Long ago, in May 2007, a red GCX Reflection 2.0 LI with vin number 4GHGC27L97D144844 rolled off of the assembly line and into the stock holding lot at Ghallagher’s Detroit Automobile plant. Here, the little GCX waited with thousands of its brothers until it began its first big journey. First, there was a short drive out of the stock yard and the GCX was loaded onto an autorack train car next to the factory. Then, the car took a train ride through the American Great Plains and the Southwest desert until it reached the Union Pacific Terminal in Phoenix, Arizona. Lastly, after coming off the train and sitting for a minute under the hot Arizona sun, it took a ride on a truck transporter to its final destination: Randy Ermann’s Ghallagher and GCX Dealership in Tucson.
Over the next few weeks, the little red GCX waited as people wandered around and pondered over the bright red compact, occasionally going on test drives until in early June it met its first owner - a stoic younger man named Roberto Ewing. Roberto had owned a few used cars previously. His first car was a high-mileage Saikuron Talisman that he wrecked after just a few years of driving. After that, an Akron Sparrow LS he found in the newspaper classifieds - which he drove for many years. But now, after saving up from his job at a plastic injection molding facility, he was ready to purchase his first new car. The paint drew Roberto’s attention while browsing the dealership lot, and the peppy character of the GCX SuperEconomy 2.0 four-banger during the test drive had him sold. He haggled with the car salesman, agreed to a loan with a 12% downpayment, and signed a stack of dealership agreements before he left with a title and keys for his brand new GCX Reflection.
Roberto loved the little car and liked taking his friends and coworkers on rides, bragging about the compact’s “sporty” engine. Every week on Friday after work, he’d give the car a clean at a self-service car wash just down the road from home, and he was careful when commuting on I-10 to avoid rock chips on the pristine new paint. The rear seat became a permanent home for his gym bag and basketball, which he used on the weekends shooting hoops with the boys at Palo Verde Park. Aside from a scrape on the headliner when his wife was unloading chairs for a new dining room table, Roberto took good care of the car and took it to the dealership for routine checkups and maintenance. Life was good… until the markets crashed.
The global economy during 2007 was already a bit shaky with housing prices falling from the subprime mortgage market, and some key banks declared bankruptcy; but D-Day came on September 15, 2008, when the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. triggered a rapid collapse of the global economy. Unfortunately for Roberto, he would be one of the millions of Americans to be laid off because of the 2008 Recession.
At first Roberto wasn’t too worried; the economy would soon recover, and he had a decent amount of unemployment to live off until he could find new work. But the economy did not recover quickly, unemployment would eventually run out, and no matter what Roberto applied for he was only met with “Thank you for your application, however…” Over the course of 2008 and 2009, Roberto worked a part-time job stocking shelves at Target to make ends meet, but he was quickly running out of money between the house payment, living costs, and the loan on his GCX Reflection. He made many sacrifices to keep his head above water: carpooling with other Target employees, skipping maintenance on his GCX, and applying for a student loan to get a degree for a better job. Soon money ran out, and Roberto couldn’t keep up with all of the loan payments. For the little red GCX things seemed relatively normal over months of driving around Tucson, but in the middle of one Autumn night, a tow truck pulled into the driveway, hooked onto the red compact, then repossessed the car. Roberto would never see his GCX Reflection again.
The poor little GCX sat alone in a dusty repo yard for weeks. Roberto couldn’t afford to get the car back, and soon it was sold by the bank at a dealers-only auction. Over months, the GCX was passed around between dealerships in Tucson and Phoenix, then was eventually bought by a dealership named C&R Motors in Gladstone, Oregon. The red car would be loaded onto a trailer transporter with other compacts and SUVs. It journeyed West on I-10 and North on I-5 through the crowded lanes of Los Angeles; the rolling tomato fields and almond groves of central California; the twisting and turning roads, up and over the Klamath Mountains; then, through the lush green fields and forests of rainy Oregon, the GCX arrived at C&R Motors. Fortunately for the little red car, it didn’t take long after coming off the truck when it met its new owner: a shrinking elderly woman with a posh accent named Deborah Wilkinson.
