My Parents’ Family Cars
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’53? Chevy Sedan
My parents’ first wheels, before they had us kids
Ford Falcon
The car Mom drove us around in as kids. Still had a choke knob. Got totaled in a spectacular and tragic crash parked next to our house one fine day in July 1972 when a speeding tow truck rammed into it, killing the driver.
Dodge Dart V8
The V8! The cinch-tight lap and shoulder belts! The front bench seat! Here it is unfortunately totaled in another crash.
Toyota Corona Wagon – private sale from an Oakland family
The first car I drove by myself. The only station wagon we ever owned (oh the days as kids of rolling around the back untethered). Drove it during my college years but never worked on it.
Toyota Corolla Hatchback – Thrifty Rent-a-Car
Honda Civic
What my parents mostly drove after we kids had moved out. At one point the turn signal stalk cluster needed replacing and I was very proud of myself for scoring one at a salvage yard and installing it myself.
’84 Mazda B2000 Pickup (1984-1996) – Val Strough Mazda, Oakland
Got a SnugTop camper shell in San Jose. Had triangular vent windows. Installed more gauges and sound with the help of my friend Greg F. Drove from Oakland to Dallas in 1985, with two friends, rotating with two in front and one in back with the cargo. Only stick shift car we’ve ever owned–gave up that (and most war movies) for marriage. Sold to local auto repair shop.
Cadillac DeVille
Pa Wong had a thing for Cadillacs, mostly deVilles, and drove a succession of them for many years. I can’t believe he squeezed them into his tiny garage. At one point I was helping him buy his next one and I asked him if he were interested in considering any other (less expensive! more reliable! smaller!) kind of car. “No,” he replied, “why should I have to re-learn a different car?” I think about that to this day when I can’t keep straight the up/down left/right differences in the controls on our various cars.
Saturn SL2
One fine day Ma Wong shocked us by going out and buying a new car all by herself! Thankfully it was a no-haggle Saturn. When the time came, she herself volunteered to give up her keys. Sold to friends.
Honda Accord (brown)
My parent’s next car. Was totaled in a freeway crash on I880 when my mom was clipped by a reckless driver (whipping across lanes to try to make an exit) and hit by an 18-wheeler (she was not seriously injured but was very shaken up).
Honda Accord (silver)
My parents’ replacement car. I went to the dealer with them to do the haggling. Two salesmen played bad cop/good cop with us til I told my preschool kids, also there, “O.K. kids, get all your toys, we’re going.” The bad cop guy disappeared and the poor good cop guy meekly apologized and salvaged the deal with us. Got hit while parked (with my mom in it!) and totaled. While on the street waiting to get towed it had its catalytic converter stolen, oh well. Briefly replaced by a white Accord but then my dad finally gave up driving. 
Our Cars
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’84 Honda Prelude (1984-1996) – Davis Honda
Lisa’s grad school wheels and her first car. Was a lot of fun to drive for sure but a bear to work on–to change the oil I had to get way underneath and reach up blind and contorted to where the filter was hidden. Drove to & from Dallas, TX. Donated to Harbor House Ministries.
’93 Geo Prizm (1996-98) – private sale from a gal named Erin in Dublin, CA
Our first kid hauler. Manufactured in California’s only automobile factory, the then New United Motors (“NUMMI”) plant in Fremont, a GM-Toyota joint venture (is now Tesla). Sold to a relative after our 2nd kid arrived and we needed something a bit bigger. 
Prizm getting displaced by new ’98 Camry
’95 Dodge Caravan (1995-2012) – Hayward Dodge
The workhorse! Worked on it a lot with help from a ChevyV6 online enthusiast group (the Mitsubishi V6 was a particularly strong and well-designed engine). Got stuck on a freeway once when it turned out I forgot to tighten down the distributor rotor. Got hit in a pretty bad freeway accident after swerving to avoid a dog and going into a spin (on wet pavement). Scored some bucket middle seats late it its life (so to get headrests). Sold to a friend.
’98 Toyota Camry (1998-25) – Hanlee’s Hilltop Toyota, Richmond
When this was new you would see easily 20 identical Camrys a day driving around (it was the bestselling car in America 1996-2007, with 427,308 sold in 1998). You still see plenty of this style and color decades later, some still shiny and others really beat up like ours (we’ve had countless supermarket parking lot body work offers). The straight-4 could whine but I’m still glad we didn’t get the V6. 
One fine day in 2004 a fire extinguisher in the trunk accidentally went off (probably monoamonium phosphate), what a mess! That always made me worry that luggage subsequently carried back there might trigger a false positive for explosives during a TSA screening sometime, but never happend.
In 2025, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District offered a $2,000 buyback for 25+ years old cars. It was a deal we couldn’t refuse, so we sadly said goodbye, at 195k miles, still drove and ran well, though only averaging c. 20mpg. It was the car both our kids learned to drive in, and a car borrowed by countless family members and friends. No major repairs or accidents and so easy to work on. I changed the VCG a couple of times, the alternator once, and a few other minor repairs. It served us well for 27 years!
’12 Kia Sedona Minivan (2012-18) – San Leandro Kia
Bought new in a rush to roll family around during the holidays. Sold via the Berkeley Buggy Bank to a nice young couple whose mechanic told them, “You HAVE TO buy this van!” Here it is actually in Sedona, AZ. You can see the damage to the rear left from when I backed into my own tree at my own house. Never fixed it except got a replacement rear light assembly on eBay.
*’09 Toyota Camry Hybrid (2009- ) – Concord Toyota
Our kids-in-middle & high school commute car. The hybrid drivetrain is an amazing piece of engineering and has been flawless except for one water pump replacement. Our first car with a fob key.
’17 Chevrolet Bolt EV (2017-21) – Concord Chevrolet
In late 2017 Congress was threatening to kill the $7,500 electric vehicle rebate, so we made the jump. Electric is the future for sure! Even better there is a free Level-2 charger near our house, so we don’t even pay for electricity. In 2020 added a Class I hitch so to carry bikes around.
Sadly , this was in the Bolt EV series that had a major recall due to problems with the (LG Chem) battery packs. Ended up selling it back to GM when they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse (including the rebates and tax credits we got when we first bought it, we actually made quite a bit of money on the buyback). So sad!
Did you know gasoline has 33kWh of energy per gallon? The Bolt has a 60kWh battery and can go 250 miles on the equivalent of about 2 gallons of gas. To put it another way: only about 20% of the power in a conventional cars actually gets turned into propulsion; most of the rest is lost as waste heat. Go electric!
*’24 Hyundai Ioniq 5
Worried once again and for the exact same reason that the Federal EV rebate was going to disappear, we jumped back into the EV life with this car, which I’d been eyeing for a long time. The DC fast charging is astonishing (and free for the first two years). All the automation gets to be a bit much though, with so many settings and onscreen menus to navigate.
Getting a 232kwh charge in Livermore:
*Still owned
Russell Yee 