Let me tell you about Luv. 

"Thomas.Hurt" (thomas-hurt) 12/03/2015 at 07:41 • Filed to: None

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I absolutely love driving. It is my favorite thing to do. It is freedom. It is passion. It just might be the most all-encompassing thing for me. I am not exactly sure how it started. All I know is that my passion is made up of a multitude of small stories. Events that have shaped my life, most of them revolving around cars. Driving taught me so many different lessons, it showed me different emotions, it brought me closer to friends and family. I have had my lowest lows, and highest highs all due to driving. So, sit back and let me tell you about driving.

I guess I must start from one of my first actual driving experiences. It may be able to shed some light on my infatuation. It may have al started with one small Chevy Luv Pickup truck. Bought for maybe $300, she was a thing of beauty. A dull mustard yellow, a camper shell that was once white, now sun soaked and warn into a drab beige. The bent tailgate adorned with any and all the stickers one may have had lying around throughout the years. She was a sight to behold.

The most important aspect of enjoying a beat up pickup truck is having a place to destroy it. I mean, drive it. Luckily my dad’s business went bankrupt a few years earlier and we were fortunate enough to live in a travel trailer on the side of his friends business, an old country club acquaintance, and still a true friend. Well, right behind our humble abode was about 30 acres of pristine southern California desert. The suburb encroachment had left alone this gathering of hills, and open terrain. It was a childhood dream. We built paintball fields, we road dirt bikes, we jumped bicycles, we shot bb guns, and we explored. It was our childhood Neverland. Now, we had a real vehicle to explore our desert oasis.

The Luv, in all her mustard yellow glory. Nothing like the picture above, we didn’t have digital cameras back then. I may have forgotten to mention that only the driver had a functioning seatbelt. With our tight budget we purchased four used tires and some four point seatbelt harnesses. As the intelligent preteen I was, I thought we would need a test drive before installing the seatbelts. She road like a Cadillac, wafting over the soft flat dirt. This was going amazing. How could the suspension be so supple? Oh, because that was just dirt blown across the road, and we may have been doing 20mph. We probably couldn’t shift it out of second. We pulled into the off-road area and stared at the multitude of options. Trails zigzagging all over the landscape, carving out brown paths between weed covered hills. Its hard to remember what the hills of California look like before this current drought.

I should mention our professional driver behind the wheel. Aaron Snyder, the man-child of our middle school. He skipped the 6 th grade because of his beard and the way he towered over the rest of us. Always schooling us on the basketball court and scoring with ease during beloved recess. It was a sad day to see him go. But he was off to bigger and better things. Aaron had never actually drive stick shift and we had a four-speed manual. No better way to learn to drive stick then in a slightly beat to shit pickup that cost less than my first speeding ticket. The key to learning to drive manual is simple. Make sure that you are in dirt. Now bring the revs up. What RPM you ask, well we don’t know, the tachometer was broken. Now, drop the clutch. The subsequent dirt burnout and flying dirt made us feel like the duke boys. Yeehaw! See, its simple.

So feeling like Bo and Luke, we found the biggest hill. The four-wheel drive and that rip snorting four cylinder chugging us all the way up to maybe half way. It’s hard to downshift when you don’t really know how. A valiant effort nonetheless. Rolling down a hill is always an easy way to drive stick. Back down the hill and on to more exploring our desert oasis. We proceeded to do donuts, burnouts, and a half assed J-turn. James Bond had to learn somehow as well right? Anything we had seen in a movie was being recreated horribly by us. No parent supervision, no gopros, no social media, just two pre-teens in the best damn pickup truck in the world.

Although we were blasting over hills and throwing roost all over the place, we stayed away form the whoops. Now, if you don’t what whoops are let me explain. They are notoriously difficult. A constant stream of dirt packed maybe two feet high separated by lulls. From the side they look like a sideways s. Trucks that tackle the professional off-road races held throughout southern California and Mexico easily cost over $100,000. They can easily waft over the whoops at over 70mph, all while still mainlining a conversation with your co-driver. Who needs money? Aaron pointed the Luv at the whoops and stormed towards them at a ludicrous 23 miles per hour. He probably still couldn’t get it out of second. The first two whoops went surprisingly well. Like the well timed skipping across the whoops in Mario Karts Wario Stadium. Man, these 23 year old shocks work great. Yep, spoke too soon. While sitting there, she started to buck, using the seat as a giant lever, I shot into the air. The only thing holding me down was the roof. Concussion number three probably, I never can remember.

