Peter Cheney in his first car, a 1967 Fiat 600
My first car was a 1967 Fiat 600, an Italian economy model that was dwarfed by a Volkswagen Beetle. The Fiat was bare-bones, with a painted metal dash and a pup-tent style sunroof. The trunk-mounted engine made less than 35 horsepower, barely enough for a decent ride-on lawn mower.
But it felt like enough to me. I was 16 years old, and I had just moved to Belgium with my family. I zoomed through the streets of Brussels with the sunroof open. My dad was at NATO, a job that came with the ultimate automotive performance accessory - a set of diplomatic licence plates. I was bulletproof. No parking tickets. No speeding infractions. Every ride was flat-out.
Given the Fiat's lack of power, this didn't mean much. But it felt fast to me. Later in life, I would get to drive some of the most powerful cars in the world. But none would feel better than an underpowered little Fiat, pushed to the limits as I explored Europe as a teenage boy.
My dad's last Canadian posting had landed us in suburban Ottawa, a no-man's land of tract homes, grid-style streets and Plymouth Valiants. But Belgium was driving heaven. The roads near our home twisted past ancient stone walls and fields filled with rose bushes. I roared through the medieval Grand Place in a jousting pack of Citroens, Renaults and Vespa scooters.
Since I had no power to work with, I learned to hang on to whatever speed I managed to build up, sliding over cobblestones and tram tracks as I finessed the Fiat's toy-like steering wheel and pedals. To improve shifting efficiency, I cut down the shift lever, reducing the throw. The modification took me half a day in my parents' driveway. Few hours of my life have been more pleasant: Robins trilled as I cut the lever with a hacksaw and filed the end smooth. I used a tap and die set make new threads so the knob would go back on.
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Then I put it all back together, and it worked. The shifting was quicker, and my little white Fiat was no longer stock - now it was my own, customized little racer.
In Grade 12, I briefly dated the daughter of Donald Rumsfeld, then the U.S. ambassador to NATO. My Fiat carried me out to Waterloo, where the future architect of the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan lived in a large white house that was illuminated by floodlights and guarded by a security detail. Rumsfeld's daughter and I watched TV in the family room while Rumsfeld hovered nearby, alert to any potential shenanigans.
My diplomatic plates came in handy. As I headed toward my girlfriend's home one night, I was confronted by a series of police roadblocks guarded by gendarmes with submachine guns. Although I wondered what was going on, it didn't make much difference to me - the talismanic license plates got me waved through. But as I rolled toward Rumsfeld's driveway, a team of large, heavily armed men in black suits suddenly surrounded my little Fiat.
They spoke English with American accents. And they weren't messing around - I was ordered out of the area. The next day, Rumsfeld's daughter informed me that President Richard Nixon had been at their house.
My love affair with Rumsfeld's daughter was short-lived. But the Fiat was my faithful wingman as I explored the world of expatriate romance. Its little motor purred away behind as I cruised through the velvety European night with a series of lovely young women, sunroof open to frame the stars.
The Fiat had no radio. For entertainment, we talked. I learned to steer and shift with my left hand, leaving my right free for caressing duties.
Although Fiats have a dodgy reputation for reliability, mine never let me down - at least not seriously.
The most common problem was fading electrics. Unless I cleaned up the contacts every few weeks, the headlights sputtered down to a faint yellow glow that resembled the approach of an ancient Catholic priest carrying a pair of sputtering votive candles.
Although I didn't know it yet, tragedy loomed. As my first year of university approached, brown rust spores bloomed in the Fiat's fenders. Then the trunk lid pulled away in my hand one morning, its supports completely eaten away by corrosion.
I drove to a junkyard near a ruined castle. The proprietor lived onsite, in a moss-covered travel trailer that hadn't moved for years. I banged on the trailer. The junk man emerged a few minutes later with a Stella Artois bottle in his hand. He wore black rubber boots and a grease-stained sports jacket with a wrench in the breast pocket.
His yard looked like the set of Terminator Four - a blackened, post-apocalypse vision of ruined vehicles. But he assured me that he had a Fiat with a perfect deck lid. "Parfait," he assured me.
Surprisingly, he was right. The deck lid was unscathed. It was even the same colour as my car. All I had to do was unbolt it. But there was one little detail - it wasn't a Fiat. The logo on the deck lid read "Fagst 770" - probably some eastern European variant. My old Fiat logo wouldn't fit - the holes were different. I took the trunk lid anyway. And of course my car became known as the Fag.
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My love affair with the Fiat came to an end four years after it started. We were moving back to Canada. The Fiat was in the terminal stages of automotive cancer. Its sills were rotted away, and the wheels bent inward. When I tried to get it recertified, the inspector laughed in my face.
I drove the Fiat back to the junkyard and banged on the wall of the moss-covered trailer. The dealer was still alive.
We haggled for a few minutes, and then the Fiat was his, to be cannibalized at his leisure. My father was waiting for me at the junkyard gate. I turned my back on the little white car and cried.