My Car Life

...Or, A Completely Stupid Situation

(As appended to an email reply to ‘Gabe F’, January 4, 2020.)

PS - I still have a car. Two in fact. I just don’t want to drive either in the winter. Here’s my car life-story:

- 1971.  Datsun PU.  Red. New. Put larger tires and wheels on it (15”x7”, snow tires all around) and four driving lights on bumper. Small fire under dash due to not using a relay for the driving lights. Drove it 100K miles, cost $2000, sold for $1,400. Excellent car. Good dirt bike motorcycle hauler.

- 1973. Land Rover Series III 88”.  Bought new at dealer in Minneapolis. Bank loan. Cost $4550 when Toyota Land Cruiser, Scout, Jeep ranged from $3800-$4300.  Self-maintained always — forced me to become a half-assed mechanic. Lousy car, drove 90-100K, wore completely out. Eventually sent to a specialist in these cars to have totally rusted-out frame replaced. Still have it. Did I mention it’s a really lousy car? About 1975 made a paint-matched bike-hauling utility trailer via rebuilding a small $150 (auction price) beat-up EZ Haul rental trailer.

- 1990.  Used 85 Audi 4000Q sedan. $5,000. Great car. All wheel drive, five-cylinder engine, 5 spd stick, Porsche designed drive train with dash controlled manually locking center and rear differentials. Very fun to drive in snow. Rusted out badly and brought only $800 when I eventually sold it. Drove about 50K across fifteen years. (I’d begun bicycling, walking and MC-ing a lot more.)

- About 2006. Used 01 BMW 325xi wagon. $10,000. 5 spd stick, straight six, AWD system not as good as the Audi’s. Everything else better. Sold 2016 for $3,000 just before rust got really bad. Lovely car. Drove about 50K across ten years.

- About 2017. Used 06 BMW 325xi wagon. $14,000. 6 spd stick, straight six, similar AWD system to previous car, but slightly improved. Much more complicated electronic junk. No rust, California one-owner car. Bought online, sight unseen. Arrived as represented, which means ‘good condition’ and no collision damage. $700 delivery by car-hauler. Stored winters.

So today I have this nice 06 BMW wagon and the crappy old rebuilt 73 Land Rover. Five cars spread across forty nine years. Plus a few short-term-uses of borrowed or rented cars. So far nothing crash-totaled or even too seriously damaged, and of course very grateful to have such ‘first world’ car-owning experiences in the first place. (Hope writing this story won’t jinx anything.) The LR’s body is unrestored and fairly banged up and weathered due to abusive ‘four wheeling’ activity during the 1970’s, and also to never being parked indoors until about ten years ago. After its frame was replaced it also has never been winter driven.

The funny (?) thing about all of this is that for a motorcyclist living here in Minnesota, cars are most useful as winter-seasonal transportation, and now I have two of them which are stored during the winter. During the spring fall and summer seasons, I’ll either walk, motorcycle or bicycle 95% of the time. Rain or shine. Warm or cool. And now I’m bicycling through the winter, too. Half a dozen fair-season mobility options…but in winter I’m now down to only a studded tire electric bicycle and occasionally taking rides or walking. I don’t know what this means except maybe I don’t have too much common sense. Feels like a completely stupid personal transportation situation. Except to my insurance guy.

What is your car-life story?

-- Mr. Subjective