As a ravenous consumer of all things 24 Hours of LeMons for the best part of a decade, I have come to develop a particular appreciation for the awful in automobilia. Hundreds of races have brought out of the woodwork all manner of vehicular ideas that were better kept on the drawing room floor, yet somehow made it all the way through to production in some form, enough to end up abandoned in the desert, or in a forest, or in some survivalist compound where a racer can snap it up for an alleged 500 dollars. The "Class A" cars--the Miatas, BMWs, and other cheap, produced-by-the-million sporty cars--that actually have a stone's throw at collecting the most laps in a race, and attempt to do so multiple times a year, might pay the bills at LeMons HQ, but the most nickels are given to the Index of Effluency, awarded to the worst car that managed to do the best.
My favorite things to see in LeMons are horrible engine choices. The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with something overly complex (like, say, a Volvo 960) that swapping in some Malaise-grade downsized engine option, wheezing through a single-barrel carburetor and miles of restrictive smog hardware, can't cure. In fact, it's been shown several times over the course of the series that de-contenting an overly-complex or overly-cheatified vehicle in such a way has actually produced better results for the team involved. Even better, the Malaise Era gifted the world with a plethora of vehicles that offered some of your most
I'm a lifelong Buick V6 fangirl. General Motors installed millions of Buick 231 and 252 V6s (predecessors to the 3800 V6 that did a much better job of powering another couple million full-sized front-drive cars through the end of the 2000s decade) from 1976 through the mid-1980s. Sitting in gas lines and reeling from Nixon Shock and/or stagflation, thrifty-minded Americans found that the extra hundred bucks or so saved by ordering a new two-ton sedan with a 110- or 125-horsepower engine with two fewer cylinders, as opposed to a 150-or-so-horsepower V8, suddenly began to look a lot more appealing. The world got the 231 V6 in the first place because General Motors, looking for a quick, cheap "solution" to the contemporary oil crises, found a 1960s-vintage Fireball V6 (based off the aluminum V8 that would later become more famous as the Rover V8) and installed it into a new Buick sedan. By the middling standards of the day (remember, this is the same time that GM made a 500-cubic-inch V8 rated at 190 horsepower), it worked so well that GM bought back the tooling from AMC and installed it as base equipment across the lineup. It was even the base engine for the 1976 Buick LeSabre, in its final year in grandiose-70s-land-yacht form; imagine a vehicle the length and weight of a new Chevrolet Suburban but with the power output of a base-model 2002 Pontiac Sunfire. Truly, a 1976 Buick LeSabre V6 is the Shitty Car Holy Grail, but it was so execrable (and not to mention that GM "forgot" to advertise it at the time) that I doubt I'll ever find one in this lifetime. However, I try to be an optimist, and if I really buy into certain levels of transgender philosophy, I can just say I'm on a new lifetime, where everyone drives 1976 Buick LeSabre V6s! (Actually, please don't give me that, but I will take one even if for only one chance at 40-pounds-per-horsepower Index of Effluency gold.)
I spend most of my homebound moments with a tab open to various California Craigslist pages. I usually start with price below $2000 (not just looking for "sub-$500" LeMons race candidates, but also for the budgetless LeMons Rally), and sometimes I use search terms like "project", "ran when parked", and "needs work". Occasionally I also go onto salvage-auction sites like the CoPart network, for a more modern, but slightly more dents-and-dings, option, such as a prosperity-theology-preacher-spec Buick Lucerne with a 3800 and a landau roof, or a Mercury Milan with a manual transmission. A couple months ago, I placed a snap $499 bid on a hail-damaged 2011 Saab 9-5, relishing the images of fire and brimstone that would come my way from the Saab Completionists for gutting up the Last Of The Saabs to race in LeMons, but sadly I got beaten out on that one. Old-fashioned ways, like newspaper classifieds, are another good option, although as a relative newcomer to the Los Angeles area I've been wary of following a half-inch-by-half-inch square of vehicle information to some neighborhood where wearing the wrong color is grounds to be hemmed up like Warren G. However, I would ultimately be surprised that I would stumble across my very own slice of malaise without the need for any of these aids.
