R.I.P. Isabelle

Mooooog35 over at Mental Poo http://midgetmanofsteel.blogspot.com/ inspired me to write today's post about my first car...her name was Isabelle.

First of all I would like to take a random poll to see how many people have named at least their first car (subsequent cars are fine too), and if so what was the name. Please leave this on comments.

Here is Isabelle's name origin from http://www.behindthename.com/nm/i2.php

ISABELLE f
English, French, GermanVariant of ISABEL
ISABEL f
Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, German Most
likely a medieval Spanish form of ELIZABETH, although some
theories state that Isabel actually derives from an old Semitic name meaning
"daughter of BA'AL".

ELIZABETH
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, Biblical
Pronounced:
ee-LIZ-a-beth [key]
('Elisheva') meaning "my God is an oath" or perhaps "my God is abundance".

I think the "my god is abundance" part of the origin is very fitting (before anyone freaks out, not in the literal sense) because, when a person first looked at Isabelle they were probably "my god this things is an abundance."

My first car was a 1983 Buick Regal. There was nothing regal at all about her, she was a real piece of crap. I named her Isabelle. I bought Isabelle in 1994 for $200. My uncle was a mechanic at a local car dealership and I went to visit him, that is when I saw Isabelle for the first time. She was sitting out back with all of the other back row beauties.

Isabelle was about the most hideous color that you could have for a car it was a combination of poop brown and gold(look and the picture above and think about ten times crappier looking). I am pretty sure that some poor deer made it's last trip across the highway in front of Isabelle, because on the drivers side the entire headlight assembly was broken out and the fender was cracked. Instead of making the repairs, the previous owner just decided to add above the bumper mounted fog lights to substitute for the missing headlight. Me being the poor high school student I was, I did not fix it either.

Another issue that poor Isabelle had was that she was loud and proud. What little bit of a muffler she had left was almost non existent. I think that Isabelle could be heard coming from a mile away. I did have to find the money to get this fixed since I got a warning from the police.

Isabelle also had other noise coming from her as well. Being that it was the mid 90's I of course had my $250 stereo in my $200 car (I know, makes a lot of sense, right?) Depending on my mood you could hear anything from Snoop Dog, to Nirvana, to Garth Brooks blasting from Isabelle. Yes it is true kids from the Midwest have identity issues when it comes to music. We are only 3 hours from Chicago so we thought we had to be pseudo gangsta and listen to Snoop Dog. We thought we were cool and hip so we needed to listen to Nirvana. Then we brought it back to reality by listening to Garth Brooks which is who we really should be listening to being that we were in a town of 30,000 in a county of 50,000 (read into this, we were a bunch of hicks).

Isabelle's interior was not very pretty either. The roof liner was falling down, so if I had anyone in the back seat they could not see up front. The previous owner had cigarette burns on the arm rest. I had some friends that were underage smokers so we took it upon ourselves to brand Isabelle. We all burnt our initials into the arm rest with cigarettes. Isabelle had about 10 sets of initials on her arm rest.

There is a quote from the movie and book Christine, "You can't polish a turd". I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you Mr. Stephen King, you can polish a turd. As crappy as Isabelle was, I always made sure to wash her at least once a week and wax her once a month. Oh and yeah the inside was Armor-all ed several times. Hanging from the mirror there was always a pine tree shaped air freshener with the new car smell scent. Right next to the air freshener, there was also a miniature disco ball that I bought.

Isabelle took me and my dates from point A to point B several times most times with out any problems. Isabelle served me well for about 18 months until she developed terminal transmission cancer. I kept her on life support for a few weeks by giving her a nearly constant IV drip of transmission fluid. Eventually I knew that it was time and I pulled the plug on the life support and let her go, I was sad but it was her time to go.

In hindsight, I am lucky that I did not get in more trouble with the police while driving Isabelle than what I did. As big of an automobile as she was I am sure I probably should have had a commercial drivers license (CDL) to drive her. Along those lines since I should have had the CDL, I should not have bypassed the several weigh stations on the interstate that I went by with her. Heck I am lucky, that the Coast Guard isn't mad at me for not having a pilot's license for that big old barge. She was so big that on windy days I would have to wait for the wind to calm down to dock/park her so that I did not make the boat go out of control.

Isabelle was buried at the local junk yard in late 1995. She had a huge impact on my life. Isabelle made me decide that I would never own a car that crappy again!

Isabelle may have been a turd, but in my opinion at the time she was the best looking turd in all of eastern Iowa.

R.I.P. Isabelle. God Speed,

Your Former Owner