Beyond the Spiel: Lessons from My Old Pontiac

It was late on a Friday afternoon when a private message between my colleague Rehana Begg and I turned from, “FYI, I heard back from Joe Smith after all, but I was confused because the caller ID showed up as John Doe” (real names have been changed to protect the innocent) to “I'll have to give myself a pseudonym on my phone so people take my calls.” That conversation morphed into a discussion about what our first cars were named, which again morphed into what types of rides they were. Rehana drove a Morris Minor, and my first car was a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix.

Whether my first car was considered a luxury coupe or a muscle car didn’t matter to me. She was a beauty, and, at the age of 17, she was all mine. I had saved money working at my family’s restaurant over the years, and I decided to use $2,000 of it to purchase my first car. Like a siren, the gray-bodied boat-sized beast sang to me from the used car lot down the street. Her tinted t-tops allowed onlookers to take in her rich maroon leather interior, which complemented her exterior beauty. And those t-tops felt sturdy; they certainly were heavy.

When it was time for a joyride, my friends and I would remove them, carefully put them in their protective covers in the gargantuan trunk, and ride around town like we didn’t have a care in the world (truth be told, we didn’t have a care in the world). The stories that car could tell. Instead, let me tell you a story about her.

It didn’t take long for those super-cool sturdy t-tops to disappoint. Maybe a month into ownership, a run through the neighborhood car wash revealed useless, leaky seals that led to a waterfall of detergent and rinse water dousing the carpets. This of course led to a mildewy smell that never did go away—at least, not while I held the title.

The leaking t-tops were just the beginning of my troubles with my first vehicle. The fan belt busted; the A/C needed a Freon charge; the radio crapped out; I needed new tires within months; and the alternator failed. The car’s massive 8-cylinder engine guzzled the gas, too, and with all the repairs I had to pay for (there was no YouTube or Google to see how to fix things myself back in the mid-1980s), I was never able to fully fill that gas tank. I would bet that not once did the top of the tank touch fuel while I owned the car; the $3 worth of regular leaded gas (are you old enough to remember those fumes?) I would add at a time was just enough to get me to and from school.

The final straw was when the car began to leak oil and I took it to the mechanic. After it was fixed, someone hit the passenger’s side door while it was parked in the shop’s lot, and that was it. Stick a fork in me; I was done. I sold the car shortly after, still dented and still malodorous, to some young guy who said he likes to tinker with cars. I told him if the year I owned the car was any indication, he’d be happy with the beast. I took a loss financially (so much spent on repairs and, ultimately, I sold her for $1,000), but I gained some valuable life lessons: resilience, learning from failure, financial prudence and decision-making, appreciation for what I had and, finally, knowing when to let go.

Voices Behind the Designs

Reflecting on that first automotive adventure, it strikes me how much that experience parallels the realities of engineering design projects that you, the readers of Machine Design, face every day. Like my ’77 Pontiac Grand Prix, every machine—no matter how beautifully designed or robust it appears—carries inherent imperfections and trade-offs. Whether it’s the allure of sleek aesthetics masking underlying vulnerabilities or the relentless demands of maintenance and operation, the devil is always in the details.

Early design oversights in engineering can propagate into larger system failures if not identified and mitigated. And the surprises don’t always come from design alone; external factors often test the resilience of your work as an engineer in real-world conditions.

Yet, every setback is a lesson. That Pontiac taught me patience, resourcefulness and the value of continuous iteration, qualities that can serve all of us well. It is why you, the multidisciplinary engineer, meticulously prototype, test and refine—because embodied in every failure is data, insight and an opportunity to improve the next iteration.

As someone who deeply respects the work you do, I’m interested in the human side of engineering: the lessons, challenges and inspirations from your experience beyond the technical specs. Your responses will remain anonymous (unless you specify otherwise) and they will help me create future posts that resonate with your day-to-day realities and passions.

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