From Donald Duck to Colorod

SWEDEN. Jan Silén from Gnarp tells the story about his first encounters with the hobby. When Donald Duck turned into Colorod and mopeds evolved to Mopar. Translation Ellen Kay Krantz.

The fall of 1975 I was 13 years old and started sixth grade. Following fall, 1977 I was about to start seventh grade enrolling in a new school. You felt grown up and big, so when mom asked if we should extend the subsctiption on the Donald Duck magazine it felt kind of childish.

Managed to nag my mom for some candy money and walked down to Gulf on a shopping round.

Instead of coming home with a bag of candy I returned with a magazine called Colorod.

A car magazine with a front page font a thirteen year old boy like me couldn’t resist.

I had thumbed through it before purchasing it and was caught by this amazingly cool car.

A car with varnish design, spoke rims, velour upholstery, spinning seats, bar in the back seat and it was definitely my dream car.

The entire magazine was blasted with awesome cars.

Included with the magazine was also a pay slip for new subscribers and it was only 8 $.

I started a long process of wearing down my mom to let me subscribe. Finally I got a subscription of Colorod and enjoyed every moment of each new monthly issue. Not that I understood much of the content but I was fun just looking at the cars.

Some comprehension of what cars originated from USA I had. Those were the ones that didn’t look like my mother’s SAAB 99.

My buddy next door had a dad who drove a four-door Chevrolet Malibu from 1965. His big sister had a Chevy 1956 that I found ravishingly beautiful.                                                                                     One of my classmate’s neighbors, an older man had a Chevy Impala 1964 that we used to intentionally go see. We were invited into the garage to look at it as long as we did it with caution.

It was gold colored with a white roof and was big as can be. After the show we got to listen to the old man’s stories about all the ladies that wanted to go with him for a ride in his Chevy.

He had new stories every time but it may have been some truth to the fact that they only wanted to ride in the Chevy because he had no wife.

Another classmate of mine’s big brother had a Mustang from 1966 that he was putting together. We were all amazed by the color he chose. Black with something called metal flake. The car had uncountable colors in sunlight and he has it just the same still.

Happiness was a fact when we one day got to ride along. He put the pedal to the metal and I was smashed like bug into the back seat. Noticed the gas pedal was shaped like a foot, aaaaaawesome!

Along with the Colorod magazines came a catalogue called Comfort Custom. As we flipped through it we saw a thingy with the quote: “Fits all Mopar”. – What’s Mopar?
We had up until now covered Chevrolet, Ford, Pontiac, etc. But what kind of car was a Mopar?

I squinted to see if it maybe was a typo. Maybe they meant “moppar”(=mopeds) but my buddy didn’t think so.

Car catalogues didn’t sell moped parts I was told.

We were well acquianted with mopeds, I had already taken grandpa’s NSU for all it could give plus another NSU that kind of died without possibility for resuscitation after an afternoon in the gravel pit. At the time I had a rather homemade project with a souped-up Zyndapp motor. It did around 40 mph in the pit and through the woods.

When it was time for a coffee break we entered the Gulf bar. One of my buddy’s mom and dad own the gas station and bar. We eavesdropped on the older kids as usual and then remembered our mission. We sauntered to their table, trying to look cool and asked them about Mopar.

– What is it?

First they laughed at us small kids and then they explained what Mopar meant. We were Ok; this wasn’t the first time we had made a fool of ourselves in front of the cool kids.

My buddy had a Puch Dakota and at an earlier eavesdropping session we had picked up some 411 on how to increase the performance on mopeds. We did the same thing then and asked for more detailed instructions. One tip was to go to the moped shop Rosenquist in Hudiksvall and buy emery cloth to sand down the head.

Buddy did as they said and as we met them the next time he bragged about his new and improved bike. Problem is, as he told the story he confused both the name of the shop and the cloth. He proudly announced he bought a silk cloth at Ronnersteel.
– And after that he reluctantly was referred to as Ronnersteel.

By Jan Silén in the driver seat.