By Dean Sprague
It was the spring of 1963 I was 15 ½ and living in Asheville, NC. I lived there with my Sister, my Mother and Stepfather. My parents divorced 5 or 6 years prior. My Stepfather was a marketing/promotions executive and his career development required frequent relocations. We started moving about every 12 to 18 months so he could chase his next opportunity. This time it was in Fresno, CA. He had gone ahead and we stayed to finish out the school year, which actually became another 6 months, but whatever. We had moved to Asheville right after they got married and none of us wanted to leave the Smoky Mountains. My Mother had always wanted a new “family” convertible so as a consolation for having to leave NC, my stepfather told her she could buy a new ragtop.
He left us with the Black 1960 Borgward Isabella station wagon. It was in like new condition with a beautiful red leather interior and a very slow 4-cylinder engine. They called them the “poor man’s Mercedes”. Actually, it was a pretty car. Well, sort of. Since my mother knew very little about cars my stepfather empowered me to help with the selection. In reflection, he must have had great courage to leave me, a 15 year old in possession of a learners permit, with this job.
We started looking at new convertibles. First was the Plymouth Valiant, a spartan slant 6 with no frills. Then a Chevy Nova (same problem) and so on until I convinced her that we must have a V8 to support the air-conditioning needed if we were going to live in the dessert. While I still believe this really was a necessity, my motives weren’t entirely pure. I really wanted a muscle car and Pontiac had one so we went over to look at the new Pontiac Tempest. Her Father (my Grandfather) always owned and loved Pontiacs’ so this was an easy sell. I convinced her she needed to get the creature comforts of the higher trim level in the Lemans. Of course this was also required to get the 326 ci V8. My plan backfired a bit. She discovered what luxury was all about and went showroom crazy. I think she ordered every option available on the Lemans. It took up two pages on the build sheet. She even ordered extra padding in the optional bucket seats! Our salesman while good with all this was concerned about the air-conditioning option. He said “ why would you want air-conditioning if you can put the top down”? I guess getting an air-conditioned convertible made no sense if you lived in Asheville NC. In fact, he actually called Detroit to see if you could even get air-conditioning in a convertible. Of course you could but the car was so heavily equipped he couldn’t find a dealer trade anywhere so it had to be special ordered. This became very significant, as I will explain later. Well, she wanted a red car so we ordered a maroon one with white interior and top. I don’t need to mention that she handily went through the $2500.00 budget my stepfather left us. The list on the car was almost $4200! To keep it in perspective, that was about $250 short of buying a new Corvette Stingray. Undaunted however, she moved forward and the negotiations began. I think when all the dust settled she got more on trade for that Borgward than my stepfather paid for it 2 years earlier. It took days to complete the deal. She was ruthless and unrelenting as she slowly wore out each salesman moving up through the hierarchy of the dealership’s sales and management team. Finally she got to the general manager where the deal was struck and the car ordered. I can’t remember what the final number was but it was definitely lower than $4200 yet still significantly beyond our $2500 budget.
Now it’s time to briefly regress. When my stepfather would get angry (in all fairness not very often) he never yelled. He would usually rationally explain his position making your position seem so ridiculous that most of the time he won, but not always. If his position failed or if he was unsuccessful he began to whistle (in lieu of swearing I think). Remember, I said my mother REALLY wanted this car so after much “discussion” (when mama ain’t happy no one is) he compromised and the whistling began. He whistled and whistled, for months actually. I think he too realized he could have had a new Corvette.
Well, moving on, the car finally arrived and it was beautiful. We were the envy of the neighborhood. Who ever heard of an air-conditioned convertible in Asheville? You just put the top down right? Well I can tell you I did almost every time I got to drive it after I got my driver’s license.
Interestingly, my mother almost never put the top down. They had the car for about 10 years and she loved it but with the air on and the top up. Occasionally I got to borrow it for dates. Like most teenagers of that time I raced every thing that I could. The thing was amazingly fast. I beat 327 Chevys, 390 Fords and the like. Later I found out why. We had moved to Miami by then and while there the water pump began to leak so we took it off and went down to NAPA to get another one. The parts guy looked at it and said, “That’s not a 326 it’s a 389 pump”. This aroused our curiosity so my stepdad contacted the Pontiac factory rep and found out after some research that because my mother had special ordered the car with the right kind of equipment (everything) at the end of the production run they decided to make this car and about a 100 others “test mules” for the upcoming GTO. Our car had the high performance 4-barrel carb, 389ci GTO motor, heavy-duty suspension and transmission plus full independent suspension and pos-i-track rear! He assured my stepdad however that if we had had any problems GM would have covered it beyond the 1-year warranty. I think he was trying to apologize. I would have thanked him!
All those years I thought it was my phenomenal driving skills that won all those street races. It was humbling to realize I probably should have beaten most of those guys by more. I wonder what that one of a hundred (or so) “326” Lemans convertibles would be worth today?