Little ‘ol Deborah was a born and raised Oregonian, starting life in Eugene before moving to Oregon City with her family as a child. Unfortunately for Deborah, she lost her father in a lumbermill accident during her high school years, which made her choose to drop out of school and marry Elliot Wilkinson. They would go on to have and raise four children, but throughout the marriage – especially after Elliot retired from his job – Deborah was tormented by her husband’s rude demeanor and emotional reservedness. Despite Deborah’s children urging her to divorce him for her sake, she stuck to her faith and stayed with the man until he finally died at the age of 81. She cried for three days. Then, as if a light switch clicked inside of her, she changed her life. She was now free from her late husband. The first thing she did was throw away everything in her house that Elliot owned, except for their wedding photo hung above the living room fireplace. Then, she went with a friend to the auto dealerships along McLoughlin Blvd where she found and purchased the little red GCX Reflection. The first stop in her new car was Michael’s Arts and Crafts store to buy an easel, canvases, and a rainbow of paint.
Over the next few years, the GCX watched Ms. Wilkinson live out her renewed life. It journeyed into the Oregon wilderness for Deborah to practice her new hobby painting landscape photos: white Mt. Hood poking through the rolling green Cascades, the trickling water of streams leading into the Willamette River, and the swaying fields of soft white wheat in the many farm fields outside town. She drove her GCX to go window shopping and reminisced about her younger years visiting Silverton’s historic downtown. Sundays after church she would drive the car out to eat with her friends at Stone Creek Golf Club Grille. Her and her granddaughter would also load up the GCX with artwork to go sell at the Oregon State Fair. She spent lots of time with her granddaughter, Samantha Woods, who grew up going to visit her grandma every day after school; she was a total farm girl and liked to chat after taking care of her house’s landscaping.
As Deborah got older, her arthritis got worse, and her trips with the GCX became less frequent. It hurt shifting the 5-speed manual, and climbing in and out got harder by the day. For some while, the car spent its time parked in the driveway of her house, getting cleaned and maintained by Samantha. When Samantha turned 15 and got her driver’s permit, Deborah would ride shotgun in the GCX while teaching her how to drive. There were a few close calls with log trucks, and she was hopeless with directions, but Samantha caught on quickly shifting the car and navigating Portland’s endless one-ways.
Deborah made a promise with Samantha that if she passed her driver’s exam and didn’t fail any of her high school courses, she would give her the car. By the end of the year, Samantha passed her driving course with flying colors and squeezed by with her school grades, getting a C- in Algebra II. Samantha Woods was now the proud owner of the 2007 GCX Reflection 2.0 LI.
During the summer, Samantha got a part-time job picking strawberries just North of Beavercreek to earn some pocket money, which she immediately blew upgrading the GCX’s sound system with a fold-up touch screen, Hi-Res door speakers, and a huge 75 watt amplifier in the trunk. Samantha then learned the hard way why you don’t speed on the backroads in the middle of the night blasting Eurobeat after a fresh rain when a slide into blackberry bushes bent a rear wheel and scratched up the bumper. She covered some of the scratches with bumper stickers, but the car had to run on the spare for a few more months after the accident, at least until she could afford a set of cheap aftermarket wheels.
During her senior year, Samantha met a girl in her Civics class that knocked her off her feet. Her name was Audrey Sherwood, and she was the high school band president and an excellent jazz drummer. Audrey tended to be shy around people she wasn’t friends with, but it seemed like the first day they met, Samantha and her hit it off immediately. When they were paired with two other classmates for a term-long class project, the two girls barely did any work, spending most of their time goofing off and tormenting the teacher. If it wasn’t for their classmates doing the work, Samantha and Audrey probably would have failed the class.
During football season, Samantha would help Audrey haul drums in her GCX from the school to the field for the pep band. Audrey also tagged along with Samantha when she’d pick up feed from the local farm store for “Chicken,” the cow she was raising for FFA. It was during the holiday season on winter break when Samantha finally worked up the courage and asked Audrey out to go see the Christmas lights at Portland International Raceway. Audrey blushed, and gave her a cheerful yes.
