A 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera was the last automobile my father owned. I helped him buy it. I also helped him buy his second to last car he ever owned that being a 1986 Buick LeSabre. He swore that car would be his last but I rolled my eyes less when we bought the Ciera because his health was deteriorating. Much like a parent knows when their kids are ill, as we get older, we develop a keen sense that our parents are not well.
Buying "that last car" for an aging parent is difficult. In my case the process made even more difficult because my relationship with my father was challenging at best and at times extremely difficult. There were a couple of times I didn't speak to the man for a couple of years on end. He was not an easy man to get along with so my working with his royal crankiness was an act of absolute selflessness. I did so simply because I felt it the right thing to do. You somehow manage to put aside all differences when God deals you a certain card or two.
When he somehow, someway fried the transmission on the LeSabre he was faced with a $2500 repair bill on a car that was worth $250. What's more he had thrown a rod on the usually indestructible GM 3.8 liter V-6 engine. Combined with the broken tranny, Dear Old Dad was looking at more than 5 grand in repair work. I didn't ask questions. I just took the car to the scrap yard and collected $50 cash from the junk man as a down payment on dad's next victim. That being a black Cutlass Ciera coupe I found for less than $2000. It had power steering, brakes, windows and most importantly, the optional 2.8 liter V-6 instead of the awful "Iron Duke" 4 cylinder. Dad was delighted when I gave him the keys to it. You'd swear he'd won the lottery. He grabbed the keys from me, jumped in, threw his "old man fedora" in the back seat and peeled out. He thought the car a rocket.
GM popped out these cars like movie theaters pop popcorn. Gazillons (slight exaggeration) of them between 1982 and 1996. There's a reason GM made so many of these (the Chevrolet Celebrity, Buick Century and Pontiac 6000 are virtually the same car); these are very decent cars. I wouldn't have steered my father in the direction of one if I thought it not. This particularly clean specimen looks to be a 1990 vintage. Not a spec of rust on her and she's a coupe just like my father's last car. Dad's was black.
When my father passed away shortly after the birth of my first son my brothers and I had the ardusous task of cleaning out our child home. Dad saved everything. I mean, every. Thing. I never thought much of it other than that I thought he was lazy. Perhaps. Or nostalgic. The house wasn't as bad as what you would see on an episode of hoarders but it was chock full of 'momentos'. It took us two and half days and two dumpsters to get it all out.
Out in the garage, which was a seperate building from the rest of the house, was the Cutlass Ciera. In the back seat of the car sat my dad's hat. Right then and there I wished that I had some poignant father-son memory to reflect on at that moment. All I could think of was how happy he was the day he got that car.
I told my brother's I'd take care of selling the car and we'd split the money.
I kept the Fedora.
