In 1967, when I was a 17 year old senior in high school, a film came out that profoundly influenced my life. That film was “The Graduate” starring Dustin Hoffman. For those of you who might not remember it, I’ll tell you a little about the film.
Hoffman plays young Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate that gets seduced by an older married woman played by Anne Bancroft. It’s a great film and I highly recommend it to anyone my age. It still brings back many great memories.
The strongest memory for me, however, was of the car that young Ben can be seen zipping around in. It was a small foreign, two-seater Alfa Romeo Spider convertible. I fell in love with it. I just had to have a little sports car!
Resetting the scene two years later, I found my sports car. It was a 1967 Triumph Spitfire, and oh, how I loved that little car. When I was a junior in college I commuted to Northern Illinois University – about 50 miles from my home in Aurora – in that little terror.
Naturally, I purposely found every backroad that I could and zipped and swished and sped back and forth to school every day during the spring and fall. It was a little too harsh to drive that little bugger in the winter, so it sat quietly in storage awaiting my return.
I took many a pretty girl for rides in that car. I can also remember sitting at the drive-in restaurant, music blaring, waiting for my cheeseburger and fries. I felt so hip and free in that car. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure my first child got “started” in that car (if you know what I mean 😉).
That car began a long love affair with the Triumph brand. I owned several Spitfires – a TR3, a TR250, a TR6 and a GT6. Later in life after retirement I purchased yet another Spitfire, painted it bright red and had the engine rebuilt. I sold it without ever really driving it. The spirit of my youth had faded and failed to be rekindled.
Just out of curiosity I recently Google searched Triumph Spitfires for sale. You can still find them for 5 to 10 thousand dollars, but the thrill has gone – at least for me and my desire for Triumphs.
My current version of the Spitfire is my little Mini Cooper. It’s a wonderful car with its manual 6-speed transmission and large sunroof. I can still be found zipping around the back roads of Wisconsin, music blaring and wind in my air. And that beautiful girl is still sitting next to me (well, she’s a little older now and she’s my wife) – and she’s still yelling at me to “slow down!”
Funny. I don’t seem to recall Mrs Robinson yelling at young Benjamin to slow down in the movie.
✍️ GREG STANGL
