The Miracle of America Mobile

Over the past two weeks or so, I have seen three —three!— old Nissan Stanza Wagons. The first one was blue, the second one was white, and then I saw a brown one this afternoon. I'm always shocked (and pleased!) when I come across one of these cars. I can't believe that there are still some which are still running. Each time I see one, I'm reminded that I need to write a post in homage of the Miracle of America Mobile, which used to be my car in college.

My family had this car for a long time (probably about fifteen years), before this car ended up being handed off to me and my sister V. We bought this car when it was brand new (in 1986 or 1987?), when I was pretty young. It was our first brand-new car in our family, and I have a vague recollection of tediously waiting in a car dealership while my dad haggled with the salesman over a good price for the car.

I remember going for long car trips in the Stanza Wagon when I was little. V and I would sit on the very back seats, which faced backward (so we looked out the back window of the hatch door). I remember being on one particularly long road trip, sitting backward, and staring at some people who were driving behind our car. The driver and his wife kept waving at me and V, which I thought was strange. I don't think we ever waved back. Now that I think about it, it was probably amusing for those people to see two little girls continually staring at them for a long time, as our cars drove down a long stretch of highway in Wyoming.

Not long after we bought this car, the hubcaps were stolen while we lived in Los Angeles. We never replaced them - I suppose it gave the car a little more character. And then many years down the road, my mom put a bumper sticker on the back of the car: "See the Miracle of America Museum in Polson, Montana!" (We visited that museum on a trip once, and my mom really liked the message of patriotism conveyed by the museum.) And hence, the car got it's name: "The Miracle of America Mobile" (or "Miracle" for short). And that car really was a miracle. It lived for a long, long time (just like my cousins' Volkswagen Quantum wagon, which lived so long that Sars once had a dream that the Quantum had been translated!).

By the time I took "Miracle" to college, a second sticker had been affixed to the bumper (to complete the patriotic look of the car?): a Power of Pride bumper sticker. So, in true patriotic spirit, V and I putted around our college town in our miraculous car. My roommates and I would sometimes go for joyrides to the grocery store a few blocks away; we would open the sunroof and sliding back doors while driving (which we claimed would convert the car into a Jeep). One time, we even took the car all the way to B City on a trip for ice cream. That trip really pushed my car to its limits; it really couldn't handle driving more than 60 miles or so in a single drive. And oh, it was such a temperamental little vehicle: you couldn't drive right at 65 mph, or the car would start to shake quite violently. But if you drove at 60 or 70 mph, your ride would be as smooth as can be.

I loved this car. (I loved it so much, in fact, that in 2002 I obviously persuaded someone (Joanna?) to take pictures of me with my car, which I included in this post.) I loved driving a stick shift; I felt more "tough" and tomboyish if I could shift gears. I also loved to decorate the car in my own small way; I would often rotate the decorations that hung from my rear view mirror. Sometimes I would hang a cowboy hat air freshener (to go along with my tough-ish image, I suppose), and other times I would hang one of the miniature disco balls that I got at Classic Skating.

Oh, those days with the Miracle of America Mobile were great. Even today, car trips and driving adventures pale in comparison with those that we experienced in Miracle.