No Particular Place to Go: Four-wheeled memories

(Ray Brandes retraces his route through automobiles of his youth.)

Perhaps no single man-made artifact has captured the imagination of and helped to define the culture of the American teenager more than the automobile. Once a toy possessed only by the super-rich, in the post-World War Two economic boom the car emerged as the premiere symbol of American youth. A car provided speed, mobility, freedom — and a generous backseat — all of which allowed young people to experiment with adulthood.

And boy, do we Americans love our cars. We name them, write songs about them, and spend hours taking apart and reassembling them. As teenagers we race them, cruise in them and even spend hours parked in them.

My first car, purchased in 1980 for the even-then unbelievable price of $300, was a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans T-37 Sport. While in a few short years it would be revered as a muscle car, at the time it was about as uncool a ride as a young hipster might imagine, despite Gene Hackman’s use of the car in his high-speed chase in the movie “The French Connection.” It did, however, have four good tires and a strong six-cylinder engine.

My next car, a 1965 cherry-red Volkswagen Bug, will remain my all time favorite. The smell of a VW interior never fails to bring me back to the mid-’80s: Tell-Tale Hearts gigs at Studio 517, bonfires at Law Street beach, and hundreds of long trips to Los Angeles and back with no radio.

Fab gear! Glide rides! More Che Underground memories of speakers ‘n’ wheels

What memories do you have of your first car? What role did the automobile play in your own youth?
— Ray Brandes

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