Its license plates were what drew it to me at first. They were the yellow-on-blue six-character plates, run out by mid-1980 but valid as long as the owners kept them that way, and this one had to be from 1980 because its serial was extremely late in the series (the letters are ZYV, also a combination I saw frequently in my hometown in Louisiana). One of my goals when I moved to California had been to find a vehicle with yellow-on-black, yellow-on-blue, or Sunset plates. Of course, I ended up not getting any of those when I ran across my current daily driver at the massive Toyota dealer in El Monte; it was really hard to argue with a brown-on-brown '91 Cadillac Brougham with the 350 TBI, tow package, and velour seating, even with the lack of Old Car Aesthetic plates (mine had Sesquicentennial plates, which I've since replaced with personalized plates in the new yellow-on-black style: “HOSONO”) and if my salesperson didn't pay the tab for my frappucino at the onsite Starbucks. It's just about the best Los Angeles daily driver I could imagine, in a very romanticized sort of way,
I haven't done much to cultivate a reputation as the Cadillac Girl, but word-of-mouth is word-of-mouth, I guess, when after dropping off one of my regulars for their biweekly flight to Tokyo or wherever, I got an unexpected ride request from a couple of young ladies who wanted me to drive them to Coachella, telling me I came recommended. Now, Coachella is about 130 miles from LAX, but if a $250 ride (the standard app fee plus whatever tip to make it that even amount) all the way out there in the brown velour back seat of a '91 Cadillac is what gets them into the proper mindset, I'll take it. Turn off the A/C, roll down all four windows, and set “White Rabbit” to maximum volume and infinite repeat. Anyway, after a three-hour slog through traffic (the 10 freeway conveniently takes you along the longest possible path across Greater Los Angeles into the sprawl of San Bernardino and Palm Springs), I dropped them off as close to the festival festivities as I could, and then drove all the way through Indio to find a gas station by the freeway so the Cadillac could drink deeply of $4.00/gallon desert unleaded and I could drink deeply of Rockstar. There was the aforementioned yellow-on-blue-plated vehicle, most likely a 1980 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. It had been black but a great deal of its paint had been burned off by the sun or blasted off by sand; the "PALM SPRINGS" on the top half of what was probably a dealer plate frame long snapped to pieces giving the clue that this car had lived here in the desert all its life, and it was now about halfway grey. I gave it a few quick glances as I nosed my own California Cadillac into position alongside a fuel pump, noticing the For Sale sign in the windows, but then what I saw next had me doing a double take...V6 badges.
...V6 badges?!
If you were able to get through my Exposition Session about the wonders of the Buick V6 engine, you read that GM installed it in just about every passenger car it offered, big or small. Toward the end of the Malaise Era, this also included Cadillacs. The 252 V6 was briefly offered as a credit option for the Fleetwood Brougham and Seville models for the first year or two of the 80s. One could call this the nadir of the Malaise Era, where the malaise-option downsized engines made it all the way to a brand once considered the "Standard of the World", but I believe history ultimately cleared the 252 as probably the most reliable engine option available for Cadillacs in the early 80s, at least for the 7 or so people who bought it. I imagine the bluehairs who owned them heard the stories about their friends with V8-6-4 or Oldsmobile Diesel Cadillacs spending more time in the shops than on the road (and ultimately getting Olds 307 or 350 swaps under warranty) and chuckled at the thought of the 200 dollars they saved by getting theirs with the V6, even if they had trouble keeping up with automatic Ford Tempos and Toyota Tercels on freeway grades and their fuel economy was no better than that of the V8s when they actually worked.
