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Taking a walk past the neighborhood elementary school is usually a benign affair. But one recent morning, as I sauntered by the faculty parking lot, I was brought up short. 

Here was a Toyota. Then another. Followed by a Hyundai. Followed by another. Then a gaggle of Hondas. Then a cluster of Kias. 

I decided to count. In all, 42 cars were parked in the lot. Not a single one was an American make. 

Yes, I’m sure that all the cars in that lot ran just fine. Yes, I know that so-called foreign makes are now partially constructed in the United States.  

Yes, I recognized that I was seeing the truth about teacher salaries. There wasn’t a single Mercedes or Porsche anywhere in sight. 

But not even the exhilaration of a morning walk can keep this old guy from turning sentimental. So, as I turned a corner and headed home, I ruminated on the fate of the American car business in my lifetime. 

Remember Studebakers? And De Sotos? Those worthy, hefty specimens have gone to the great boneyard in the sky.  

So have several once-stalwart lines from the Big Three of Detroit. Remember Pontiacs? Remember Oldsmobiles? 

Today, even the dumpiest Ford sedan is marketed as if it’s the greatest wind-in-the-hair experience.  

But ads for Pontiac and Olds always showed the same scenes. There was Dad, behind the wheel, with a huge smile on his face and a hat on his head.  

There was Mom, riding shotgun, in a prim dress. In the back seat — no seat belts — were one boy and one girl, each festooned with freckles and chortling as if this was the greatest experience of their lives. The entire tableau screamed Out for a Sunday Drive. 

OK, some American models of yesteryear had a little more bee-bop-a-lula in their DNA.  

The Mercury Cougar, as the name implies, had snarl in its V-8 engine. The Chevrolet Corvette remains an icon for those who like to jackrabbit away from red lights. The Ford Mustang has been one of the most popular sports cars in the world for 60 years. 

But the marketplace can be unforgiving, and it has not forgiven a few American products that didn’t come close to succeeding.  

The Ford Edsel, of course, leads the way. A commercial disaster from the very first, it has at least captured first place in one way. When today’s schoolchildren Google this — Car Trotted Out With Greatest Fanfare That Never Sold — Edsel pops to the top. 

The Chevrolet Vega was supposed to be utilitarian and cheap to run. It proved to be neither. 

I can speak from experience. I bought one in 1974, new. The salesman, bless his heart (did he have one?), never told me that the car had been built on a Friday just before a United Auto Workers strike began on the following Monday. 

I owned a Sabotage Special. 

It clunked and bucked and coughed and sputtered for about two years before I gave up on it. So did thousands of others. So, eventually, did Chevrolet. 

But the no-longer-with-us car that I miss the most was my Nash Rambler. 

This, too, was built to be a family car. It had a wide and deep back seat, an engine that roared when it didn’t purr and — wonder of wonders — a push-button transmission! 

You want to go forward? Push D for drive. You want to go backward? Try R for Reverse.  

No more awkward shifting of gears or fumbling for a clutch. These were the late 1950s, buster! You were in the space age! 

Unluckily, repair bills were also somewhere in outer space. I quit on the Rambler right before it threatened to quit on me, yet again. Nash went out of business shortly afterward. 

And if I want to go way, way back in the memory vault, I can still conjure up my mother’s 1957 Ford Fairlane. I learned to drive on this baby.  

It had a V-8 engine that seemed better suited to the Indianapolis 500. It had a radio that could bring in both AM and FM! It had tail fins trimmed in gold! 

Too bad I backed it into a neighbor’s fence during my second stint behind the wheel. He was very understanding. My mother was less so. 

So, as I make my usual plans to live forever, I plan to saunter past my neighborhood elementary school in about 30 years. What will be parked there?  

Surely smaller cars. Surely hybrids and EVs. Maybe General Motors and Ford will still be in business; maybe not. 

But I won’t care a whit. I will have found a Nash Rambler for sale on the Internet — beautifully maintained, beautifully restored. I’ll be pushing the D and the R button, with a big fat smile on my face. 

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.