J & V Hodgman Cars (since 1979 when we were married) Or "Trip Down Memory Lane V-2"

Not sure why I didn't post this last year when I wrote it, but I must've been waiting for our new car to add.
Well I'll post about that special car in the near future, but for now....

......Since we have been married we have gone through many cars. The Hubby is definitely a car lover and is constantly reevaluating and scheming about the next vehicle purchase. As opposed to my first blog about the cars my parents owned during their married life together, this collection of cars is much more accurate. The Hubby remembers minute details of cars - especially ones he has owned and loved.

So, here is a quick rundown of all our old cars:

1967 ford custom 500 red/ white
   Bought in 77 from Hodgman parents

Uncle Brad Swenson outside of his Provo apartment in front of our car

1967 ford pickup tan camper attached
 Bought in '79 also from Hodgman parents

Vicki modeling the rear bumper

1981 Honda civic station wagon
We purchased this with $4,000. cash and a $2,000. loan. Payed off in 3 years.

GG Hodgman's campsite with the Airstream ("the Beer can") and their pickup truck.

One of our first runs to Costco - 1982?

1985 Chevy van blues 302 V-8.  Had a couch/ fold down bed, 3 speed w/overdrive. After my 4th child I locked myself out of this van at least 4 times. I soon learned the easiest way to break into it through the side pop out window.
Maybe I had a mushy brain for a couple years? 
                                      

Pregnant Vicki with David and Jonathan at the Colorado National Monument 11-85.

Mom, David (3 1/2), Jonathan (5 1/2)

This picture has a sign above the garage welcoming home our second girl, Stephanie in 1988.
We owned the Honda Civic station wagon and the Chevy blue van

1988 Chevy 1500 350 V-8 van.
Burgundy red/tan. This van had a nice closet, a refrigerator, and a more powerful motor. We got a great trade in from our prettier blue van and paid cash for the balance. Very nice not to have payments again.

Sundance mountain retreat for Uncle Steve's 40th b-day

Little picnic in a random parking lot out of the rear of the van.

Mom, Stephanie (1), David (7), Jonathan (9), Kathryn (3)

1992 Chevy Astro van teal. Purchased December 1991.

Jonathan and Dad coming around the corner on Joseph Ct in NW Portland.

1988 CJ-5 black jeep 302 Chevy engine.
Bought in 91, sold 92.

Finally found a picture of John in our Joseph Ct. driveway

1992 barely used Lexus SC400
        Garnett red.
Theres got to be a picture of this pretty car somewhere.

1994 Ford Explorer 4 speed. Forest green
     Built in HUGE telephone. 
Sold to Jonathan in 2002.

Joseph Ct. 3 car garage with room to walk around. I do miss this garage.

Explorer on R, Astro middle, Grandma Hodgman's white on L.

1996 Honda accord (1991) lt. green
   2 door, Jonathan drove traded for Prism ('98)

1996 Suzuki 1200cc motorcycle  - Sold in 1998
        cranberry / silver

1998 Prism green sold to David in 2004

Here it is today a little worse for the wear, but still chugging along nicely
(I wrote this 2 years ago and about 3 months ago David sold this for a cool thousand)

 It is amazing how much time we spend in cars and yet when I look for pictures of these past cars, they are very hard to find.
This is Stephanie decorating the Suburban for a high school graduation party for Kathryn.

What a nice little sister

1998 bought 99 Chevy Suburban, burgundy, in St.George, Utah while visiting   Mom and Dad Kelly
      • Added cost $1,200.00 just to get smog approval in California (gotta love 
             California and all its red tape)
      • Fit less cargo than Astro Van
      • Had the Suburban until 2004 when we purchased BMW.

1998 gmc Z 71 1500sierra. Sand beige   Gave to GGK's H in summer 98 back in maybe  2006 for a year then 2009 for a month. Michael had it at the U last year and then after we drove it back to California Tressa decided that she'd like to buy it from us. Sold to Tressa in 2011.

2000 Millenium Edition, Carrera 4 Porsche, 6 speed manual, violet chroma flare, natural tan leather interior

 John can clean a car up better than anyone I know.

 Michael added the "Jump Man" symbol. Nice touch.

