I don't tell many people this, but I failed my first driver's test in the fall of 1981. Yup. "Car guy" me failed it hook, line and sinker. And I was mortified. Especially since I had told "the gang" I aced it and I would be driving them "all over the place" in my old man's Cadillac as soon as the confirmation of my glorious passing came in the mail.
To make matters worse, a three-month backlog to reschedule meant the B.M.O.C. life I dreamed of would be significantly shortened. Might as well spend it in detention or worse, on my aging Ross 10-speed like some sophomore. So, I hedged my bets.
Swallowing hard on my enormous sense of self-worth, and really with no other choice since getting into a driver's ed class after school had already started was not possible, I enrolled in a driving school. Twice a week for the three months leading up to my rescheduled road test, a driving instructor would pull up to my house after I got home from school, and we'd go driving. On paper it was pure, unadulterated and unfiltered humiliation bordering on self-mutilation. In reality, it was a most pleasant experience despite the car the driving instructor showed up being a brand spanking new, 1981 Pontiac Phoenix. This junker here looks just like it.
I was not a fan of the all-new-for-1980, boxy and not good looking, front-wheel-drive Chevrolet Citation and its very similar minions introduced in the spring of 1979 as "early" 1980's. At first, however, it seemed I was alone with that sentiment as Chevrolet sold some 811,000 Citations for 1980 making it one of the most successful vehicle introductions in GM history. Legend has it that if factories where able to keep up with demand, they could have surpassed 1 million sold in an elongated 1980 model year. Throw in sales of the similar Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Omega and the Pontiac Phoenix, they most certainly did.
The implosion in sales of what were known internally at GM as the "X-bodies" is the stuff of legend. However, the ultimate failure of the Citation, Omega, Skylark and Phoenix had nothing to do with their appearance and all to do with how terrible an automobile they all were. Contrary to what many might think, looks aren't everything in the car business. After all, the car that inspired the X-bodies, the Volkswagen Rabbit, was certainly no looker but it was well-built, sensible, economical, efficient and affordable. Precisely what Middle-America was looking for in the darkest, deepest throes of what is referred to as the "Malaise Era".
My instructor was a young man who was maybe ten years older than I was at the time. Affable, friendly, supportive and kind, he immediately put me at ease, and I got the feeling that things were going to work out fine for me. Especially after a couple of days instruction where he was impressed with my driving; he felt I may have failed my road test because the evaluator thought I was "too comfortable" behind the wheel. That's funny when I think about that in retrospect; my ability to appear comfortable in situations I was actually uncomfortable in readily apparent at the tender age of seventeen. That Phoenix I drove had an interior identical to this one.
The Phoenix may have had something to do with my coming across as a competent young driver to a qualified, licensed driving instructor. Up to that point, the bulk of my driving had been behind the wheel of my father's oafish 1972 Cadillac Sedan deVille. An oversized, shuddering, phlegmy mess, I actually never felt totally at ease driving it but the diminutive, responsive Phoenix felt like a go-cart in comparison. Dare I say, I thought it fun to drive. In "Driver's Ed" the summer before my senior year, a gaggle of us shared time behind the wheel of a 1976 Plymouth Volare which was a paragon of performance compared to my father's Cadillac.
Looks aside, the Phoenix wasn't perfect. Although it had that "new car smell", it had a mild vibration through it at all times and when parallel parking, if I locked the wheel too hard left or right, the engine would stall. My instructor sheepishly grinning and shrugging simultaneously. Aside from those foibles, it felt "modern", new and given its maneuverable size, was a good car to learn to drive in. I felt as though I could do anything behind the wheel of it except look cool or good. I took my rescheduled road-test in it and passed with flying colors.
In many ways, that Phoenix reminds me of people I've met in life whom some thought despicable but that I never took exception to. That doesn't make those people not despicable, but while I give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not a-holes, they need to prove to me firsthand that they're either scum or saints. Prior to that experience in a GM "X-body", I had heard much about how bad they were, but that Phoenix did alright by me as my driving life began anew...rising from the ashes.
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