{"id":2826,"date":"2009-01-09T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2009\/01\/strawberry-shortcake\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:57","slug":"strawberry-shortcake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2009\/01\/strawberry-shortcake\/","title":{"rendered":"Strawberry Shortcake"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Strawberry<\/a><\/p>\n

It was July 1990 and we were driving along in Beluga<\/a>, our 1970 Chevy Impala<\/a>, headed for a week’s vacation in Vermont. We’d been contemplating a change in our automotive stable, as our three children were outgrowing the Impala and our other vehicles comprised a Peugeot 504 Diesel<\/a> and a rusty Dodge Club Cab<\/a> pickup. “What’s that?” said Jill, referring to a large station wagon towing an immense camper<\/a> that passed us easily on the Interstate. “That,” said I, “is a Chevrolet Suburban<\/a>.” Instantly I had the answer to our dilemma.<\/p>\n

I’d had a long succession of pickup trucks, the Club Cab a concession to the growing family, but increasingly a compromise one. Our friends were all buying minivans<\/a>, a solution that was entirely practical yet unappealing. A Suburban, I reasoned, would replace both the Impala and the pickup, while forgoing only the ability to haul a load of manure for the garden.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks later I was perusing the Washington Post<\/i><\/a> over breakfast while on a business trip to the nation’s capital, when a classified item jumped out at me: 1980 Chevy Suburban, 454, towing package, low miles<\/b>. With time to spare before my return flight that afternoon , I went to take a look. It was a ’79<\/a>, not an ’80, but nearly indistinguishable since last redesign in 1973<\/a>. The “low miles” were in the high 80s, but the price was negotiable. The seller took my offer, so I went to a bank and took a cash advance on my credit card so I could close the deal and go home with the title.<\/p>\n

With temporary plates in hand, my son Edward and I (he the railfan) took the train<\/a> to DC, then a taxi to Hyattsville, Maryland, where the Suburban awaited us. I had not driven the ‘burb before purchase, as it was neither registered nor insured. Setting out on a 400 mile trip with no shakedown was a bit of a gamble, but the truck ran strong, if a bit rough, and displayed 45 psi oil pressure at idle.<\/p>\n

I had bought a half-ton, two-wheel drive Suburban with Chevy’s tough 454 cubic inch Mk IV engine<\/a>. It had the all-important Class III hitch receiver<\/a> and low-line mirrors<\/a>. While not as sure-footed as a 4×4<\/a>, its limited slip differential<\/a> enabled it to cope easily with snow drifts<\/a>. The upscale Silverado interior<\/a> was state of the art in the day before power windows and leather had become de rigeur<\/i>, it had the stylish Rally Wheels<\/a>. While cargo doors<\/a> were standard on Suburbans this one had been ordered with an electric window tailgate<\/a>. It had its foibles. The air conditioning didn’t hold a charge for long, and the cruise control<\/a> had a vacuum leak that caused it to cruise in fits and starts. The roughness in the engine was traced to a missing pushrod. Someone had disabled both valves on one cylinder, perhaps as an economy measure. In any case, reconverting the V7 to a V8 made a world of difference. We named it “Strawberry Shortcake” after its color scheme of Cardinal Red and Santa Fe Tan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Strawberry Shortcake took us far and wide, to Cape Cod<\/a>, to Nova Scotia<\/a> and easily towed my vintage Shasta<\/a> camper to Hershey each October. The 454 pulled like a locomotive, so towing<\/a> Angus<\/a>, my 1925 Hudson<\/a> was an easy task. After four years and about 60,000 miles I aspired to something different, so I sold Strawberry Shortcake to a classmate of my son Nick and treated myself to….another Suburban<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was July 1990 and we were driving along in Beluga, our 1970 Chevy Impala, headed for a week’s vacation in Vermont. We’d been contemplating a change in our automotive stable, as our three children were outgrowing the Impala and our other vehicles comprised a Peugeot 504 Diesel and a rusty Dodge Club Cab pickup.….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3248,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}