i'm pretty sure i didn't see the butterfly on the hood ornament the first time i passed this car. i think it got clipped on later.
my better half was spending a lot of time shooting this hood ornament on the car next to this one. he'd borrowed my macro, which when slapped on his full frame camera apparently kicks ass. anyway, i'd spent long enough just standing around waiting, that the lady who owned this one noticed i/we shoot with sony cameras. she was fascinated and full of questions. mainly because she was looking for what camera she should buy, and noticed i had a minolta lens one of mine.
when she started asking more techical questions, we waited for my better half to finish with the other pontiac. she and her husband said they'd owned more than 100 different cars over the years. this one, she said, drove like a pig, something about the power steering or non-existence of it. she'd made a deal with the proprietor of a car shop, where he spliced in an engine or front end of a car he'd recently finished, and some other parts, so now the thing supposedly really rips up the road.
i think she said it had a t-bird radiator in it too, which my better half joked whether it had an opera window in that as well.
of course, she may have been talking about one of her other cars, and i've just gotten them mixed up, just like the guts of said car.
i liked that the paint wasn't perfect; it was all scarred and pitted—a car that is driven and loved every day.