Friday, June 27, 2008

Theses are the Cars of our Lives

My blog buddy Tal
wrote a post all about his history in cars so, since he asked about his readers cars and my comment got out of control so I decided to make it's own post...

When I was a kid we had a 1974 (I think...might have been a different year) Navy Blue Volvo Station Wagon then when it was worn out (I believe it had 100,000 miles on it, or close to it) we bought a 1986 Navy Blue Volvo Station Wagon - nearly identical to the old one except that the new one had AC and a tape deck. We were so excited when we got it my grandparents came up and we drove it Maine (from NYC area)! So my grandpa could make a religious pilgimage to the LL Bean store in Freeport.

When I turned 16 (1992)my mom bought a Lexus - and I got the Volvo tank which I drove until it got totally in an accident in 1996 - just a couple hundred miles shy of 100,000! It was a chain of event accident - there were 3 cars traveling to an Alpha Phi Omega service project. I was in the middle and the guy behind me hit me with his Jeep Wrangler at 45 mph, hurling me (I was stopped or close to it) into the Ford Taurus sedan driven by another of our friends. Thankfully, no one was injured. I attribute that to the fact that the Volvo tank was in the middle. Both my Volvo and the Ford Taurus were totalled.

For my replacement car I got a green volvo station wagon that I was never a big fan of....I wanted a Saturn (they were new at the time)but didn't feel like doing the research my parents would have required, I wanted a new car more so went with a Volvo because the purchase process would be faster. While we were shopping for my car, my mom found a purple Volvo sedan, it was too expensive for me, but she traded in her Lexus for it, this car is still in the family, it lived with me for almost a year when my parents were motorhoming and now my grandma owns it, but it lives at my uncles house.

I moved to OK in 1998 and decided I needed an American car because there were no places I could go to get the Volvo fixed. I couldn't afford a Saturn on my own and I ended up having an unfortuente encounter with a Chevy Cavalier which I sold after about a year and got finally got my Saturn.

My 1st Saturn was a 1999 Navy Blue sedan. In fact it was the last of a "dye lot" and the next set of "blue" saturns was a swimming pool blue - not pretty. I dubbed my car "Old Blue" after my Grandpa's Cadillac - it was a 1960 something blue boat, when he wasn't able to get parts for it anymore he bought an identical car to keep in the yard for part (Old Blue 2). He lived in KY and grew up in West VA.

I drove that Saturn for about 6 years and had over 90,000 miles on it. Right after I bought my Saturn the company came out with the Vue and I wanted one so in 2005 Saturn was running some good deals on trade ins with incentives and things so I traded in my sedan for a....you guessed it...Blue Vue. Pacific Blue to be exact. Very bright, in your face blue, but I like it. I have loved this car from day 1! I have had it about 2 and 1/2 years and already have close to 50,000 miles on it, and frightenling enough I have only driven it in 4 states!

As you can see I like my blue cars. I'm also one of those people who finds what she likes and sticks with it.

3 comments:

Talmadge said...

"Chevy Cavalier" and "unfortunate" are almost redundant. :-)

Yeah, I too would've been eager to shed those wheels. I had a '93 Chevy Corsica which totally redefined the parameters of "unfortunate."

(As for my own car history, I went go into detail on that last Fall ... in case you didn't get back that far)

Talmadge said...

"I went go into detail" .... geeeeez, I hate it when my edits do a trainwreck.

Meant to say that you were probably in the best vehicle possible during your chain-collision. Those Volvos truly are built like the old days. Our local Volvo dealer's commercials are amusing .... voiced by this older man who calls himself "The General" (not to be confused with "our" General) and delivers his spots in a Patton kind of way.

As That General would say, "That's all."

nettiemac said...

I posted my own list too -- AND finally got around to adding you to my blogs list!! :D