Love is blind. That's my excuse.

That's why I said "yes" to that used-car when I should have said "Who tap-danced on the roof?" or "What the heck is that noise in the engine?"

This was August 1976. I was young and dumb and I had the shoulder-length blonde hair to prove it. I was about to start college, and I wasn't going to take TheBus. This was last call at closing time.

One look at that beater 1969 Volkswagen Bug and I was smitten — mostly with stupidity.

Hey, it's a guy thing, OK? Men will do just about anything for love. Buying it — the clunker, not love — seemed like a good idea.

The owner, a frumpy woman, must have thought she had found the village idiot when I handed her $750.

That lame excuse for a car was on my mind the other day because the whole world of driving had found my address: Firstborn is behind the wheel, learning the clutch. Her friends are starting to drive by themselves. Every teenager I meet or hear about has a better car than mine.

You can call me jealous on that last point. I'm not proud. But my first car was a whole lecture on bad ideas, right down to the dents. Darn car looked like it had cellulite.

I was 18, an age when owning a car was an all-important status symbol.

And not just any car.

If you grew up in Kailua in the mid-1970s, you knew there was only one acceptable ride: A Volkswagen Bug, preferably a 1967 model, if you could afford one.

Everyone I knew drove a Bug. It was a cult. It was as important as sex or beer, because without a Bug, you probably were not going to get either.

When I bought the car, one of my best friends, Kid Radial, was furious. He knew Volkswagens like preachers know the Bible and had come with me to inspect every potential purchase. Except when I bought the clunker.

Kid Radial was already driving the car I should have bought earlier that summer — a shiny silver '67 Bug — and I was smarting, emotionally, from that.

Too expensive, I told the nightie-wearing blonde selling it. She wanted $950. For the car.

After I turned her down, Kid Radial bought the silver Bug after an afternoon of negotiating. I think he got to swim in her pool, too.

A week after my big purchase, the smoking engine needed $500 in repairs. That cleaned out my savings.

If there was a higher lesson in all that, I still haven't found it. But I can tell you this: Love is not only blind, it's expensive, too.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.