The two started the night taking the little red GCX up to Portland to try the peanut-butter pickle bacon burger at Killer Burger at the corner of NE 47th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard. Afterwards, they went to PIR to drive around the track and look at the Christmas displays. On their arrival, they found the event to be packed, and the lights themselves were a lot cheesier than Samantha remembered - they were the same displays the track had been using since the 1980s. There was also a car in front of them with super bright LED taillights that ruined the ambience. Audrey was quiet on the drive back. The silence tore Samantha apart. Did she ruin the date? Did Audrey think she was lame? Samantha drove Audrey back to her house after the date, but just as she was about to say goodbye, Audrey leaned over the center console and gave her their first kiss.
Fall term flew by, as did Winter. During Spring term, mid-April, Samantha snuck out of school in her GCX Reflection and followed Audrey’s band bus to the Highschool Big Band Division 3 jazz competition at Mt. Hood Community College. Samantha cheered on her girlfriend as her girlfriend and the band killed it with their set: swinging it with Moanin’ by Bobby Timmons, ringing some cool Latin jazz with Song for my Father by Horace Silver, chillin with class in Harlem Nocturne by Earle Hagen, and rounding it out with a funky Critical Mass by Jeff Jarvis. The band did excellently - the brass section was tight, and the rhythm section slotted right in the groove. The competition judges also agreed, and the Oregon City High School Jazz Band was awarded first place in the competition. That night, Samantha, Audrey, and some of her band friends celebrated the win at a Dairy Queen back home - at the corner of 7th and John Quincy Adams Street.
Then came the letters for college admission. Samantha would be going to Oregon State University for a bachelors in Animal Sciences, but her girlfriend would be going to Tennessee State University for a Computer Science degree, following in her parent’s footsteps. The acceptance letters were bittersweet; just as quickly as the two girls got together, there was now an almost certain end date for their relationship. Rather than end things in disappointment, Samantha and Audrey chose to make this summer one they would never forget.
As soon as they graduated, Samantha, Audrey, and a group of their friends all drove over to a vacation house - owned by one of their grandparents - in Pacific City. Over the course of a week, they all spent most of their time walking along the beach, climbing the Cape Kiwanda Sand Dune, and shopping for knick-knacks and snacks like hand-made ice cream, saltwater taffy, and fudge. When they weren’t at the beach, they were playing party games on an Xbox one of them brought, carpooling in the GCX up to Tillamook to tour the cheese factory and buy pepperoni sticks, and roasting marshmallows in the firepit at the vacation house’s backyard. During the trip, Samantha noticed that there now tended to be a little bit of gear grinding when she shifted from second to third, but figured there wasn’t too much of an issue. She was just happy in the moment, a trip she would treasure for the rest of her life.
During the rest of the summer, Samantha and Audrey hung out as much as they could. They went swimming in the Clackamas River, camping out in the sticks with the little red compact, and even had a day trip up to Seattle Washington, just to tour the city. But, as the summer drew into August, Audrey had less time to visit her girlfriend between the move to Tennessee and college starting soon. On the last day of the month before Audrey left Oregon, the two girls went on their last date in the GCX at Newport, visiting the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and enjoying a clam chowder sourdough bowl at Chowder Bowl. When Samantha drove Audrey back to her house, they embraced each other one last time for as long as they could, making promises to keep in touch on Snapchat. With a sorrowful goodbye, Samantha watched her girlfriend leave her life from the driver’s seat of the GCX.
After a painfully dull month, Samantha packed up her belongings into the GCX and left Oregon City, driving South along I-5 until she reached OSU, ready to start her new life chapter in college. Unlike her high school years, Samantha was top of her class in university. By her third year in college, she was offered an opportunity to work a six-month internship at Tillamook Creamery, which she happily accepted. She temporarily moved to Lincoln City to live with some relatives to save some money on rent, despite the commute to and from work being somewhat brutal. Unfortunately for her, during one of her commutes to Tillamook Creamery, she noticed the battery light in the GCX Reflection’s dashboard light up. She didn’t think much of it, and thought that she’d be able to get the car back to Lincoln City after work to see what was wrong. However, shortly after the battery light came on, the car lost power steering. Then just a half mile from work wrestling the car around, the engine intermittently cut out. Then lost all power. Samantha was stranded on the side of the road and waited for a tow truck to show up. When the GCX was picked up and heading back to home, she walked along the side of the highway to her internship to finish her day of work before getting a ride back to Lincoln City.