2001 yellow used  (18,389 miles) jeep wrangler soft top for $16,856.94
Kathryn got her license in jan 2002, and was the first of our children to drive this car. We used it through hers, Stephanie's and Michael's high school years and then some. 
We just sold the jeep. It had 59,200 miles on it, has been in a couple of little wrecks, and has been loved nearly to death. Michael, Stephanie and Kathryn did NOT want us to sell it, but we needed to get it out of our driveway.

2003 Porsche Cayenne 2002 turbo 450 hp  off road lift. This was a very pretty car and was the first one that was a high performance that I, Vicki,  drove regularly. Spoiled me for regular cars. 

 This is my current car. I took a little while to get used to driving a non-truck/van, but I really like it now.
This is a fun car to drive and it minds me very well. It goes and stops on a dime.

It is a BMW 545i, black with black interior. We got it lightly used at the end of 2004 and I have been spoiled by its handling. 

We bought this next Honda at the same time as the BMW (December 2004) when we traded in the Porche Cayenne for them.

 Kathryn bought it from us as she was getting married. Get that puppy clean girls!

Lexy and Ellery helping Katz

2004 used Honda Accord 5 speed manual w navigation, dk  grey. This has been a great little car for her new family. This picture is cousin Lexy helping clean the car in our driveway while Ellery watches on. A fun time was had by all!

2005 Honda Accord, black exterior with beige interior. 5 speed, and …. yet another great Honda added to our collection. Stephanie bought this one in 2011. Here she is driving it on a long trip to Utah from CA.

2007 Porsche carrera 4S, meteor grey, coco interior with double stiched upholstery, 6 sp, Bluetooth, nav, etc.

My cute Hubby keeps it quite impeccably clean, as he has kept his cars for his entire life. This is often kept covered in our garage. 
His parents used to wash cars every Saturday whether they needed it or not, so he learned at a young age to respect these precious purchases.
I'll explain a little about how he cares for them in an example of one of our first noticeable differences of opinion. He couldn't believe that I would set things on the top or hood of a car, and he let me know that he was irritated when I set a book down on his hood. I didn't have a clue that he was serious, so I laughed and apparently it was not a joke. Mind you, it was the red and white 1967 Custom 500 and it was 11 years old so I had not even thought about what I was doing. Truthfully, if it had been bought yesterday I wouldn't have thought about it either. I just did not get it. I always used to set things on cars, as I would a fine piece of furniture. I would never scratch a car and set something dirty or uber heavy on it, but I learned to not set things on cars at that juncture. 

John's current commuter car. He drives to Brisbane from Los Gatos 5 days a week and shares rides with a couple of coworkers. We apparently love those Honda's.
2007 Honda Accord. Black, black interior, 5 sp. (Another change here. Michael now has this car in Utah while colleging -my exciting new word)

"Trip" Down Memory Lane (1)

The Hubby and I were talking about all the cars we've had and I started wondering about all my Mom and Dad's cars, and GPHodgman's cars too.

So.. I've decided to do a little series of past decades of cars from our families.

Sort of a little trip down memory lane in the back of a station wagon/van, depending on which decade you may be talking about.

This may be totally not your cup of tea, to see and be told about the cars my parents have owned, so don't waste your time if you aren't interested.


My sister Kathy was the interviewer of my parents because they visited her for Christmas this past year and that is when I thought about this idea originally. Kathy wrote up a little synopsis after we talked with them on the phone. Tom also helped supply pictures and commentary.

I insert some random file pictures with some actuals from my stash. Dad was always a pretty regular movie or slide picture taker so maybe I'll raid his stash one of these days, especially for the early models that my sibs and I don't have any pictures of.

Ready??  Here's Joyce and Sam's car history (sort of).

• 1947 – Marriage. They had NO car for a couple of years. They lived at 253 N. University Ave in Provo, Utah and rode a bike. Mom says he’d put her on the handlebars and they’d head to the laundry. (they borrowed a car from Grandpa Kelly for their honeymoon). They remember Emily (Watts), Sam's sister, coming over to see their apt, and she said “Oh, you poor kids.” They were so poor.

• 1949-ish: Drove a 1936 blue Plymouth 4 door to Washington DC to attend Dental school at Georgetown. It had a cloth top – they had to paint it several times over the few years they had it, in order to keep it from leaking.

