Chapter 3 of Be Home By Dinner centers around a newly purchased red AMC Spirit, a subcompact sporty car.
In reality, my Dad and I got into an accident in this car in 1979, which totaled the vehicle. I was 4-years-old. The accident was one of a handful of 1970s events that are my first memories, but this was the most vivid. I can still recall the plastic smell of the black interior and the jarring sensation of the car flipping over multiple times, ending us suspended upside down by our seat belts.
Other earliest memories are vague and through translucent lenses, like watching Star Wars at a drive-in movie theater (Route 309, perhaps?) and falling asleep when C-3P0 roamed lost in the Tatooine desert.
Below is a newspaper spotlight about the accident as well as a couple magazine ads about the unique vehicle:
