This car had a strange quirk about it. We would go each day and have lunch at The Pecan Tree Cafe in Waller which was a 10 minute drive from our job in Hockley. There were usually 4 or 5 of us riding together to lunch.

At precisely the same spot every day it would die, on a straight and level stretch of highway. When I say die, I mean die. Like pull over on the side of the road and in just a few seconds it could be restarted and we’d continue on our way. It took a few of days to realize it did the same thing in the same place, but only after lunch. Not when we were traveling the same stretch of highway on our way from Austin. Nor would it happen on our way to eat.

We were all baffled, but each day it would reoccur. We finally got out one day and walked around to figure it out. There was a microwave tower off in the distance. Maybe it was zapping it. Or was it a loose connection in the wiring? As we walked back to the place where it always happened, we noticed that there was an unusual joint in the concrete paving that was misaligned more that the others. If you’ve ever driven around Houston, especially in those days, every concrete slab in the highways could be felt and heard when driving past them. That one joint in the paving was jarring to drive over.

Before long it started happening more often, in other places. I took it in to the dealer for service. There was a small black box mounted on the right front wheel well cover under the hood, something to do with the ignition. When there was a perfect storm of things happening I guess, the box was perhaps the right temperature and it was jolted just the right way it would lose power. They replaced the black box and never had the problem again.