 The old car was purchased by Samuel Wallace and Joyce Mower Kelly from a lady in Provo who had purchased it years before from Grandpa Samuel Adams Kelly who was Sam's father. As they drove it across the country it wouldn't make it up the hills going across the Continental divide and had to have a trucker push (did Dad say pull?) them up and over.  Again they were stuck in North Platte NE and had to get a new clutch plate.
This trusty sidekick lasted them through Dental School in Washington DC even though it had to be rewired several times – even with pink and yellow wire by a friend Jim McKavie? who had been a Navy pilot in WWII- before it finally bid the dust with a fire in the engine.

•1953 – 5 dental school couples bought brand new Plymouth’s, (model?) got a great deal. Liscensed in Maryland, the students each paid about $1400. (Dad borrow $450 from Johnny Brooks, his brother-in-law and eventually paid it back). 

This car was a 4 door and I, Vicki, remember buying gas at SITE gas station on North Avenue in Grand Junction for 19.9 cents/gallon for this vehicle probably in the late 60's and early 70's. (BTW - We also got amber colored glasses for each fill up and accumulated many of them for our downstairs stash which we used for outdoor dining in the summer.)

• 1955 or 1956 so – (here’s where it’s a little fuzzy) – Dad says they had a grey or silver one color station wagon as their second car. A Plymouth. These dates could be wrong. Mom does NOT remember this car at all. Steve???
I think the next one was a green station wagon that looked somewhat like….

This is not the actual Dodge, but a image picture from the internet

that may be somewhat close, if only it was green.

• 1957 – Brand new Green & Cream high fin Dodge station wagon. Mom & Dad Kelly paid cash/traded in the other wagon. "We were making lots of $, kinda shocking, actually,” says Mom today.

(Another aside – you all knew that Dad had $ in the bank right after the war, he himself paid for the whole wedding reception in 1947.)

I bet we could find a good picture of this car in Dad's stash, and I also bet this car would be worth a lot of money if he still owned it today.

• 1961 – we move to our new Pacific Drive house in Grand Junction. (another aside – Camille did NOT like the house “I want my bedwoom back”. Their two cars (as they recall) – the green Dodge and the blue Plymouth.

Vicki remembers a white station wagon after this, maybe a 63 or so? But other sibs and Dad don't remember it that way. 

This picture is maybe how Vicki remembers the "White" one and is a '64 Dodge Dart

• 1965 – replaced the green station wagon (or perhaps the white station wagon) with a new Yellow Dodge Dart station wagon. The picture above says "Polaris."
Camille and Vicki loved the back bench seat that sat backwards towards the tail gate. Some of our friends had two small back bench seats that faced each other. Did these even have seat belts yet? The US government didn't require seatbelts until 1968, but many cars had them as extra's.
Kathy drove it with Tom to 7-11 when she was 14 and got into a little fender bender. When she got home she painted the front bumper scrape with white paint from the garage closet. She must've thought Dad was pretty unobservant. She was wrong.

And then...

Our cool car.

• 1967 – the Mustang. Yum. – its color was listed as Honey Gold, but it was a kind of light greenish semi-metallic, like the top picture.  I'm sure we have a picture in Dad's stash - I will look sometime when I'm in GJ. Probably one of the first paint colors to be able to do metallic. This one did have seat belts.

• 1969-ish – An orange Fiat. Dinky, no guts at all. Dad says he traded in the '53 light blue Plymouth for it – got about $35! Vicki remembers they got the Fiat close to Kathy’s 16th birthday, and it was a sad occasion that they traded in the Plymouth that was purchased when Kathy was born.

Tom all ready to go to Junior Prom in this little Fiat gem.

Gotta love the ruffled shirt with tux in the 70's.

This is similar to our first pickup but ours was beige and was not shiny.

• First pickup – Mesa Memorial Hospital old truck. I learned how to drive a manuel transmission on this old pickup when I was at Soelberg's at about age 12. Shifting was on the steering column, and it had a push button for a starter. We called it Cecil's truck because Cecil was the handyman at Mesa Memorial and he drove it. What was his last name?

Dad (Sam Kelly) on his way to work. Fury III in the carport.

