- Description
- Art Center grad with automotive product planning, development, and research experience over 34 years with Volvo and Ford. Former Petersen Museum vault docent and freelancer for Bring a Trailer. Monthly EV sales reports and curated alternative powertrain news reports for Motor Intelligence. Still playing with cars after all these years, from a Sunbeam Tiger to a stick-shift Mazda5 van...
![Before we leave my first car in the metaphorical Curbside Classic dust, it may be worth relating some snippets of cross-country adventures successfully completed during my college years at Art […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cross-country-Comet-e1705538544736.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #13: One Last Mercury Caliente Story: Cross-Country Comet Capers")
![Time for a short break in the COAL series. When we left our protagonist, he had completed his first coast-to-coast trip in his trusty ’66 Caliente convertible. Figures just-unearthed […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Art-Center-article.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "The Art Center Years: Settling In, Out West – Arriving To The School Where Cars Are Born")
![I’d like to offer a brief update for my COAL #6 post describing the ’64 Ford Galaxie 500 two-door hardtop that was my mother’s last car. In that post, I […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Laurie-Ford-logo.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #12: Notes From a Galaxie Far, Far Away"){kind=logo}
![I’m of the firm belief that driving across the country should be on everyone’s bucket list. Not necessarily the way I did it for the first time – traveling solo […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Rand-McNally-Road-Atlas-e1703873701132.webp?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #11: A Coast-to-Coast Comet")
![In last week’s post, I briefly mentioned the sweet feeling of freedom when I slid behind the wheel of my ’66 Comet Caliente convertible for the first time. Driving […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/66-Comet-brochure-cover-e1703369684958.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #10: Not so Caliente – My First Accident")
![Dad was well aware that his seventeen-year-old son was certifiably car-crazy long before I turned seventeen in the spring of 1970. Fortunately, the question was not whether I would have […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/66-caliente-badge.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #9: ’66 Comet Caliente Convertible – You Never Forget Your First…"){kind=icon}
![According to most sources, one of the first modern driver education programs was created by Penn State professor Amos Neyhart in 1934 and debuting at a nearby high school. However, […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Student-Drive-Sign.webp?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #8: Driver’s Ed – Instructing the Invincible on the Inevitable")
![Looking back on 1966, it was a year of change. Two years after Mother’s passing, our home in Morris Plains still felt different and emptier than before. Perhaps that was […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1964-T-Bird-Front-View-Hemmings.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #7: 1964 Ford Thunderbird – Another Avian Ford")
![With apologies to the famed lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, who penned those words as part of the “book” for the Broadway musical Camelot, that phrase could be used to […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/64-Galaxie-front-fender-emblem.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #6: 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 – For One Brief, Shining Moment…")
![We’re going just a bit out of strict chronological order here, for which I apologize. This COAL deals with the first “foreign” car I was ever exposed to, a car […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IMG_20231029_164324473.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #5: A Volvo PV544 In The Springtime, 1964")
![If you’ve been keeping track of the evolution of our household fleet so far, as of mid-1961 it still included my father’s ’58 Plymouth station wagon (already showing the […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/62-Falcon-base-two-door.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #4: The ’62 Falcon – The First Ford in Our Future")
![When our family moved to northern NJ, Mom needed a car of her own for the first time in her life, as she had commuted to her previous NYC […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Captura-de-pantalla-2023-11-04-23.58.57.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #3: Mother’s First Car – The Bow-Tie Bel Air")
![As the 1958 Plymouth Suburban has been well-covered at CC by Kevin Martin here in 2020 and by Steve Crutchfield here more recently, I won’t try to duplicate their fine […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Dad-and-me-with-Plymouth-wagon.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #2: The ’58 Plymouth Suburban 2-Door Wagon")
![The first family car I remember was our ’51 DeSoto. As far as I can tell, the ’51 hasn’t yet had its day in the CC sun, perhaps not […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/1951_DeSoto_4050550054.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #1: The ’51 DeSoto")
![(Please welcome our newest Sunday COALer) According to my parents, my first spoken word was “Buick”, in spite of the fact that my family never owned that make of […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Captura-de-pantalla-2023-10-13-00.49.56.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL Intro: First Nuggets Of COAL")
