The Field Car was a beater. It was a 1971 Maverick, which I bought in 1980 while in college. It wasn’t really a beater then, but it didn’t take me long to turn it into one. With dedication and determination, any car can be turned into a beater in a matter of months.

The transformation on the Maverick began when my room mate Tim came home with me for the weekend, and I had to repair the fences around the horse pasture. My parents left for the day, and we didn’t want to carry fence wire, tools, and extra posts around a 200 acre pasture, so we put it all in my car and headed out. All was well for the most part, until we got bored and decided to see how well the Maverick would take the hills. The educational opportunities in this type of excercise cannot be overstated. Not only did we get most of the fences fixed that weekend, but we learned how to replace shock absorbers, too! We could have learned to do some body and paint work as well, but we decided that the little scratches and dings just added character to the car. Tim dubbed it the “Field Car,” a name that has stuck with the Maverick ever since.

Beatership wasn’t bestowed upon the Field Car all at once. Sometimes days or even weeks would go by without it acquiring a single new distinguishing feature. Then just when it seemed like progress had stalled, an opportunity for further customization would present itself, although I seldom recognized it as such until after the fact. The distinctive markings on the roof of the car for example came about when Tim and I were on our way to meet some friends and didn’t want to wait for a train. When we saw the lights start flashing at a crossing up ahead, we were sure we could safely beat the on-coming train. Indeed, we beat the train with a hundred yards to spare. It was the descending barrier that proved to be the real challenge. We actually did beat it… mostly.

As with most Fords in those days, the Maverick’s starter solenoid was mounted on the inside of the fender, next to the battery. These solenoids were a common point of failure. This wasn’t too much of a problem, because one can bypass the solenoid by positioning a screwdriver across two contact points on these devices, thereby starting the car. This was a great source of amusement for those of us who know how to take advantage of the situation. If for example my friend Mike and I were leaving a convenience store and noticed several people milling around, we would dash out like we were being pursued by the devil himself.

“Hey! where’s Tom with the get-away car?!”

“That dip-stick must have gotten scared and ran!”

“We’ll have to steal one of these cars! Quick – jump in that Maverick and get behind the wheel – I’ll hotwire it from under the hood!”

Mike would get in the car, put the key in the ignition and turn it on. The car wouldn’t start that way, but with the key in the “on” position I could start it from under the hood with my Buck knife. Then I’d slam the hood, jump in the car, and we’d squeal away. The looks of dumb-struck amazement on the faces of the passers-by were priceless. It’s a good thing cell phones were not yet in use, or we’d have been arrested for stealing my own car.

One of the advantages to driving a beater is the fact that you have less to lose in a collision than someone with a newer car. This fact hadn’t dawned on the driver of a Mustang one evening when Tim and I and two red-heads were driving down the highway. After he cut us off, the “ladies” let fly with a few choice words and some non-verbal hand gestures. I guess he took offense, because he started swerving into my lane, trying to force me into on-coming traffic. He was driving what appeared to be a brand new Mustang with a shiny, silver metallic paint job. I was driving the Field Car. I said, “If he swerves into this lane again, everyone hang on!”

Tim said, “Um… Joe? What exactly are you going to do?”

I didn’t have time to answer him because just then the Mustang swerved into our lane again, farther than he had before. He was half a car length ahead of me, traveling down a 4 lane highway at 50 miles per hour. I merely jerked the wheel a little to the right, and my front right fender completely smashed his driver side door. My fender had already been dented in, from a spin-out into a snow drift. He immediately quit playing games, got in the lane behind me, and followed us to the pizzeria. He and his buddy jumped out of the Mustang. Tim and I jumped out of the Maverick. He started yelling about how the Mustang wasn’t even his car, he had borrowed it from his buddy. I told him he should have thought of that before he started playing “Jim Rockford.” I knew a fight was imminent, and it scared me nearly out of my wits. Then again, there were two girls watching. Fortunately a police cruiser pulled in before we ever really engaged, and we all scrambled back into our cars and squealed out in opposite directions. OK, by this time the only squealing the Field Car could do was caused by a slipping alternator belt, but you get the idea.

There are other advantages to driving a beater. Nobody ever wants to steal it, and if they did, they would have to know the solenoid trick. If by some chance someone did steal it, you could track it down by following the trail of oil, coolant, and miscellaneous parts that fell off the vehicle at random intervals. You don’t mind patching it together with tin cans, baling twine, coat hanger wire, duct tape, and bubble-gum, because if you really fix it up nice, you won’t have anything with which to run through the fields. Plus, if your car won’t go over 60 miles per hour without shaking apart, you’re not tempted to speed, saving money on tickets. Unfortunately, not everyone recognizes the wisdom of this, which was evident the first time I went to my girlfriend Kathy’s parents’ house to pick her up.

“Uh – that’s your car?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Did something just fall off underneath?”

“Oh yeah – I see it. It’s part of the exhaust system. I’ll just throw it in the trunk and fix it later.”

“Why does it look like a dog food can?”

“Oh, er, that’s just the way they make the new high-tech couplers. They’re supposed to hold up better than the old fashioned kind.”

