Auto conflict

Crazymumma recently asked me a question. Instead of emailing her directly I figured why not blog about it.

The question was… Niloc...do you ever have conflict about having your car, your silver one? I am feeling very conflicted about keeping the Trans Am, but it just feels so darn good....

The answer is no. I have no conflict about having the Cutlass. Just so that everyone knows it’s a 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass S Holiday Coupe. Silver paint with a black vinyl roof. It’s almost all original but with a few tweaks to it. I could go into more detail but this is a mommy blog forum so I won’t bore you all with grease monkey talk.

The story of the car was that it originally came up for sale back when I was 19. They were only asking $3300.00 and it ended up being sold to a good friend of my dad. Back then that was probably for the best. If you give a classic car to any kid that age and it would have either been driven into the ground or it would have ended up kissing a telephone poll. Instead the car was basically stored in a heated garage for ten years. I heard it was coming up for sale one Labour Day weekend and I expressed my interest in buying it. The lucky fluke of this story was that I got offered to do a side job. It was a fair sized project. I needed to hire three other guys and it would cost me the better part of the Thanksgiving weekend. By the time I paid everyone I still ended up with five thousand in my pocket. I eagerly handed over $5,500.00 for the car. It was in great shape. Twenty four thousand original miles, no rust on it and the 350 Rocket pulled strong.

Since then I have doubled the miles on it. Scratched it down the side while listening to the music too loud and parking it in the garage. A door ding and other little imperfections but it has its place. We have a double garage off the back that’s good and dry. It’s only driven from May till September. (that rule might get bent a little if the weather is exceptional) I have a number of little improvements for it that I will get to eventually. I haven’t been all that much of a gearhead since the girls were born. It needs a ball joint for the front end, the weather stripping is dry and cracking and I don’t drive it as much as I would like. Yet I will never sell this car. It’s Canadian made and as old as me. I don’t feel guilty for it being a gas hog or that its value is equivalent of a few years tuition at university. I didn’t have to scrimp and save to get the car. I made no sacrifice to purchase my muscle car. It simply came to me when the time was right.

Jana has always been very cool about the car too. I know it’s not her ‘thing’. She doesn’t like the fact that you don’t have to wear seatbelts in it. In cars made before 1974 the seatbelts are optional because lap belts have actually been proven to cause more harm to the passengers. This weirds her out. For me I feel sorry for who ever the tank hits. She would never ask me to sell it or give me the… “I think you’ve outgrown this” speech.

So ya… if it feels good, go with it.