Requiem for Pontiac & Saab

For nearly two decades now, my “family car” has been a Honda Civic. Still the recent news that Pontiac will no longer be a separate division of General Motors, and Saab has sought bankruptcy protection from its creditors elicits mixed emotions. As circumstances would have it, a Pontiac Bonneville, and a Saab 96 followed by a Saab 99 EMS provided the backdrop for heady times in my life.

The 1970 Pontiac Bonneville belonged to my grandfather. I dreaded driving, especially on the highways of New York City. But the summer job Uncle Louis had gotten me at Albert Einstein College of Medicine required that I commute from my home in Forest Hills to the Bronx each day. After a dress rehearsal with my father who mapped a route that had me traversing the Whitestone Bridge and using the Grand Central Parkway, I felt o.k. traveling solo and parallel parking in front of a bar called The Tender Trap.

As Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “hell is other people.” Especially for a less than confident driver risking the possibility of backseat drivers. But after a month or so on the job, I offered a ride to some of my motherly colleagues at the office – only because I knew that where they were headed to a going-away party that was on my way home. Our boss, Mr. Gerstel, trying to be helpful, offered a shortcut, and I tactfully explained that I used only Dad’s route.

I think the ladies made a conscious effort not to make me nervous as I drove. They said nice things about the Bonneville -- in British racing green with black vinyl roof, air-conditioning, interior walnut veneer trim, bucket seats, and a sporty-looking transmission console in the floor. I made a point of saying the car belonged to Grandpa.

Come 1972, I got married and started an MAT program at Harvard. The Bonneville still had very low mileage. Dad told me Grandpa rarely drove any more, and that if I asked him, he’d probably be glad to have me take it off his hands.

For a period of about three weeks, I commuted back and forth from an apartment outside Harvard Square to a junior high in Newton. Once I quit the program and began taking the T to a job on Beacon Hill, the Bonneville became something only to be moved to comply with alternate side of the street parking and snow emergencies.

The Arab oil embargo clinched things, convincing me I should sell the gas-guzzler my first husband and I rarely if ever used, because he had a fuel-efficient 1971 Saab 96. The size of a VW bug, the Saab was easy to park in an area where parking spaces were at a premium. Living in a city where streets were rarely plowed, the Saab’s front-wheel drive was a dream for driving over snow mounds.

The Saab 96 was also the car that gave me complete confidence as a driver. Come 1976, when we were anticipated Daphne’s birth and a move to the suburbs, my first husband encouraged me to learn how to drive a stick shift. Given his propensity to motion sickness, he preferred not to be a passenger while I practiced. The car was pretty beat up by then and he told me the worst that could happen was that I might roll down a hill.

Trading in the Saab 96 for a shiny new Saab 99 EMS in metallic silver proved to be a mistake. Starting with a horn that failed the first week, the car was a lemon providing years of dealing with an auto dealership in Coolidge Corner that seemed not to understand the concept of emergency service.

We switched to Buicks in the mid ‘80’s. About a year after my first husband passed away, I found it liberating to return to driving a little car. Were the Saab 96 still being made, I might have bought one. Thus began my love affair with Honda Civics.