Here we pay our (final?) respects to a pair of once glorious machines, the '92 and '94 cavaliers of Herman, who now have passed into the proverbial junkyard in the sky (proverbial only because we shall never know what in fact happens to these abandoned works of rusted steel). They died young, with a combined total of 234,557 miles, but they got the most out of their short and reckless lives, sometimes traveling legendary distances with all eight cylinders firing gracefully (to be honest, four cylinders per car).
The '92:
Born fire-engine red as a 2nd generation in Lordstown Ohio, she spent her youth carting groceries through the streets of Dayton. Little did she know she was being groomed for a much more important mission. It was late 1997 when a bandit who I’ll refer to as “RS” partnered with the low-mileage '92, stealing her from the garage of his own elderly grandparents. She traveled 700 miles to the snowy tundra of Herman, where she soon became known affectionately as "the cav." Never again would she know the comfort of a garage or the weight of a bag of groceries in the passenger seat.
You see, RS was the kind of cold and calculating bandit who didn’t give a damn about the law of the land. He once stole a police cruiser in broad daylight; patrol officer stranded inside, and with the cav red-lined in first gear, towed it clear to his mountain hideaway. The officer was never heard from again. At least that was the first of the dark rumors that spread along both sides of the bay.
It was around that time that I was recruited for occasional maintenance tasks and assistance on particularly daunting missions. Spitting gravel from his spinning wheels, he’d arrive in my drive at all hours of the day and night. I knew they were too dangerous a team to turn down.
I soon became adept at midnight tire-changes after particularly brutal fire-fights along the Arvon. When the muffler was ripped from the undercarriage in a sugar shack foray, I’d coat-wire it back in place. I noticed quite quickly that she was ideally suited for the rugged backwoods terrain. While one might contend that a four wheel drive vehicle would better survive those cold, dark winters, they have never seen the cav. Her lightweight body was as fleet as a sled, and when my truck would get sucked deep into the mud and ruts, she could actually skate on the surface of the snow. And if perchance she ended up stuck in some impossible hole, RS could easily carry the car back to safety.
Fun Facts:
Did you know the Chevrolet Cavalier, Honda Civic and Honda Accord where the top 3 selling cars in Canada in 1991?
No matter how hot it got at his hidden mountain hideaway, RS managed to stay one step in front of the local SWAT team.