I continued bouncing between the seat and the roof. My vision of dashboard, dirt, and blue sky starting to blur into one. Instead of screaming to slow down or even stop, I broke into hysteric laughter; gut wrenching, hyena pitched laughter. I still don’t know to this day how long it lasted. It was uncontrollable. The luv was stationary, but all I could do was laugh, nothing else mattered. And then, relief. It was warm, my body still convulsing from laughter. More importantly it was wet. Don’t worry, I had to let it sit in as well. I pissed my pants from laughter. And it was probably the greatest bathroom experience of my life.

The Luv made it out not too much worse for ware. We drove back to my dad’s house. To this day he still remember the first thing I said after that fateful expedition. Stepping out of the Luv, teeth stained brown by dirt, Aaron still laughing, my dad looking at us with those intrigued fatherly eyes. I could only blurt out, “I peed my pants”. Then I started laughing again. I felt like Billy Madison, I was one of the cool kids. My dad merely laughed out loud at us and told me to change. After a new pair of underwear and pants, and hopefully a shower, we actually installed the seat belts and it was my turn to drive.

The Luv taught me a lot of things. I learned how to drive stick. I learned how much four wheel drive actually helps. I learned how to attach tow straps. I found out that to catch air, traveling over 20mph is necessary and under 35 is recommended. Just don’t forget to strap down the battery. $300 will never buy the same kind of joy and excitement that the Luv brought. In all honest I don’t know how long we had her. What I do know is this. When we first took her home she had four wheel drive, her front brakes worked, there was a camper shell, there was a spare tire, her bench seat was dry, and she used to run like a champ.

We left her on our street. Unable to figure out the starting and carburetor problem. The repair bill wouldn’t have been worth it. Sitting left for lost she disappeared. To this day we don’t know what happened to her. We weren’t mad, we couldn’t fix her. She was carted off only to be fondly remembered. One of the greatest driving experiences I have ever had. The Luv helped me fall in love with driving. I had a pilgrimage into my teenage years in that Luv. Childhood excitement, genuine laughter, living, and learning. Childhood would not have been the same without the Luv.

Berang > Thomas.Hurt 12/03/2015 at 07:51

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What happened to her? Probably something like this:

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index…

Thomas.Hurt > Berang 12/03/2015 at 07:53

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Wouldn’t be surprised. May have also just been the county or something. She literally sat for almost a year on an industrial side street.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Thomas.Hurt 12/03/2015 at 09:33

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Last weekend I picked up this yellow LUV for $.97:

TheRealBicycleBuck > Thomas.Hurt 12/03/2015 at 11:57

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Fun story. I had a similar experience.

My cousin refused to wear a seat belt until the day we hit a series of whoops/potholes on a dirt road in my truck. Being filled with water, I had no idea how deep they were. After the first hole, I realized that I could be in trouble, so I put my foot down to keep the revs up and the truck moving.

The truck started bouncing; my cousin started bouncing; and I had to deploy the stiff-arm to keep from landing in my lap. I never thought I would use that skill anywhere but in football. My cousin cycled between the seat, the roof, and the door at least four times.

Of course, lessons were learned. I learned not to storm through unknown water-filled potholes. He learned that seatbelts keep you in your seat.

I’m glad he didn’t pee.

One last note: a road is something you drive on. “Rode” is past tense for ride. You rode your ride down a road.

Thomas.Hurt > TheRealBicycleBuck 12/03/2015 at 12:06

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Oh the lessons that we learn. I always wear a seatbelt now no matter what. Better safe then sorry.

And thanks for the grammar help, can’t believe I missed that.

RallyWrench > Thomas.Hurt 12/03/2015 at 12:42

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Great story about a great truck. I have similar respect for my old ‘93 Toyota pickup. Please tell me you have this shirt:

Archduke here did it, Blipshift made them not long ago. I have one.

Thomas.Hurt > RallyWrench 12/03/2015 at 12:47

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Oh man, I need that shirt! I must have missed that, but thats amazing. There is something about old Pickups that finds a way into your soul.