From the GM Junk Heap: Chevy Vega Wagon (My First Hunting Rig)

I read this the other day and it brought back some weird memories:

In the early 1970s, following the shock of the Arab oil embargo, American automakers needed to show they could compete against Asia's popular compact cars. The Chevrolet Vega may not have consumed a lot of gasoline, but it earned a bad reputation for burning through motor oil. The Vega's light-weight aluminum engine was the culprit...

Why I ever bought a Vega and a station wagon at that is one of the biggest mysteries of my life. Not exactly a chick magnet for a kid going off to college, but I had to drive 8 hours one way to Carson-Newman in TN and haul stuff. The Vega got me there and back for 5 years (didn't make it in 4) and never let me down.

One time coming home I got a speeding ticket, which back then was a $5 fine and no points on the TN side. The officer wrote the citation, grinned and drawled, “Didn’t know that sucker'd do 70.” He was not far off. Rev that baby over 55 and it sounded like the aluminum engine was gonna blow up.

The Vega was my first hunting and fishing rig, bought with money made working summers humping furniture for Bekins Van Lines. I stuffed a lot of dead and bloody turkeys, squirrels, quail and deer in the back, along with bows, guns, bags of camo and other junk.

My dad and I made a wooden frame that attached to the luggage rack, and that let me  load up to three 17-foot Grummans on top. We have world-class river smallmouth fishing where I grew up and still live in VA (3- to 5-pounders, huge for stream smallies); a lot of the miles I put on the Vega were running back and forth to the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers in the summers. With 3 canoes on top, the Vega was neither aerodynamic nor maneuverable. But it was small and light, and so when we got stuck in the mud down by a river, me and the boys just picked her up. 

One night in college I was driving to the store and hit an opossum. I remember the hellacious bang and thump like it was yesterday. That critter ripped the whole plastic underside from the front of the car (lot of plastic on the Vega). I didn't have any money to fix it, so I rode around with half a front end. A buddy dubbed the Vega the “Possum Cruiser,” and it stuck. My wife, whom I met in college, hated that car. She still falls down laughing when the Possum Cruiser comes up in conversation: What were ya thinking when you bought that thing? 

But all in all, not a bad ride for $2,700 brand new and loaded.

Doubt you can top the Vega, but what was your first hunting rig? comment