This was my first car: A Plymouth Volare Premier Wagon with a line 6 engine. Driving with the Plymouth was always pleasure.

Even with the very high gas prices it was fun to cruise around.

During the summer holyday in '92 there was a strike in France. Farmers and truck drivers blocked all highways. Gas was hard to find but I decided to go to the south of France during the strike. A foolish thing to do according my father...he predicted that I would run out of gas. With the fuel tank completely filled I knew I could manage to get around all the blockades and could get to where I wanted without any problems. It became a tour over very small roads in the country site. Roads so narrow that the Plymouth took the whole road. Can you imagine how many times I had to wait for opposite cars who just rushed at me with high speed...leaving me half on the road and half in the ditch.

Anyway I succeeded to get where I wanted without any problems at all. However I almost ran on fumes when I arrived. The weather was fine and 4 weeks of joy were almost over as I needed to fill up the car. At the time the very tiny gas station looked not suspicious but at the end of the day knew better.

When I stopped hitting the gas pedal the engine just stopped running. Not a good thing you need the brakes and also the power steering would be handy driving in the mountains. I don't know if you know some Louis de Funes movies but it was in a scenery like that. With all the sharp curves in the road down I can tell you that the people in the back, who didn't know about this problem, screamed like little pigs.

To solve this problem I could do a number of things:

-Try to solve it myself.....without proper tools and in a dry and sandy environment that could make things even worse.

-Go to a garage...when I got there the only thing the mechanic could say was: O la la O la la mon Dieux une voiture americain scratched his ear and did nothing.        ( That is the strangest thing in France almost every man can fix a French car and nothing else )

-Just drive the 1000 miles home and fix it there.

And guess what...I just drove back home with from time to time screaming people in the back. After a couple of 100 miles I knew how I could keep the engine running...don't try this because driving in a curve in neutral and hit the brake and gas pedals at the same time is not that safe.

Back home the problem was solved very quickly. Just as I expected the gas station also ran on empty and this way the car got all the dirt from the bottom of the gas station in the carburetor. Well it was indeed a vacation to scream about.