First Person: Best Vehicle I Ever Owned -- 1975 Chrysler Cordoba

The best vehicle I ever owned was the first vehicle I ever ownes, a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Cars were built to last back then. If I could have afforded a major repair, I'd probably still have that car today.

Though it was over ten years old when I bought it, my Cordoba was awesome. Although it was a large four-door sedan compared to today's vehicles, it was easy to handle and ran well.

It was a metallic forest green in color and the dark green had "corinthian leather seats", which by the way I think merely means vinyl, but who knows? It was a term that Chrysler used to indicate certain interior seat covers in their mid-70s luxury cars.

With a large eight-cylinder engine, the car had power to spare. I was young and foolish at the time and even tried to drag-race a police officer in my Cordoba. He was very nice as pulled up beside me and motioned for me to roll down my power window from the passenger side. He laughed as he asked me if I would please slow it down. I don't think I would ever try that stunt again. Perhaps the power in my Cordoba went to my head.

Ricardo Mantalban from Fantasy Island fame even made a commercial about my car that I found on YouTube.

When I bought the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba, it needed an oil pan. I took it to a garage that was able to fix the problem at an affordable price. I got the repair manuals with the car, and this is when I first learned to start doing my own car repairs.

I changed the brakes on both the front and the back. The back wasn't easy as they were brake "shoes" and the springs were tight and hard to reassemble, but my dad helped me with that. I had help from a neighbor on the wiring. And when I was pregnant, I had another neighbor help me change a tire, though I rarely let a man help me with that task anymore as I am completely capable of doing it myself.

There are other repairs I made myself to my Cordoba. One of the windshield wipers stopped working. I discovered it was a little plastic bushing. I had to remove the hood to reach my hands inside to replace it. I have small hands and even with the hood removed, it was a bit of a job, but I did it by myself.

Another repair I did myself was to change a little spring in the fan when it stopped working. What happened was the spring coil got loose. I disassembled the fan, took off the spring coil and tightened it. The fan worked beautifully after that.

There were a couple of other small repairs that I did over the years. Finally, a major repair was needed to the carburetor. It cost over $1100 to repair at a shop as the year and type of carburetor I needed couldn't be found, even at a junk yard.

After that, something else went wrong that I couldn't afford to fix. I'm thinking it was a broken frame, but I can't really remember. I had to let the car go and move on the much less reliable cars through the years. But I'll always remember the best vehicle I ever owned, my metallic green, 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Oh, and don't forget the corinthian leather seats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIL3fbGbU2o