Don’t let a humdrum drive dictate your life
If you travel in car enthusiast circles, you’ll eventually run across someone saying “life is too short to drive boring cars.” Many of my peers live that creed but I always seemed to find a reason not to. Too impractical, too expensive, no room, spouse pressures.
So away I went, driving a pickup from each of the Big Three plus one little import; Corollas and Civics; Imprezas and Celebrities. Many of them were perfectly good cars, but all of them were transportation first, last and in-between.
It wasn’t really until other factors in my life reached a crisis point that I got up the courage to jump, buying an old Mercedes for all of $3,100. It gave me a wonderful year but the driving or owning wasn’t the important part. What it did most of all was take away my fear.
It wasn’t a bomb waiting to go off, I didn’t have to make too many sacrifices to own it, and it was approximately a million times more satisfying to drive than my Mazda minivan. It did eventually have a problem too expensive for me to fix, but how was that different from any other $3,100 car?
I immediately went for the next car off my life list and I’m planning for the replacement already. I had no idea how much having an interesting car would improve my life. Every time I get in it, it makes me happy. I regret not doing it years ago.
The barriers to interesting car ownership are extremely low. Buying a cheap one is helpful in a whole lot of ways—you don’t have to worry about garaging it, it’s cheap to insure and most of all, you don’t have to be afraid to drive it. I know people who own nine-figure cars and let me tell you, a stone chip is a crisis. But the dude with the $5,000 Miata is out there doing donuts in a gravel pit without a care in the world.
To get started, I hopped on Craigslist with defined criteria. It had to be an easy drive to see it on a Saturday, cost $7,500 or less to qualify as a second or weekend car ($8,000, but you can negotiate), and not break down all the time. There’s a selection from some major areas of interest, but once you take the plunge you’ll start to think about things you never considered before.
For American muscle fans, there’s a 25th Anniversary Edition ‘94 Trans Am, complete with hood bird, with 48,000 miles, asking $8,000. A Ferrari V-8 made 300hp in 1994. So did this. If you like classic American, there are dozens but my favorite is a 1974 Ford LTD with 61,000 miles and for $3,550. It’s a work of art, and less than a dollar a pound to boot.
We have you covered for European and sporty too, in an ‘04 Saab convertible, overpriced at $4,350 and 133K miles. That five-speed and turbo are mighty fun, though. Maybe you want something with both go and some capacity? There’s a hot rodded 1986 Chevy C10, also asking eight grand. They don’t mention the power but you’d be hard pressed to make under 350hp from a 383 stroker.
No flat screen TV, no pair of shoes, no vacation will give you what an interesting car can. If you drive, then like it or not, it’s a central part of your life. So why wouldn’t you improve that part of your life? You probably spend more time in your car than you do eating.
If consuming nutrition were your only concern then you’d eat a bowl of unflavored oatmeal for every meal. Do you? Or do you like steak, a bowl of guacamole, Korean barbeque? Is your car the unflavored ice milk of your diet and is that what feels good?
It’s an opportunity to grab a little extra joy which is something every one of us should do whenever we can.
David Traver Adolphus is a freelance automotive researcher who quit his full time job writing about old cars to pursue his lifelong dream of writing about old AND new cars. Follow him on Twitter as @proscriptus.