Our family had a '50 chevy 4-door that had 200,000 miles on it by 1955, when my stepdad rebuilt the engine. He also decided to have it repainted by a friend of his who would do it at his home for a fraction of the cost a body shop or professional paint shop would have charged.

I don't remember what the bottom color was called, it was sort of an orange-brown. The top, I remember well: the color he chose was "Siesta Creme," almost an ivory. Well, the friend dawdled and dawdled. Every week my stepdad went to see him and a few pieces of masking tape had been added or a panel sanded or the like. Finally about three months later, home came the car, with a top of "FIESTA creme" (a light but still bright yellow).

Shortly after, my parents bought our third car, so the chevy became mine to use. My friends loved the fact that I now had wheels to cart them around, but that didn't stop them from naming it "Ivan's Shitbrindle Chevy."

Nothing like a muscle car or even particularly attractive (especially after the paint job), but I loved having transportation and I have my stepdad to thank for the fact that it got another 120,000 miles on it before it died. Ironically, I drove it to the car dealer to trade in on something else and left it running because getting it started again was iffy by then. They quoted me a trade-in which I figured was quite a bit higher than it was worth and I found something I liked. We signed the papers and I paid the difference. When we went out to pull the old chevy into the lot, the engine had died and nothing they could do would get it started again. Dunno if it ever ran again, probably they junked it.