During my formative years, my parents owned a 1971 Dodge Demon. It was the family hand-me-down car that I
called the "Dentmobile" because just about everyone managed to put a
dent in it at one time or another. My
grandfather, who bought the car new. My
aunt who learned to drive on it. My
mother who drove it every day for nine years.
And once I side swiped it with a trailer I was pulling behind a riding
lawnmower.
There was nothing
special or fancy about the Demon. Except
for an automatic transmission, it was as basic as basic transportation
gets. School buses and U-haul trucks are
more lavishly equipped. The Demon didn't
just have rubber floor mats, it had rubber on the floor in place of carpet. Heat and ventilation were abstract
theories--there were vent boxes below the dash opened for fresh air, but they
let in other things like leaves and water. The heater had two speeds, "Low"
and "Hi". Both settings were
equally feeble and blew as much air as a hamster through a straw.
The Demon had one
redeeming quality--stalwart dependability.
Powered by a 198 cubic inch Slant 6 engine, it always started on
the second try, coughing and settling into a lumpy, agrarian idle.
One cold January, my aunt and uncle
visited from Phoenix. The temperature
dropped below zero the day they were supposed to leave, and their rental car failed to start. My
parents offered to take them to the airport in my dad's Oldsmobile
Cutlass. But it too failed to
start. Only the Demon, sitting at the
bottom of the driveway under fresh snow, dormant since before Christmas,
started. On the second try.
When I was in high
school, my parents gave me the choice of the Cutlass or the Demon. I chose the Cutlass because it had bucket
seats and the Olds 350 Rocket engine.
But I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had taken the
Demon. It probably would have
needed less care and feeding. The
Cutlass was a thirsty beast with gas mileage measurable in feet per gallon. It also racked up a daunting list of repairs,
requiring just about everything, including a transmission rebuild. Adding it up, car payments on a new Cutlass
would have been cheaper.
In the early 1990s I
happened upon the Demon again in midtown KC.
It was the same car, rustier than ever, its blue paint faded like acid washed denim jeans. It sported all the same dents, plus some new ones, and still had the bumper sticker my family added that said, "Mom knows best, buckle up."
Twenty years later,
I still think about that Demon. It was a simple car, one with only one objective: providing basic, dependable transportation. That idea seems quaint
and old fashioned today. In an era where the cheapest new cars come standard with air conditioning and power windows, the idea of rubber floor mats and vent boxes
seems as antiquated as hand cranks and magnetos. There probably will never be a market
for a car that basic in the U.S again.
Even so, I'd like to think that Demon is still out there somewhere, coughing
to life on the second try and ambling down the road.
