In the dead of night, my mother gave my father’s used 1983 Ford LTD to my older brother. He drove to Austin in it and went to Texas. My father was furious for the next 4 years. My brother came back to town to attend medical school and gave the car back to my father since he’d bought a used Corolla.
That LTD personified Haggard’s lamentation about a Ford and a Chevy no longer lasting 10 years like they should. The fuel gauge didn’t work, the upholstery was hanging down and had to be put behind your head to see, the radio was broken, no A/C, and rolling the windows down meant you’d be driving through rain, sleet or snow right in your face, because they weren’t coming back up without an act of God intervening. Bald tires, like really bald, and, the chef’s kiss, the paint would come off on clothes or hands if you touched the outside of the vehicle.
For whatever reason, my father decided we needed to take it to Earl Scheib. Forget not having an A/C in Houston summers or us having to push the vehicle through intersections when it ran out of gas randomly. No, this thing needed a new $50 paint job. Earl Scheib’s people refused us service.
After that, my father drove it to the plant for work until the car literally lost a major part of its engine pulling into our parking space. The Red Sled sat in that spot until it was towed away, years after my parents moved out of the complex. RIP Red Sled.