Neon

The first car I ever bought was a 1995 Dodge Neon -- the year the model was introduced. This week I found out that the 2005 model year is its last, and the last one rolled off the Belvidere, IL, assembly line just this past Friday, almost eleven years to the day since I bought mine.

When it was introduced, the Neon was quite a marvel of design. Its 130 horsepower engine was exceptionally powerful for a small 4-cylinder, yet it still got nearly 30 miles to the gallon. The high, domed roof provided extra headroom for the tall or claustrophobic; the rounded form anticipated the new VW Beetle by a couple of years.

Speaking of bugs... While I did like my car, the Neon was not entirely free of flaws. The most visible of these was the 1995/6 pastel blue paint; after a couple of years, this paint would start to delaminate and peel off in sheets. Fortunately, I got the dark green, which did not have this problem. The early model years also had a flaw in the cylinder head design that made it prone to blowing the head gasket -- that did happen to my car twice.