After filling up my Cadillac's tank, I checked out the old faded one up close. The For Sale sign on the windshield stated it was indeed a 1980 Fleetwood Brougham V6, in addition, it offered a clean title (the old plates were even still in date, if only for about a month, bonus!), 175000 miles, but failed smog; they were asking $800. I would have to see it in the iron to make sure it was really a V6, but my Shitty Car Fangirl Freakout Level was at about an 11. I decided to text the number immediately, because this is the 21st century and no one calls first. While taking some photos of the old Cadillac for Fangirl Freakout posts on social media later, I received a text back, not from the seller but from an automated system number, telling me that I had in fact attempted to send a text message to a landline telephone. Well, I guessed I knew what kind of seller I would be dealing with. Deciding to give them a call the first chance I had when I got back, I got back into my Cadillac and set the controls for the fading sunset.
I had decided to wait until Monday, mostly to avoid sitting in the parking lot that was every single road in and out of Coachella, but also so I could call this my birthday present to myself (or, as a third possibility, to give the Fangirl Momenting a few days to calm down). What better way to temporarily forget that every day I’m further away from youth than to purchase for myself one of the most punitively slow vehicles of the late Malaise Era and turn it into a rolling chicane for turbo Miatas and LS-swapped E36s at Buttonwillow? I made the call while sitting in the parking lot at work during my lunch hour, after making the waistband of my Bodyline skirt (which is not really intended for six-footers) significantly tighter with a good helping of In-N-Out Burger. I took a deep breath to prepare myself while the phone rang, and rang...and rang...until the friendly robot lady told me to leave a voice message at the tone. Of course, I should have expected this.
“Hi, my name is Brittany, I was calling about the 1980 Cadillac you have for sale at the Circle K in Indio, if you could give me a call or text back when you can, I can be reached at … anytime. I’m interested,” I started in my superbly practiced Telephone Customer Service Voice, unanimously described by my friends as my most feminine tone possible, then decided to add, “...as long as it is still a V6. Thanks, hope you have a great day and I look forward to hearing back from you soon!”
As the call ended and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu started playing through my YouTube Red playlist again, I thought for a second if being specific about how much my specific desire for the V6 to be intact affected my chances of getting it. Sure, finding a 400 and a four-speed out of some old Chevy pickup and dropping it into the Caddy would have been pretty punk rock, but I needed that raspy, unrefined 90-degree V6 noise. The seller didn’t return my call that day, or even first thing the next morning (which was my birthday). The whole time I imagined them scoffing at my voicemail over breakfast in their Other Desert Cities home, as if it was really a valid question that anyone would have kept 252 power in their Cadillac past approximately 1992. (It is also possible that I had entirely forgotten that the sign in the windshield specifically mentioned it was a V6.) It was later that evening, after I had taken a shower and was trying to figure out what tights to wear for a subdued celebration at a little bar not far from work (when you own all 51 We Love Colors colors, this is often the longest part of your daily clothing-selection ritual), that I saw I had a missed call from the seller. There was also a voicemail, which sounded like it was recorded from a flight of stairs above the receiver:
“HI BRITTANY THIS IS RETURNING YOUR CALL YES I DO HAVE THE CADILLAC IT IS A V6? EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS”
I hit the callback button immediately, but just like before, the phone rang and rang until I was again prompted to leave a voice message at the tone. Now I had the archetype of the seller just about nailed down, they were the kind of person who moved to the desert to avoid cold temperatures and people, but grudgingly assigned time each day to assure abandoned loved ones and inquisitive potential Cadillac buyers that they were still alive.
“It’s Brittany calling you back, sorry to miss your call. I am definitely interested in the vehicle, I was wondering if there was a chance you could meet me back at the location one day soon, the best time for me is usually the weekends. Please call me back when you can and let me know, thanks!”
