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Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live
In cars

It came as a surprise to a couple of my friends that I name my cars, so here’s a list. It bears mention that I rarely actually call my cars by their names (except Buzz, for some reason.)

My first car was an 80s model Nissan Sentra, I forget which year exactly. My friends gave it the name “Porta-Pete.” This breakthrough achievement was very important to my friends, who had been giving me rides everywhere for many moons by this point. I drove it for six months with no insurance, expired tags, and no driver’s license. (Photo not actual car. Mine was tan.)

My second car, which was tagged, insured, and driven legally, was a blue 1969 Chevy Impala. His name was Vlad. I learned some basic auto maintenance on that car, such as how to do a brake job, change the oil, etc. I drove it cross-country from Los Angeles when I moved to the Chicago area and got engaged. I left the Porta-Pete abandoned in my former apartment complex’s parking lot. (Photo also not actual car, but exactly the same. Only mine was dirtier.)

I traded it for a white ‘89 Ford Escort, which we named Buzz, for its resemblance to Buzz Lightyear, and also as a reference to the noise the tiny 90 hp engine made. Driving in the snow in this car was WAY different than Vlad. I put snow tires on the front of this car and had a blast in the snow from that point forward.

After that, we bought a two-tone ‘89 Toyota Pickup, and we put snow tires on that as well. In the movie Cannibal: The Musical, there is a group of Japanese people pretending to be Indians. Not Native Americans, but stereotypically offensive cowboys-and-indians Indians, complete with horribly decorated tee-pees. The chief asks, “You do not believe we are.. Indians?” making a warpaint gesture on his cheeks. The comedy of Japanese “small car” auto manufacturers trying to enter the pick-up truck market struck us much the same way, and so I named the truck Chief. Buzz sat in the parking lot for a long time, having been driven into the ground. We donated him to charity.

After a while, Chief started to have repeated problems due to poor maintenance and lack of funds. He was replaced by a gift from my then-grandmother-in-law, a blue ‘96 Oldsmobile Ciera. She had offered to buy us a cheap car, and while my fiancee and I did some research and came up with a couple of reliable choices for the price range she had in mind ($3k, she said), she instead went and purchased this Oldsmobile (for $6k, she said. bluebook: $3k. I never did figure that woman out.) This car lasted a few years, thanks to at least a couple relative-funded repairs. It saw my honeymoon trip out to the Jersey shore, and more than one trip between Chicago, Ohio, and West Virginia. When my wife and I moved to Ohio, we sold Chief to her brother’s friend for $100 just to be rid of it. A year later, when I left my wife in Ohio, I agreed to purchase the car from her. I drove it cross-country back to Orange County. A number of months later, I sent her my payment, and that was that.

My current car is a blue ‘04 Hyundai Tiburon. My friend Heather named her Michelle. No particular reason, she just announced one day that the car seemed like a Michelle and it stuck. The Oldsmobile was sold to my mother (”Hey mom, want a cheap car?”), but it immediately needed repairs in excess of the amount she was going to pay me, so I waived it because I felt bad.

…

What’s in store for the future? I anticipate getting a different car in about three or four years. I think my next car will be something in the lower-end luxury class, with an automatic transmission. Stick has been fun but it can be a lot of work. There’s some BMW 3 series out there from a few years ago that seem pretty nice, but there’s an awful lot of BMWs in Orange County. If I test drive one and it’s wonderful, I may not care about that, though.

Sooner than that, though, I plan to get a cheap standard-type motorcycle to learn on. Maybe later I’ll get something bigger in a “touring” model bike. Taking bike trips to interesting places sounds appealing to me and I’d like to try it. I’d also love to learn how to take care of a motorcycle properly, once I’m living somewhere with a proper garage for tools and equipment.

- Pete

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.