I’m old school. Now, that’s a pretty broad statement, and a popular one at that. It’s high fashion to be old school these days. Retro is where it’s at. But, while most people who use the term are simply applying it to their taste or preferences, it’s a lifestyle for me.

TV? I don’t watch it, haven’t for years. Credit cards? I prefer to do my trading in cash or silver, thank you. My wardrobe – which consists entirely of Levi 501’s, various colored wife beaters, steel-toed boots and the occasional flannel – is dotted with burn holes from impromptu welding sessions (I prefer gas) and splattered with the stains of all your popular automotive fluids.

I live under the premise that if I can’t do it with my own two hands with my own resources, it cannot possibly be done. I’m hyper hardcore about that one. To be fair, I do make a few concessions to modern life. I do carry a cell phone and I do have a computer. While I greatly dislike these electronic leashes, there is no way to function in today’s society without them, so I give a bit.

Now, when it comes to cars… Wait, let me preface this. I’ve been a mechanic for 32 years. I started when points and condensers were standard fare, and have climbed the evolutionary ladder to the modern era, and am well versed in all of the various systems snaked throughout today’s cars. I understand them. I work with then and I’ve got the tools to do so, but I find the over complication and blatant planned obsolescence of the modern automobile to be vile and reprehensible. It offends my soul in ways I cannot even spell.

So, my fleet of personal cars reflects this. They’re all Plymouths. Yes, I’ve taken the Mopar subculture and refined it down to just one nameplate. They range in age from 1966 to 1973.  Some are hot rods, some are drivers, and all are as basic as I can make them. I don’t care what equipment the car was born with, if I can delete it, I do.

Now, despite my puritanical automotive values, temptation does occasionally lure me to at least look at and even consider dipping my toe into the 21st century, and on a recent road trip through Kentucky, thoughts of a nice, new Drag Pak Challenger had my imagination lusting for some fresh iron.

There I was, buzzing along the interstate in my wife’s Slant Six, three speed, manual everything ’73 Duster (it’s her daily driver and reliable like an anvil), thinking to myself, “I should break down and score myself one of these Challengers. The perfect store-bought street/strip terror. The last new car I bought, an ’87 Mustang, literally paid for itself street racing, and I’m thinking about all the non-driving ‘Stang and Camaro guys out there I could dust for a few bucks to make the monthlies go down a bit easier. Sure, the future tech sucks, but here is all the stuff I hate, working together to shove these things through the quarter deep in the 12’s. I can probably learn to love it if I really dive in and master the systems. I’ve done it before. Yeah, it could be a blast.”

So help me, those were the exact thoughts as I began cresting a long hill, the little Slant chugging away with every bit of oomph it could muster, when out of the blue, she began to stumble and hold back. My mind was sucked back to the here and now, and I was about to be faced with the dreaded out-of-state, interstate breakdown.

Sure enough, at the top of the hill, my foot’s on the floor and I’m barely creeping along at 40. Damn! I knew that feeling, it was fuel starvation. Pump the pedal, nobody’s home. With the engine dead, I drop it into neutral and roll downhill towards an exit I can see in the distance.

So, as I’m coasting along, I run through the diagnostic checklist: Got plenty of gas, three-quarter tank. I know the rubber lines on the suction side are good, I just changed them. No sock in the tank, I yanked and tossed that when I changed the sending unit. Fuel pump? Nah, those old mechanical pumps always spit gas for a few hundred miles before they take a dump. It’s gotta be the filter. Argh! I don’t have a spare filter. Grrrr…it’s the wife’s car. I don’t have any tools!

I just barely make it to the exit. No sign of life anywhere. So I roll to the shoulder and stop. I pop the hood and right there in front of me is the clear plastic filter; obviously empty, obviously filthy. No tools, but I do have a dime! I undo the mini clamps holding it in place, and yank it off. I blew into it. Clogged solid! A-ha! What to do? Hmmkay, just connect the two steel lines with one of the rubber stubs and tighten them down with my trusty coin.

With the connection made, I jump behind the wheel, hit the clutch and crank, crank, crank… Pump, pump, pump. She sputters… Crank, crank, cra…tic, tic,tic. Damn, the battery’s dead! Ah, the exit is uphill. I shove the car backwards with my foot hanging out the door. She’s rolling. I popped it into reverse and dump the clutch. Pump, pump…she lights!

I rev her a few times just to clear everything out, slip it into first, stand on the gas, and within seconds, I’m back to highway speed. VICTORY IS MINE! Man against machine and man wins! I’m ecstatic. Basking in the glory of mechanical triumph I feel that all is right with the world. Within a few minutes, the episode is nearly forgotten, my thoughts turn back toward that Challenger, only now my lust for the machine had turned to serious doubt.

OK, so the Challenger is cool, and fast and comfy but what if I had been driving one of them instead of my ancient, crusty Slant Six?

The problem that I had diagnosed off the top of my head by running through a few simple elements would have been a total mystery. There’d be no way to troubleshoot the Challenger as it coasted along. My quick fix with a dime and a short piece of hose would have been equally impossible. Nope, had I been driving anything from the modern era, I’d still be waiting on the side of the road for an insanely overpriced rollback to haul my shiny heap off to some dealer, where the service writer could make his next mortgage payment from his cut of the inevitable wallet rape. Rather than completing my trip in a few hours, my life would have been interrupted for a few days while I sat in a motel waiting for their call. Instead of being a master of my technology, I’d be a slave to theirs.

The hum of that Slant eating up the pavement never sounded so sweet to me. I put my hand down on the shifter just to connect better with the vibes inseminating from my trusted old friend, and thought about how lucky we both were to be so old school and so free.

-Tony