“Really. Why did it fall off, then?”

“Well, I guess the coat hanger… er, I mean the mounting bracket… must have rusted through.”

Kathy was obviously impressed with my mastery of mechanical science, since we are now celebrating 25 years of marriage, but her relationship with the Field Car was always a bit strained. I actually think the old girl (the car, not Kathy) was a bit jealous.

Not long after her first introduction to the Field Car, Kathy was riding in it with Tim and me. At least 3 of the 4 cylinders were firing most of the time, and we were chugging along just fine at about 45 mph. Kathy said, “why does the engine sound like it’s “missing” so much?”

I cast a nervous glance at Tim. We had previously gotten the distinct impression that the Field Car was sensitive to things people said about it. I said, “Don’t say that too loudly, I think the car can hear you.”

“Hear me!? Ridiculous. This car is nothing but a hunk of junk.”

Tim and I were both aghast. Kathy looked at us like we were nuts. Just then, the hood came unlatched and broke free of the hinges. It rose 2 feet into the air and seemed to levitate there for a moment, before being whisked away, over the roof of the car. It crashed down onto the road behind us, where it was promptly run over by a pickup truck. We stopped and jumped out of the car, and ran back to make sure the driver of the truck was OK. We were grateful the hood hadn’t gone through his windshield. He was OK. In fact, he was downright apologetic for running over the hood. We couldn’t resist saying “It’s OK, just don’t let it happen again!” Then we grabbed the hood, hustled it back to the car, and strapped it in place with our belts.

As we pulled back onto the road and drove on, Tim and I turned simultaneously to Kathy and started to open our mouths, but she beat us to the punch and said, “I’m sorry! I’ll never say anything bad about the car again, I promise!” And she didn’t. At least, not within earshot of the Maverick.

Even though there are many advantages to driving a beater like the Field Car, there are a few things for which such vehicles are unsuited. If only one brake actually functions, do not try to stop suddenly when traveling at highway speeds. The vehicle might pull so violently to the side that you jump the ditch, wiping out some shrubbery and clipping the side of a fully restored 1953 Corvette parked in someone’s yard. In fact, the vector forces exerted on the car when you whip it around and jump back up onto the road may cause the passenger door to fly open and your buddy Tim (or whatever his name might be) to fall out into the ditch. Hypothetically. Also, trying to outrun the police in this kind of car is futile. Finally, never try to evade the police by driving the car onto the railroad tracks in the hopes that they won’t follow. You’ll probably just end up high-centered, stuck, and embarrassed when the officer taps on your window with his flashlight and makes you pick up a muffler and some dog food cans before hauling you off to jail. I’m just speculating, of course.

Eventually, I considered the possibility that I might have to give up on the Field Car and find something that inspired a little more confidence. I liked Kathy’s folks and all, but they seemed compelled to follow us around picking up parts and pieces “just in case we might need them.” I knew nobody would consider buying it for much money, so I decided to just take it to a salvage yard and see what they’d give me for it. I drove it out to the largest junkyard in the area and asked them how much they’d pay for a good, running vehicle.

“$10.00,” said the man.

“$10.00? You must be joking! This is a good running car, with quite a few parts still on it! Surely it’s worth more than $10.00.”

“If it’s such a good running car, then what’s that cloud of blue smoke? It doesn’t even sound like it’s running on all four cylinders. Plus, there’s something dragging underneath.”

“Oh, come on, it just got some bad gasoline. Besides, even if you parted it out, it would be worth a lot more than $10.00.”

“Not really. Dog food cans and coat hanger wires are pretty cheap around here.”

Well, I was indignant, to say the least. It was clear to me that these people knew nothing about the value of a classic like the Field Car. I threw the muffler in the trunk and drove home to get another mounting bracket out of the coat closet.

A few weeks later, my friend Tom was up visiting from Texas. He was in the market for a car, so I decided to display the depth of my friendship by bequeathing to him the Field Car as a gift. He was suitably grateful, but his father was convinced that I had ripped him off. How could I have ripped him off, when I gave him the car for free? If Tom’s father insisted that they replace the solenoid and the plugs and wires, rebuild the carburetor, give it a brake job, and install an entire exhaust system before allowing Tom to drive the vehicle from Michigan to Texas, why, whose fault was that?

Coincidental to Tom’s visit, I found myself between jobs and taking a break from college. Once I’d seen all the work he and his dad had done on the car, I was inclined to accept his offer of spending the summer in Texas, where jobs were more plentiful. I figured I could work for the summer, and save up some money before returning to school in the fall. Kathy’s father was sure the car would never make it out of the state, let alone all the way to Texas. He used to believe that mankind had walked on the moon. When he looked at the pictures I sent him of me and the Field Car in Texas, he figured that they were fakes, and he reasoned that if a hick like me could create such convincing trick photography, then NASA could fake a lunar landing. To this day he’s quite certain that the car died somewhere en route, and we took a bus the rest of the way.

When I left Texas in the fall of that year, Tom was still driving the Maverick every day. I don’t know what happened to it after that. I hate to think it ended up like this one in the picture, but it probably did.