I have a blindspot for cars.
Having grown up in a household not dependent on automobiles, and being a militant non-driver, I don't notice much about their details. A not-quite boyfriend used to point out car after car to me, reciting the year and make, much to my bafflement. When I married the Resident Fan Boy, he quietly reminded me at the reception to be sure to thank his parents for the fancy car they'd rented to bring us from the church. I thought we'd ridden in the family car -- although the power-windows should have been a giveaway. I had other things on my mind at the time.
However, for the couple of months, I have noticed the Plymouth Reliant parked out in front of our building. For one thing, it's a peculiar colour, albeit it probably wouldn't have drawn a second glance decades ago. Depending on the light, it appears to be a dark orange - or not-quite-scarlet or rusty brown, or even amber. Dark umber? Copper?
The shape is startling alien to a twenty-first century eye: long and angular. I looked up the make on Wikipedia. Some car nuts have made loooong detailed additions to the entry. From what I can tell, as a militant non-car-driver/non-make-noticer, this one is from the early 1970s. (They stopped making them altogether in 1976 or 1977.). The Resident Fan Boy remembers his sister needing wheels to make it to student-teaching assignments, and acquiring an aged Reliant, which proved to be remarkably unreliable, breaking down until she gave up and replaced it.
Vintage cars are not an usual sight in Victoria, where the weather and general absence of road salt is kinder to older vehicles. However, you usually don't see them parked casually on a reasonably busy thoroughfare.
A couple of weeks ago, the car vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Never saw anybody climb into it, nor out of it. Never saw anybody driving it, although it changed positions several times during its brief stay.
Maybe it's in my blindspot.
Posts