I heard nothing more from the Cadillac seller that night, probably good because I try to avoid making financial decisions while intoxicated. The next day, which I had also taken off work to recover, I woke up around noon and saw I had yet another voicemail from them, with the exact same volume, echo, and tone, telling me that they could be free this weekend and asking if 11 AM Saturday would be a good time. I’m an hour and 45 minutes from Indio on a good day, but I returned his call (again, by voicemail) and said that 11 AM Saturday would be a good time. This was the last I heard from the Cadillac seller, even after sending him another voicemail on Friday asking if everything was still good for our meetup. My Marine officer friend Matt made the drive from Camp Pendleton to see me for my birthday, so I decided to shanghai him into waking up before 9 AM on a Saturday, getting into my Cadillac and driving out to Indio with me, I really didn’t want to go all the way out to the edge of nowhere for a shitty old V6 Cadillac offered for sale by a man I had hitherto spoken through exclusively through voicemail. My usual style, somewhere between “Kyary Pamyu Pamyu backup dancer” and “whatever looks good with really bright tights and Converse”, wouldn’t really work for this instance, so I put on some regular jeans and an Achievement Hunter T-shirt with my least-homosexual pair of Chuck Taylors. Matt dressed like he normally did, like we were instead driving to the yacht club, although a yacht club in the middle of the desert would have been an unusual sighting. I stopped by my bank to withdraw $800 in fifties, of which I kept $500 on my person and gave the rest to Matt to hold onto to produce an illusion that I came with just $500 and intended to leave with either cash or the car. We loaded up with roach-coach tacos, then turned onto the 10 east for Indio, best speed.
The 10 was pretty clear as the morning heated up from light-jacket-and-windows-down weather to air-con weather, we made it to the gas station where the Cadillac was with a few minutes to spare for our meeting. The Cadillac was still there, but no one around that gave the appearance of the person selling it. I parked next to it, then we went in for drinks and bathroom breaks before waiting for the seller. Matt suggested that I call them, but I reminded him that the seller did not have a cell phone and seemed only to return calls once a day. 11 AM came and went, then it was 11:30, and there we were still trying to not look shady in this gas station parking lot. We speculated on what kind of car the seller would drive. I suggested that he would show up in a Fleetwood Brougham or Sedan DeVille much like the one I was here to buy, but with a much more freeway-friendly engine option. Matt was generally bewildered by my inexplicable vehiclular fetishes and interests, and didn’t offer much of an opinion. I coached him to not immediately mention that I planned to use the Cadillac for the 24 Hours of LeMons, concerned that such a mention would cause the seller to change his mind about the sale, as if suddenly this $800 hooptie that failed smog was suddenly a priceless collector’s item deserving of a prime spot at Concours.
Around 11:45 or so, a white 2000s Buick LeSabre, much like the one my grandfather bought new for his 75th birthday, then I bought after he passed away (and had my own LeMons ambitions with before selling it), with “5DRY” plates hopefully humorous to someone besides me, rolled up to us. It stopped hard enough to nosedive slightly, the elderly male driver leaning out of his seat to squint through the passenger window at us, before lurching away like it was a manual car driven by an inexperienced driver. I watched it make a full circle around the building before it came back toward the two Cadillacs.
“That’s him,” I said.
The Buick pulled up to two parking spaces opposite the old Cadillac from us. The seller was a man named Larry, who was similar in appearance and mannerism to a man of the same name I had worked with in my old life in Louisiana. He was retired Navy, started his enlistment with the Forrestal fire and ended it before the Navy could acrimoniously merge his rating with another, then moved to the desert so he would never have to experience snow or freezing temperatures again in his life. He now lived in a retirement community in Indio, and simply did not have the parking space for the Cadillac he had owned since 1992, but had now become a difficult project. He was a little surprised when I told him that I was a former hospital corpsman myself, which I understood, since it’s not every day a six-foot-two lady tells you they spent time handing out Motrin and clean socks to Marines in a past life. I explained that I was transgender.
“Oh! Well, you turned out pretty pretty, didn’t you?” he said, going on to tell me about how a Chief he worked under was known for crossdressing at liberty ports, and reminiscing fondly about the experiences he and his friends had with this Chief.
