1980 Cadillac Seville – The Drive’s Daily Curbside Classic

Frankie Dibartolomeo already had one hell of a day in court. His client, Vinny Goombatz, had been caught redhanded vandalizing the bubble gum machine at the local Ryan's, and it was Frankie's job to plea bargain Vinny into a deal that would yield a $1400 paycheck into his back pocket.

"Look at what's out here. A shitbox Hummer. A MINI owned by some fucking fashionista from Hoboken. Why the hell can't they leave Annette alone!"

Annette, named after the late and great Annette Funicello, was a 1980 Cadillac Seville. 

Everything worked. The trip computer. The power electric leather seats. Even the antenna that you could raise or lower with the flick of a dashboard button. He had received it as a special thank you from a family whose errant son had decided steal electric scooters from the local retiree community. 

Unfortunately that fellow was given a savage beating from a professional wrestler who went by the name George 'The Animal' Steele, and the victim of the attempted scooter jacking, who was also coincidentally a distant relative to the famed local attorney, Irwin R Shyster. or IRS for short, decided to press charges.

Frankie hated IRS because he had blanketed the local radio and weekday talk shows with a jingle stolen by a 1980s Coronet commercial, "Angry, hurt or just depressed. Go call the IRS," Irwin had figured out a way of not only making big money off of personal injury cases, but he also had one hell of a referral business to the local psychologists who were all too glad to testify as an expert witness in several of Irwin's cases. 

However, Frankie had managed to beat the famed IRS in a trial that was given the name, "The Case Of The Angry Monkey". A retiree who went by the name, Jonny ReBozo, had a pet monkey named Starsky who was the beloved mascot of Century Village. A retiree community about seven miles from Englewood, New Jersey. 

Starsky used to ride different animals at the circus while Jonny and his wife worked as clowns. However, Starsky was no longer the type of monkey that could handle a live animal. So every now and then he would try to live out his former glory with a rocking horse. 

It was always cute to see old Starsky wave his cowboy hat and make monkey sounds, and besides, Starsky always got plenty of bananas as a thank you from the locals.

However one day a poodle came named Hutch started yapping at Starsky while he was on his rocking horse. He was none too happy, and quickly took a squirt gun from a Mr. Heckler Koch and started to spray the poodle. The owner took Starsky to court on the belief that the poodle was assaulted. While Starsky filed a counterclaim for lost wages in the form of bananas.

The trial lasted less than 5 minutes. On the day of the trial, the poodle surprised everyone in court by delivering a bouquet of bananas with the words, "Arf! Arf!" on a card. Starsky shook Hutch's paw, gave him a hug, and then Hutch allowed Starsky to mount Hutch. The two ran a victory lap around the courtroom and the judge was too overjoyed to hold them in contempt of court. Later on the two created their own one act play called, "The Adventures of Starsky and Hutch".

Frankie couldn't help but laugh at the memory. He called his pal, Iba, who owned a used tire business. In an hour Iba had a used tire put on the Caddy and all was good with the world.