DELPHOS — Not many 69-year-old men can say they own the car in which they took their driver’s license test.
Ed Becker, of Delphos, can.
Becker’s 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible has been in his family’s hands all but one year. The car keys ended up in his pocket in 2019.
“My dad bought it in 1969 from Caldwell Motors in Lima. He loved that car. Both my sister and I as teenagers took our tests in it, although he didn’t allow us to drive it much. She probably got to drive it more than I,” Becker said.
Becker’s father passed away in 1977. Ed tried to buy the Firebird from his mother at that time, but being a mom of four sons and one convertible, she didn’t need to do the math to know it would be a bad idea to pick one over the others.
Ed ended up with the Firebird after his mother’s death.
“My brothers and I all agreed the car needed to stay in the family,” Becker said. “I would never sell this car,” he said.
The Firebird only has 126,000 miles on it, which is not bad for a car that’s going on 54 years old. Much of the interior also has been refinished. His challenge now is finding a new top to match the ivy gold color of his current one. “Pontiac only used that color for two years,” Becker said.
He enjoys driving with the top down.
“It’s a fun car to drive,” he says.
