In 1967 I was 16. I walked home from Chaffey Union High School one day and in my driveway was a light blue 1964 Rambler four door Sedan. Now I was able to drive to school…but this “gift” from my Dad, while technically a viable form of transportation, looked none too cool.
Now, Dad told me it was “my car” but I had to make payments on it, as well as pay for insurance. Fair enough. But my ‘baby-blue four door granny-mobile’ was not gonna cut it. Since it was my car, I reasoned I could do with it as I pleased. And it would please me to paint it. Well, Dad wasn’t too thrilled with the idea but couldn’t deny the logic, so I appropriated my Mom’s tubes of acrylic paints and, along with Howard, painted the Rambler! It came out great for a first effort. The Rambler was a formidable canvas, but I think Howard and I made a noble effort.
Now I had a cool car! It was a great ride! I would drive a bunch of us to the beach and we’d always get pulled over, for no reason but the paint job! We would be questioned about drugs, but we never had any. So they’d reluctantly let us go “with a warning, this time” (?) and away we’d drive, not a care in the world! We’d wave to all the hippies in Balboa Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach. Hit the surf, soak up the sun and generally have the best time of our lives, though we may not have known it then. It was a heady time whence we burned up our youth in all good cheer.
In these pictures is Yvie Thomasee, a good friend in high school She frequently went to the beach with us and she was always fun to be around. One day back then I saw an ad in the fledgling L. A. Free Press. It was more of a semi-clandestine announcement, as not many people were reading the inky Free Press. I read there was a free concert in Griffith Park, with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna and Sons of Champlin! Yvie and I went in the Psychedelic Rambler. It was a great concert and a mellow day!
But all good things must come to an end, and eventually I needed to sell the Rambler. Dad had warned me that if I sold the car, I would have to sand off all the paint first, a daunting endeavor. Funny, I actually don’t remember doing that, or even selling the car. It was sold though. But I remember the Rambler fondly, as I do the times we had.
Was the Psychedelic Rambler as cool as Janis Joplin’s 1964 Porsche 356 or John Lennon’s 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V? I would say Yes, easily, and probably cooler. Why? Because the Psychedelic Rambler was a work of art literally painted on the street by two hoi polloi who just got inspired and did it. The only other psychedelic vehicle that has the street cred of the Rambler is Ken Kesey’s 1939 International Harvester, named “Furthur”. We went to the beach; they went to Woodstock. But in the end, my world was made happier because of a Rambler!
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