(UPDATED FROM 8/30/2022)
A few years ago a commentator on a political blog joked that Mitt Romney’s parents “did a lot of rambling in those days, but oddly enough none ever served as an ambassador.” That led me to challenge myself to write a story about the Romneys which attempted to include every AMC passenger-car nameplate (but no Jeeps). What follows is fictitious, but one could argue that my story does have a certain truthiness (at least if you turn the page sideways and squint).
Mitt Romney: The early years
The Romneys were a classic American family. Their first home was a modest rambler located at 770 Pacer Road in Concord, Massachusetts. They really liked to do cross-country trips despite their first car, a 1941 Nash 600. Whatever its charms, the car suffered from various mechanical gremlins.
Mitt was always precocious. For example, at the age of three he wandered off from the family when they were visiting Cardin, Oklahoma and was found two hours later chewing the paint off a general store window sill. When he was 10, Mitt learned about cause and effect after hitting a hornet’s nest with a baseball bat. And just before turning 14, Mitt got in big trouble when trying to throw a javelin at an eagle’s nest. (Fortunately, he missed. Like way missed.)
Also see ‘The untold story of how Dick Teague designed the 1974 AMC Matador coupe’
Once Mitt got his driver’s license he became quite the sportabout town. He liked to drive convertibles and for a time adopted the mannerisms of a rogue – much to the consternation of his parents.
Even without Mitt’s antics, the Romneys led an adventurous life. As a case in point, when they stayed in the Los Angeles metropolitan area one summer, the entire family almost died when they went fishing for marlins off the southern California coast – and got caught in a freak typhoon. This taught them to keep a weather eye on the horizon at all times.
George Romney: Could his legacy be topped?
Mitt’s father George was a veritable machine who often worked 14-hour days. Some of his colleagues nicknamed him the “SST” because he would plow through vast amounts of work at seemingly supersonic speed. And back in 1961, when he led American Motors, staff awarded him a “Big, Bad Boss” T-shirt when the company’s cars bumped Plymouth out of third place in sales.
When George turned to politics he tried to be a statesman who stayed above the fray. Although he was proud of his leadership of the federal Housing and Urban Development agency during the Nixon administration, he was disappointed at not being appointed the ambassador to the Netherlands.
The air of seriousness that had enshrouded George as a businessman and political leader lifted after he retired. For a while he fronted a Mormon pop-rock band called the Gucci Rebels. Then, in his eighties, George decided to become a matador. Tragically, he was gored to death in a Barcelona bullfight. However, his spirit lives on. (Well, sort of.)
Mitt made a manly effort to top his father’s accomplishments in both business and politics. His very first venture, a start-up called Cassini-Levi Tulip Futures, was a high flier on the Dutch AMX Index for a brief but glorious moment. This inspired Mitt to reach for bigger dreams.
NOTES:
This is a satirical story that was originally posted on Aug. 30, 2022 and updated on Feb. 19, 2026. For more information about what is real, go here.
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- oldcarbrochures.org: Nash (1941)
Did you know the Romney family’s first, modest home in Massachusetts was in fact an experimental design that was identical on all sides? Perhaps you did, but you were just being cavalier about it.
Okay, you got me for a minute. I’d forgotten about the Cavalier.
This does raise some additional questions. For example, what was the name of that vixen that young Mitt took a liking to? She apparently grew up in Hollywood but met him at the Limited Country Club on the outskirts of Concord. He apparently taught her how to drive a car with a manual transmission. That led her to nickname him “Mr. Shift Command.”
I believe her name was Hileah St.Moritz, and they only had but one date.
That’s her! I read that she liked to play Go. Indeed, she liked it so much that she sent Mitt a Go package for his birthday.
Sadly he never found out who sent it. It only had an “X” on it and so he always wondered about the “X” package.
To add insult to injury, Miss St. Moritz ran off with a cowboy.
Yup. From Vignale.
There must have been gremlins in the family tree somewhere !
An enjoyable read. Cute storyline, very creative.
Mr. Romney was a statesman along the lines of the great Frenchman LaFayette!
Everyone thought Mitt was an old money WASP from Essex. However, despite his metropolitan manners he put himself througb college by selling Ajax detergent door to door in Palm Springs.
That was amazing, everybody! A cool posting!
l’m going to take a few strides across the quad (we have a large, square kitchen) to the Kelvinator to see if l can find something cold and worthy of a toast to the author and contributors!