Not quite sure how to respond to this, I coyly thanked him (quickly turning to Matt with a “well okay then” look), then asked if he knew the exact issue that caused it to fail smog, still playing up the appearance that I was merely a collector of automotive oddity. He went into an impassioned rant about the dubious necessity of smog checks and how difficult it made keeping up with a vastly superior older car, which I again understood; the Bureau of Automotive Repair, in the righteous quest for clean air in the most populous and crowded state in the Union, had as a byproduct antagonized the car enthusiast in general. The real issue could have been any one of things, none of which would have been super important for racing, but a pass would make it a lot easier to update the registration for the LeMons Rally (and even driving it to races). Larry produced the key and attempted to start it, but in the however long it sat at this Circle K parking lot the battery had grown flat. Prepared for this eventuality, I brought a new-ish battery with me (along with various other small parts, cleaners, and tools, just in case), so we popped that in and after a few maximum-effort cranks, the old 252 fired up and the “FUCKING MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?” Juggalo exhaust note instantly lowering the property value of the still-new gas station. Larry took pride in his upkeep of the four-barrel carburetor, but mentioned that the brakes could use some work. The 252 settled into a ticky idle without assistance, so I decided to ask Matt to stay there with my car while Larry and I went for a brief test drive.
The interior had seen just as much abuse from the desert sun as the exterior had. The dashboard cap was cracked in several places and I figured the Mexican blanket was the only thing between me and the bare foam cushion. The brake and coolant warning lights illuminated on the dash. But the column shifter still slammed into “D” with the force of a Freightliner crushing an S-10 against a freeway guardrail, and the old 252 took no offense to being put in a forward gear in this manner, so off we went. It was creaky and grindy, the brakes were lazy and noisy, the throttle was lazy on tip-in and tip-off, which was most fun when trying to stop, and most of what came through the A/C vents was the scent of a very tired engine.
Therefore, it was perfect. We returned to the gas station.
“All right, Mr. Larry--” I started, putting one hand in the pocket with my cash.
“Oh, don’t call me ‘mister’, I worked for a living,” Larry interrupted.
“Okay, Larry, what do you think about $500?”
“Ohh, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted a Corpsman!” Larry turned to Matt. “Never trust a Corpsman!”
“Oh, come on. I can do $500.” I put my other hand in my pocket to indicate I was standing firm.
“$600.”
I stopped, thinking about it for a second. “$550?”
Larry took a moment, tossing his head from side to side and nodding with increasing flamboyance. “Ehhhh, I guess I’ll take it.”
We shook hands, Matt slipped me the extra fifty, and the deal was done...well, in the financial sense anyway. Expecting a tire-kicker, Larry had neglected to bring the title along with him; I gave him my work address and care-of, and told him to send it there. I also had not worked out my logistical plan for this. Sure, I could have put Matt in the old Cadillac (actually, probably put him in mine) and we could have just driven it back to my place, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I trusted it. We decided to put my Cadillac to its first real test of towing mettle by renting a trailer and towing the old one, so we went to the U-Haul renter in Indio. Normally, U-Haul militantly refuses to rent one of its car trailers to anything less than a 4500 diesel duallie, but the clerk here was evidently still not down from several days of washing down cheap mind-altering substances with cheap beer and Monster in tents at Coachella, and thus had no qualms about renting us their largest twin-axle car trailer. We got my new slice of malaise on it with no problems, then steered it onto the 10 west with an eye on the temp gauge on my 1991 Buick Park Avenue gauge cluster and the aftermarket transmission temp gauge I’d added. The old Cadillac bounced and bobbed with the winds and bumps, transmitting its movement through the trailer and into my car. 60 mph was the maximum speed I really felt comfortable driving, thankfully, traffic still wasn’t bad. The coolant temp pushed the far end of the “200” on the gauge on the more severe grades, but overall my ‘91 didn’t have too much issue towing the older version of itself all the way back to L.A. I made a note that I should consider rear airbags or heavier-duty rear suspension for more confidence through the worst of the motions. We made it back to my rented shop space in one piece and no leaks. We pulled the old Cad in, locked it up, returned the trailer, went home for a shower and change, then hit up a dinner spot to unwind and celebrate my pending LeMons domination, and also my birthday.
Gotta say, it was a good day.
