My '69 Commando

The year was 1985 and I had just paid $500 for a 1969 Jeepster Commando that was rusted to the point of being see thru. Plus it had several mysterious electrical problems and an unidentified odor. I couldn’t have been happier!

I picked the doors off the ground and tossed them in the back and then jumped into the truck - being careful not to stick my foot thru the gaping hole in the floorboard. I turned the key and it roared to life, quite literally considering the muffler was sitting next to the doors in the back.

As the smoke cleared the nice gentleman I had given $500 offered this sage wisdom “as long as you keep moving them fumes ain't gonna make you that dizzy, but keep them windows open!”

On the way home I was topping breakneck speeds of almost 40 mph. Of course, they were “breakneck” only because of the way the truck would lurch violently when it slipped out of gear. Which seemed to happen quite often.

After few miles I noticed the hood was kind of loose and lifting slightly. Then it started to fly open!!  Being a genius (have I mentioned I'm a genius?), I quickly placed my hand in front of the window to protect the hood.  This proved to be a bad idea.  As less than a split second later my hand was smashed between the window and the crumpled hood. I had saved the window, but my hand looked like a display at a horror museum. It looked very painful.  The pain hadn't hit yet, but I could see it was gonna be very painful.

Of course that was all I could see. As the hood had bent over the windshield, blocking view of the road. Lucky for me, the kind motorists around me helped by honking and offering helpful words of advice. Such as, “get that pile of shit off the road you fuckin moron!”.

After extricating my mangled hand, I removed the hood and tossed it into the back with the muffler and doors. A few moments later a police officer pulled me over in order to inform me that it was illegal to drive a vehicle in this condition.  Then he strongly suggested that I have it towed to the junk yard as opposed to trying to drive it there.

He laughed hysterically when I explained that I had just purchased the vehicle for $500... He took pity on me and let me off with a warning and some helpful advice regarding my intelligence and schooling.

After I finally getting home I parked and turned the key off, which had no effect at all. So I pulled on some wires and and swore at it loudly, then it stalled.

The bummer was, a few of the wires I pulled out were somehow important.  So, I was unable to get it started again for several months while I learned to rewire it.  In that time period it seemed to leak every drop of fluid it had contained onto my parents driveway.

While it was dead, I was dumb enough to invest several hundred more dollars into it. By welding new panels over the gaping holes and patching the rust with a couple hundred pounds of Bondo. I even installed a new back seat. Well, technically it was a beanbag chair.  But it was a back seat nonetheless.

After I patched or covered most of the holes I decided to paint it. The idea was to paint it “Porsche Yellow” until I found out that shit was $250 a gallon! Where as “School Bus Yellow” was only $15 a gallon. I figured a school bus was as close as I would ever come to a Porsche, so I bought it.

I rented a sprayer and got to work in my folks garage. To this day you can see a yellow outline of a bike that once hung upon the wall. My Dad was kind of pissed that I didn't take his car out of the garage before I started. But I thought the yellow hue made his Dodge Aries look cooler!

As winter set in, I had yet to paint the interior. It was getting a little cold. So I rolled up the windows, brought in a space heater, a few beers and a joint. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The first few layers of shiny black paint looked great! Yet, after painting for a few minutes I started to get a little dizzy. But I thought I could quickly finish it up and be done with it.

When I came to, my Dad was yelling something like “you fucking idiot!!... blah blah blah... what were you thinking??.... blah blah blah... You could have died!!... blah blah blah” But I couldn't open my eyes. Which seemed a little weird. Seems I had passed out with the sprayer running and my eyes were painted shut. That was kind of a bummer and it took a few weeks to get the last specks out of my ears.

However, (as luck would have it) I had a pretty even coat of paint over the interior of the Jeep. All in all, aside from the near death experience, it turned out pretty damn good!

I was able to monkey with the engine enough to get it to run. But the electrical system was screwed up. So I just installed a button to start it. Keys are overrated.

After installing a few Grateful Dead stickers it was pretty well done and I was really proud! I finally had a car that would impress the chicks and I took it out to show off.

It turns out chicks were not nearly as impressed as I thought they would be... My girlfriend Karen refused to drive in it. Something about “it smells funny... blah blah blah... it always dies at intersections... blah blah blah... why did you paint the bean bag chair black?... blah blah blah”.

I really didn't care. I thought it was beautiful. It was big and yellow and ugly as sin. And it was mine! I drove it for a few years and even took it to college with me. It held a lot of beer and had no trouble making it to Alpine Valley several times.

Eventually I got a job that was about a 20 mile commute and the 16 mpg was starting to kill me. Even though gas was like $1.00 a gallon back then. But there was also the lack of heat, AC, radio, seat belts and functioning windshield wipers. So I sold it to a 16 year old kid who lived up the street for $2500.

Then the stupid little bastard wrapped it around a tree and it was gone. Of all the cars I have owned, that is the only one I really miss.