Here is a picture of the red Bridgestone 175cc motorcycle. Steve drove this around Provo while in school there.

SA Kelly on his favorite mower while visiting Grand Junction in 1974 just weeks before his passing. 

The orange Volkswagon and the green Furry III in the carport.

• Steve – Kathy remembers you dropping her off at a piano lesson when you were about 17 driving a white sedan with a bench seat. She watched you drive away with your arm up along the back of the seat – you were so cool!  Who’s car was that? Was Grandpa Kelly visiting and we’d borrowed it??

Here's proof that GPKelly's (Sam Adams) car was white. 

Camille sitting atop our green pickup that I also drove for nearly a year during high school.

I think this is my favorite picture of the batch. "Hi Camille!"

• Second pickup - a light dull green used forest service pickup that dad parked out by the incinerator (Kathy wonders, "Why did we call it that?") (Because that was what it was - a trash burner)· · Dad eventually replaced that pickup with a white…. Toyota? When?

Vicki says Grandpa Kelly's car was white and she drove it one year during her high school years after GPK died in 1974. (VK)

Plymouth Fury III - Camille and Mom after Stake Conference in 1975

• Dad remembers driving a green sedan for several years – even driving it to Denver with his office girls and getting stuck on the pass. When? Maybe that was the Fury III

• Early 70’s – a Green Plymouth Fury, replaced the yellow Dodge station wagon. Vicki remembers it was huge – Camille would sleep in the back window on long trips!

• 1971- Mazda RX3. Orange body, white top. Rotary engine. Newest cool thing! I guess Steve and Connie were driving the Mustang at this time, but it blew up, so they used the Mazda to haul a U-Haul trailer to Oregon and dental school. Eventually the Mustang was fixed and they traded the Mazda back for the Mustang. Kathy remembers driving Tom over to the desert out by Price to drop him off at the railroad. Probably 1972 or 1973.

Vicki & Camille soon ready to take off to Provo and SLC for school.

When I had to do BYU Nursing Program in Salt Lake City for lack of adequate hospital facilities in Provo, I got to take a car with me for transportation. This RX3 was the one.
In about 1979 John was driving it down G Rd. close to the canal on 26 Rd.  when a bike rider turned right in front of him causing the Mazda to hit the biker. Everyone was okay, but it sure scared John.

• Dad's 1971 Yamaha or Kawasaki 250cc motorcycle - green?   Dad bought this from Bob Holt.

Tom at Snow College with another orange car

• Early 1973 – We bought the orange VW from Bob Rigg’s brother, and Kathy had it in Provo. She drove it to Oregon that summer with Tom to visit Steve & Connie, and both (K & T) met their spouses on that trip! Then I think it went to Tom for awhile until Vicki had her awful accident. (shown below - totaled)

• 1975 or before (very hazy date) –  Silver 2 door BMW 318i.  Dad bought this post Stake Presidency detail for 17 years. He also grew a salt and pepper beard.

• This green Jeep CJ5 was Tom's, but if I remember correctly, he left it at home during his mission and Dad made the payments on it while he was gone. I got to drive it too, even though my history with Tom's 

cars was mediocre at best.

                                        

Camille outside on I-70 near San Raphael Swell

• 1975 –ish – a Buick. Tan?

Camille, Me, Vikki Jarrett in our back yard - 1976.

 This picture is from 1981 in front of John and my new home in Clackamas, Oregon. 

Dad is driving and Mom is passenger.

• Mom's 1996?? Chrysler LHS. Here are the sisters at BYU Women's conference in about 1996?.
• Mom's brown Park Ave.

• Dad's red Toyota truck. In the carport at 717 with Mom and Uncle Ross. Ross was married to our Aunt June after her husband D. Ray died. He was one of her high school sweethearts that reappeared in her life and he was a fun companion and friend to Joyce and Sam too.
• Buick in St. George??
• 200??? Highlander
• 200?? Steve's Lexus

These last few cars we should have pictures of because they are still in the family. One of these days when I go to Grand Junction, I'll get a little more info and do some updating.

Thanks to Tom (brother), Kathy (sister), Mom (Joyce) and Dad (Sam). 
I actually did this research at Christmas 2011 and then thought I'd get better updates and pictures before posting, but failed in that regard.