First Person: The Best Car I Ever Owned, a 1995 Saturn Named Babe
2 min read
She may have been old, but she was a beaut. At 295,000 miles, my 1995 forest green Saturn was still a well-known figure to the readers of my Road Raves column in The Tampa Tribune, now running on the Tampa Tribune’s Tampa Bay Online Blog. She was the best car I ever owned.
As I drove the highways and byways of Hillsborough County, Florida, reporting on road construction, needed improvements and dangerous intersections, Babe’s tires rolled through potholes and over rocks, glass and garbage, and her shocks blocked many a punch.
Babe saw to the morning ritual of taking my granddaughter – who has lived with me since she was seven months old – to daycare, and in later years, to school; and to taking me my office and then out on the road to gather material for Road Raves columns.
Babe’s engine never quit, although she did overheat once, causing me to shut down for awhile, but to her credit I must say we had been sitting in a traffic jam created by a forest fire and she was as much in need of a dose of antifreeze as I was of a trip to a restroom.
Babe’s life was simple. She was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee, not far from where my son runs a small cattle farm. But her birthplace wasn’t a cattle stall, it was a plant launched by General Motors nearly 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, that plant- and with it the Saturn brand- was shut down in 2009, two years after I’d purchased Babe’s replacement, a burgundy-wine four-door model I promptly named Babe2. The plant’s laid-off workers couldn’t have felt too much worse than I did at losing my friend’s only true caretaker: its dealership.
Babe was a friend, not only to me, but to the many readers who wrote in to ask me to find out when such-and-such a road was due to be fixed or when a signal light was scheduled to be built. By the time I sold her to a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa for $800, I knew her well. I knew that Saturn’s batteries are in the trunk under the spare tire and cannot be accessed for jumper cables. I knew where to add water and antifreeze. I knew that I had to change the oil every 3,500 miles.
I knew Babe had to have proper care. But Babe gave proper care to me too. My dented and scratched Saturn with the stained, torn seats, was by far the best vehicle I have ever owned and I will never forget her.
