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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Bill Clinton' Opel Station Wagon -- a contribution from Ed Garten


So What Was Bill Clinton Driving When He Became Involved with Hillary Rodham During Their First Year at Yale Law School?
Answer: A 1970 Opel Station Wagon
Photos attached but not the actual car, but ones like it -- front and rear views.
Perhaps due to the fact that Bill had just returned from two years as an undergraduate at Oxford, he may have fallen for European cars?  Secretary Clinton recounts this in her recent biography "Living History."  One might disagree with her claim that the Opel was one of the ugliest cars ever manufactured as, indeed, it was little different in style from many other small European station wagons at that time.  Actually, it was a rather pleasant and generally dependable little car and in the United States sold through Buick franchises.




But in her book, our former Secretary of State observes:

"In between cramming for finals and finishing up my first year of concentration on legal issues related to advocacy for children, we spent long hours driving around in his 1970 burnt-orange Opel station wagon — truly one of the ugliest cars ever manufactured — or hanging out at the beach house on Long Island Sound near Milford, Connecticut, where he lived with his roommates, Doug Eakeley, Don Pogue and Bill Coleman. At a party there one night, Bill and I ended up in the kitchen talking about what each of us wanted to do after graduation. I still didn't know where I would live and what I would do because my interests in child advocacy and civil rights didn't dictate a particular path."


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