Tinkering on the car over the weekend, Samantha found that the alternator had failed, causing the battery to drain until there was no power left to keep the car running. It was an easy fix, but the fact of the matter was the little GCX was starting to get a bit long in the tooth. Ever since GCX the manufacturer ceased to exist in 2010, parts were getting harder to come by. The car was looking to eventually become a money pit, and Samantha wanted to avoid losing her life earnings over the car. She read online that the third gear synchronizer was usually the first thing to go before transmission failure.
On the next weekend, Samantha visited the local Massenauto dealership and came back home with a certified pre-owned Massenauto 8K t. That afternoon, she took some photos of the car and put the little red GCX on Craigslist. Within a week, she was called by an interested buyer, and one short test drive later, cash was transferred, the title was signed, and the keys to the Reflection were given to its new owner. Samantha teared up as she watched her old car drive down the street - so many memories were made in that car. But the GCX’s story would continue on with this new owner: Reuben Johnston.
Reuben was an unfortunate soul. When he was young, he volunteered for the United States Marine Core. It was in Iraq where he bore witness to horrible, unspeakable nightmares on the battlefield that scarred him for life. He came back from that experience a broken man, and when he applied for mental health assistance, the Federal Government deemed his post-traumatic stress as non-combat related and offered no support. Reuben turned to alcohol to self medicate, and one bad decision after another led to him getting a DUI and a month in county jail. It was shortly after his time in jail when Reuben made the decision to quit alcohol altogether.
His first attempts failed in a matter of days, and each failure left him more distraught; but, after his next door neighbor convinced him to participate in a local alcoholics support group, he began to show real progress in achieving sobriety. He met another veteran who fought in the same unit as him - he was a solid, relatable support partner. Reuben’s new veteran friend also helped him find an affordable therapist to help learn how to manage his PTSD in a healthier way. Reuben volunteered at his local church for community service hours, wrote multiple essays on the dangers of drunk driving, and attended an in-person safe driving course to get his driver’s license back. As a gift to himself for achieving 200 days of sobriety, he bought the red GCX Reflection, which he used to commute to his new job at Dave’s Killer Bread - just off of Hwy-224.
The GCX Reflection was more tired than when it rolled off the factory floor so long ago, but despite the grindy third gear, the clearcoat stripping off the paint, and some rust spots starting to form along the sidesills and the fenders, this little trooper kept pushing on and on, day by day. Even after Reuben relapsed into alcoholism during a family barbeque, he remembered his mission and dropped the bottle, determined to beat his sobriety record. When thieves smashed the car’s window and ran off with the aftermarket sound system, Reuben fixed up the car with a window he found at a pick-and-pull, and fixed the lack of music with a bluetooth speaker placed in the center cupholder.
The red GCX pushed as hard as its little heart could, and after five dutiful years by Reuben’s side, the car finally gave in to a failed head gasket. Between the gearbox that had completely lost third gear, and rust holes starting to form in the floorboards, Reuben knew it was time to put the GCX out to pasture. After a handshake and a few extra bucks in his pocket, the GCX was left to the scrapyard. The GCX was stripped for parts, crushed, then shredded into scrap metal.
This GCX Reflection had lived for so many years, and bore witness to the lives of many people. It fulfilled Roberto’s wish to own a new car before the ‘08 Crisis ruined the dream. It gave Deborah a second chance at living her life, free from neglect. It watched Samantha come of age as she discovered love for the first time. It fought hard side-by-side with Reuben in a seemingly impossible battle of recovery, day in and day out. We will never know what happened to the remains of the little red GCX. Some might suggest that the car’s remains are currently sitting at the bottom of a landfill. Others might lead you to believe that it was melted down and reformed into a line of washing machines. But I think there’s the possibility that a part of this GCX’s spirit might be living on in the new car you are driving today, collecting more stories of life to share.
