When talking cars with people, I always have heard one line at one time or another: “When I was a kid, it seemed like everybody in the neighborhood owned a (Vehicle X). You saw them everywhere!” A lot of the younger guys I know from the military and college had two specifically picked out: mid-1990s Ford Taurus, the round one, or a Chevrolet Celebrity (or one of the GM cousins). I’d be hard pressed to think of two cars I saw a lot of, but there is one that stands out in my mind even better than that: The Ford Maverick.
Allow me to explain a little: Between the ages of about 3-6 years old, I grew up in Colorado Springs. (For those of you with age jokes at the ready, that would put the year range at 1986-89.) Technically, what little memory I have of that time period should be running around, playing, general kids stuff, right? Sure, there are Super Soaker fights, downhill Big Wheel races, and Nintendo galore, but in Colorado Springs it seemed like everybody and their mother had a Ford Maverick or Mercury Comet, and they were all about the same color: tomato red, a faded lemon yellow, a moderately light blue, white, or the pea-green color of this pretty much unmolested 1975 I found for sale just outside of Somerset. Some were sedans, some were coupes, none were Grabbers, Comet GTs or the really awkward Stallion packages. They had hubcaps, most were six cylinders and all were just good, solid basic transportation. And most were in the junkyard by the time I hit middle school…shame.
What was the car you saw everyday growing up, that everybody in the neighborhood owned? Not the hot rods, but the real basic car that was freaking everywhere.
