Roughly 40 years after my first car, I came back to Chrysler Corporation and another black beauty. This time we went for the highway cruiser, something we could rumble down the freeway in, feeling nice and secure with lots of sheet metal around us. This one had a 345 hp V-8 and handled well for a big car. It is the first of the black cars to have an automatic transmission.

I chose this photo because it shows off the blackness very well. Turns out there are not a lot of stock photos of this car in black, so this one was kind of hard to find. The styling is somewhat dramatic, and in a lot of ways it harks back to the original four-door sedan of my youth.

The only thing I didn't like was driving it through Oakland and seeing how the "gangstas" pimped it out. That was some major desecration.

So after five years and about 60,000 miles, I decided it was that time again.

We found the proverbial "creampuff" in nearby Seaside. It was a model sitting on the lot for almost three years, with only 260 miles on it. The dealership owner had purchased it for himself and then had second thoughts, so it was very lightly used as a demonstrator.

Vital statistics: 400 hp supercharged V-8, six speed transmission, independent air suspension, and every possible accessory you can imagine. I've always admired Jags for their combination of luxury and performance, but was concerned about reliability. The Ford acquisition fixed most of that; we'll have to see how TATA continues with the brand. By the way, this was the last year Jaguar made this body style, which I prefer to the newer models.

So that’s it folks. In between, I’ve owned a Peugeot, a Citroën, a Ford, a Plymouth, a Mitsubishi, and a Mazda, none of them black. My wife has driven a Mazda, a Honda, a Mitsubishi, a Toyota, and two Volvos. None of her cars were black. She likes “visible” cars.

I think the way to make a black car more visible is to put some lovely chrome trim on it.