Tuesday May 31, 2005
Tuesday May 31, 2005 With all this car talk on my blog, you might think I was a car nut. I don't think of myself that way, although as I've said before my son Ben is. So when my wife and daughter went away for the weekend, when I asked Ben what he wanted to do of course the answer was, "Dad, let's look at cars!"
We'd been talking about getting a cute little weekend car, you know, one of those just-for-fun things, for a while. Still, when Ben and I started looking around I wasn't expecting to actually buy one.
The first car we drove was a Honda S2000. Really cute, great value, phenomenal shifter. Okay, I started to think seriously that I might buy something.
Next was the new Mustang GT convertible. Returning the pony car to its roots. Fun to drive, but being so brand new and in demand, the dealers weren't dealing. So let's keep looking. Tomorrow we'll check out the Porsche Boxster and the Lotus Elise. Not that I expected to buy one of those, but what the heck. Costs nothing to try it. And Ben was really hot for the Elise.
Call the Lotus dealer across the bay. He's in a meeting. Leave him a message telling him we want to test drive an Elise. Oddly, he doesn't call us back, but we trek over there anyway. They have two on the floor. This looks promising. But a test drive?
"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly do that. This car is on allocation, and the buyers want the odometer to read as close to zero as possible."
Bring down the $10K dealer markup?
"With the demand for these cars? Oh, no, sir, no way. But let me show you the Krypton Green one in the garage."
You mean you have not two, but three of them?
No, actually they have four. More promising all the time. Take a look at the green one.
"Would you like to see it in the light?"
Sure, why not. Costs nothing to look. Out from the garage it comes. It's really bright.
"Go ahead, sit in it."
"I still need to drive it to buy it."
"Oh, no, we couldn't do that." Nevertheless, it's time to drag out the hoary old car dealer's line. You know: "What can I do to get you to buy this car today?"
Well, we can start by getting rid of that dealer markup.
"Okay, I'll bring it down by $2,000."
"Ummm..."
"$5,000."
"Ummm..."
"Okay, you seem like a sincere guy. You can have it for sticker if you buy it today."
"I still need to see if I can actually drive it. It is a bit extreme, you know."
"How about to the end of the block and back?"
So I did drive it to the end of the block and back, and now I drive it to work and back. At least, when it's not raining. No, I didn't go with that crazy green. It's a nice subdued metallic black. If you can call anything about this car subdued.
Never did get around to test driving the Porsche. It may not be a Ferrari, but it sure is fun. Oh, yeah, and my wife likes it too :-)
We'd been talking about getting a cute little weekend car, you know, one of those just-for-fun things, for a while. Still, when Ben and I started looking around I wasn't expecting to actually buy one.
The first car we drove was a Honda S2000. Really cute, great value, phenomenal shifter. Okay, I started to think seriously that I might buy something.
Next was the new Mustang GT convertible. Returning the pony car to its roots. Fun to drive, but being so brand new and in demand, the dealers weren't dealing. So let's keep looking. Tomorrow we'll check out the Porsche Boxster and the Lotus Elise. Not that I expected to buy one of those, but what the heck. Costs nothing to try it. And Ben was really hot for the Elise.
Call the Lotus dealer across the bay. He's in a meeting. Leave him a message telling him we want to test drive an Elise. Oddly, he doesn't call us back, but we trek over there anyway. They have two on the floor. This looks promising. But a test drive?
"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly do that. This car is on allocation, and the buyers want the odometer to read as close to zero as possible."
Bring down the $10K dealer markup?
"With the demand for these cars? Oh, no, sir, no way. But let me show you the Krypton Green one in the garage."
You mean you have not two, but three of them?
No, actually they have four. More promising all the time. Take a look at the green one.
"Would you like to see it in the light?"
Sure, why not. Costs nothing to look. Out from the garage it comes. It's really bright.
"Go ahead, sit in it."
"I still need to drive it to buy it."
"Oh, no, we couldn't do that." Nevertheless, it's time to drag out the hoary old car dealer's line. You know: "What can I do to get you to buy this car today?"
Well, we can start by getting rid of that dealer markup.
"Okay, I'll bring it down by $2,000."
"Ummm..."
"$5,000."
"Ummm..."
"Okay, you seem like a sincere guy. You can have it for sticker if you buy it today."
"I still need to see if I can actually drive it. It is a bit extreme, you know."
"How about to the end of the block and back?"
So I did drive it to the end of the block and back, and now I drive it to work and back. At least, when it's not raining. No, I didn't go with that crazy green. It's a nice subdued metallic black. If you can call anything about this car subdued.
Never did get around to test driving the Porsche. It may not be a Ferrari, but it sure is fun. Oh, yeah, and my wife likes it too :-)
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http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/stuff/cars/1937_Plymouth.jpg
I did drive it in the rain and it was the most fun that one can have while driving. Any car that is pre-war will get you easy access to the passing lane and people are more than happy to left you turn left anytime you want. The only issue is that you end up with people tailing you in your blind spot because they want to look at the car going down the road. Also, this was a 1937 Plymouth body mounted on a modified Chev Monte Carlo frame with the prerequisite Chev 350 and all the usual go fast go loud options. That included a fuel cell and a complete internal 2-inch tubalar steel cage.
There was one fine day when I rounded a corner and then hit the gas hard. It was an industrial area and I may have been doing 90 in a 40 zone. I never saw the police cruiser sitting in a side street. I pulled over and then opened both of the theatre doors on the drivers side ( it was a 1937 Plymouth and suicide doors were common back then ) and sat on the running boards with the engine thumping along in idle. When the police man arrived he walked up, with his head kinda sideways and then he got down on the ground and looked underneath the rear wheels, looked up and said:
"What happened? You never got decent traction back there."
I simply blinked.
He said "maybe you need to adjust the rear suspension a bit. That looks to be a Ford 9 inch read end with traction control but you seemed to lose speed on you gear shift."
I kid you not. We sat there and talked cars for about a half hour.
This, on the other hand, was not my car but I took a nice photo :
http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/stuff/cars/maserati-MC12-3.png
This was one of mine :
http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/stuff/cars/95_Camaro_Z28.jpg
This is not .. but again .. I crawled up to take the photo :
http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/stuff/cars/FordGT_front.png
Dennis
Posted by Dennis Clarke on May 31, 2005 at 10:34 PM PDT #
Boy am I Jelous.
Just saw an Elise on the road the other day. Beautiful car. But I have a lot of trouble paying over $20K or a car, let alone twice that. ANd dont knwo when I coudl afford to.
Still, I daydream :)
Posted by 67.122.118.223 on May 31, 2005 at 11:35 PM PDT #
Posted by Sun Share Holder on June 10, 2005 at 01:05 PM PDT #