Readers share memories of their favorite car

Editor’s Note: The Houlton Pioneer Times asked readers to submit favorite stories about vehicles they once owned, or their favorite car to be used in the newspaper’s Car Care special section.
Kristi McAtee of Houlton — a red 1977 Buick Riveria.
“That car only had one speaker in the dashboard but it was still an awesome car.”    Janet McKay Brewer of Bridgewater — an orange 1971 Triumph TR7 convertible.
“My favorite memory of my car was when I was out in Houlton (in the mid 1980s), probably in one of the parking lots. It’s a memory that my cousin Carmen Graham, who was born in Houlton then moved away, share often.
“She was up for the summer, and I had recently graduated. My dad gave me an orange TR7 convertible. It was in rough shape for an 18-year-old girl, but it was a work in progress. I had it for years, and it was never inspected, but it was safe.
“Carmen and I tooled around town most of the night, and went through the parking lot about 374 times that night.  Sometimes the blinkers didn’t work, the muffler was a bit loud, the top never worked properly, so we just kept it down, but the radio always worked!
“Carmen and I laugh often about the time we left Houlton before a party ended at approx 2 a.m., driving through the Orient woods and it started raining. She said ‘What are we going to do?’ and I turned the radio up and starting singing to Cyndi Lauper at the top of my lungs. She joined in. We got a bit wet, and our very large 80’s earrings were flapping in the wind, but our hair looked the same after, as it did before.”