Karl Kelman's Vehicles
My 1966 International Harvester Travelall was in my family, since 1966, although I only took possession of it in it's final agonies. It was never a reliable car - prone to an apparently unrepairable tendency to vapor lock. Many stories of my youth began with "The Travelall died, and then...." Yes, it looks a little like a modern SUV, but don't let that fool you. This was designed as a work vehicle by someone who obviously took the work ethic seriously, and believed that pain and suffering was the only route to Heaven. In the configuration we owned, with no power steering and bias-ply tires, a simple drive to the grocery was the exercise equivalent of bench-pressing 225 pounds 57 times. Sucked gas too! And, it was amazingly difficult to operate, with a manual choke (yes, I realize you don't know what that is - it's ok, only WWI biplanes and Binders had them) manual throttle, 12 forward speeds, three separate gas tanks, a clutch pedal that required 400 lbs of force to depress (I'd get a sore left knee after driving it in traffic for any length of time), and locking 4WD hubs that were a real pain. A 1965 Mack semi with no synchro and no air brakes would have been easier to drive. It was fairly good in the snow, however. With narrow tires and four-wheel drive, it could dig down to the bottom of any pile of snow to find traction. It nearly killed me and my father once, on a trip to Denver, when I was driving with a learner's permit. The beast began to leak Carbon Monoxide into the cabin. My driving got worse and worse, but my father seem serenely detached from our escalating number of near-misses, run red lights, and other gross driving failures. When we finally arrived at our destination, my dad got out of the car and fell over onto the sidewalk. I just stood and stared, too impaired to take any action. When it's generator (that's right, it wasn't technically sophisticated enough to have an alternator) died, I inherited the beast (1978?), which I drove in-town, using a plug-in battery charger at my house to recharge the battery between trips. Couldn't go very far (and way shorter at night using the lights), it was always best park in position for a downhill rolling jump start, where you could coast up to another parked car and do a clandestine jump-start (most cars in those days didn't have locking hoods). Finally drove the Binder to the junkyard in 1979 or 1980 - the gas crisis (8 mpg in town) proved to be the last straw for a vehicle that needed all three gas tanks. Best Travelall story I ever heard doesn't involve my Travelall, but rather a newer automatic Travelall owned by my friend Byron Winn's family. A real piece of junk, like all Binders, it required full force on any control surface to change direction or momentum. Want to go forward? Push the gas pedal to the floor, and you'll very gradually accelerate. Want to stop? Start really early, and stand on the brake pedal. Byron learned to drive on that vehicle, so he adapted to the radical force the Binder required. When he took Driver's Ed, the practice car was a new, full-size Pontiac with a big V-8. Not realizing that real cars have actual power, he confidently took the wheel of the Pontiac with the instructor with the passenger seat, placed the shifter in reverse in the diagonal parking space, and put pedal to the floor. Instead of creeping out of space, the powerful Pontiac lurched backwards with tires smoking, to the sound of a stream of profanity from Coach Cates, the Driver's Ed teacher. Other vehicles I, or my family, have owned: Circa 1970-2: Honda 50 Mini-Bike $185 ($125 sale) Circa 1972-3: Kawasaki 75 Mini-Bike $295 ($185 sale) Circa 1973-4: Kawasaki 120 Dirt Bike $200 m/l ($100 m/l sale) Circa 1975: 1963 Chrysler 300 $250 ($150 sale) Circa 1977: 1972 VW Super Beetle $600 ($650 sale) Circa 1977: 1971 Saab (Saab Story) $1200 ($1250 sale) Circa 1977: 1966 Travelall Free ($50 m/l sale) Circa 1978-84: Honda Trail 90 $125 ($100 sale) Circa 1979: 1960s Lincoln Continental $125 or Free ($50 m/l sale) Circa 1979-80: Honda 500-4 $900 m/l ($700 m/l sale) Circa 1979: 1969 Chevy Bel Air $600 ($275 sale) Circa 1981-90: 1980 Ford Courier (Home, Sweet Home) $5000 ($300 sale) Circa 1985-86: Honda Silver Wing $800 m/l ($600 sale m/l) Circa 1985-92: 1969 Chevy Camper Utility Box Alaskan Camper $2000 m/l ($1000 sale m/l) Exactly 1990-93: 1985 Chevy Celebrity (BEN) $2800 ($2800 m/l sale) Exactly 1990-00: 1988 Chevy Celebrity (AYN) $3700 ($900 sale) Circa 1993-98: 1988 Subaru Justy (Little Red) $2600 ($800 m/l sale) Circa 1998: 1988 Toyota Camry (Camy) $2000 ($1100 sale) Circa 2000-1: 2000 Toyota Camry V-6 (Otto) $2900 ($2800 sale) Circa 2001-3: 1993 Toyota Corolla (Dex) $2000 ($2000 m/l sale) Exactly 2002: 1996 Oldsmobile (Dino) $4200 ($1500 value) Exactly 2002: 2000 Toyota Corolla (Cedrick) $7000 ($4000 value) Exactly 2007: 2002 Toyota Corolla (Lancelot) $6800 ($6500 value) If you don't mind driving really ugly, you can drive really cheap! |