I bought a car, time for an adventure
On August 2nd, I bought a car.
I didn’t really set out to buy a car, but I wasn’t entirely opposed to it. I had, after all, been looking at used car listings online for months, and daydreaming about getting something new to me, something different from what I had been driving for the past 5 years.
It’s not that I no longer love my Mustang. I do still love it, and won’t be getting rid of it until I no longer do. I’ve reached a point with it that everything I’m going to touch on it has been done. I guess I see cars differently than other people do. I see people all the time when driving to work, to the store, or just for the heck of it, who don’t really have any love for their cars.
Cars for many people are seen as an appliance. It’s a device used to get from A to B and back again. A lot of those folks won’t get a different car just for pleasure, but only because the one they have has died and it’s cheaper to replace it than it is to fix it. Sometimes it’s easy to spot these folks, they likely haven’t washed their car in forever, and may have dents or missing parts that should be easy to find and replace. Sadly I’m related to some people like this. We have no idea why I see things differently.
When looking at used vehicles I was careful to only look at things I could afford, or before the interest rates recently went up on everything, cars I could easily pay off quickly if I financed them. Over time this lead to an increasing dollar amount for a “cash car”, especially after bank rates for used cars went over 5%. Then I have a few specific qualities that I look for in a car.
It has to fit a niche that my current fleet doesn’t. Currently I have a 2-door sports coupe, so I wanted something in the wagon range to have increased cargo capacity as well as seating for people. I thought about something in the Hot Hatch segment, but with my daughter having a Mini Cooper that I occasionally get to drive, my desire for something like that is low.
It has to be unique in some way. Any car I may consider needs to have some level of rarity, either through option package, color, or some other measurable means. We’ll come back to this in a bit.
Manual transmission. I haven’t owned a car with an automatic transmission since 1993. Yes, this means that I’m old. It also means that I’m defying one of my father’s predictions from about 20 years ago. He once said to me that I’ll second guess my decision to drive manual when I got older, as other things would become more important to me in a car. So far I haven’t had to compromise. The manual transmission requirement would only be overridden by the rarity angle above. If a vehicle was otherwise rare enough, but never offered with a manual, I might get it anyway. I was looking at a Dodge Mangum SRT8 because of this. They’re super rare, keeping their value because of it, but never had a manual in them.
Hopefully in an interesting color. While this is a low end requirement, I prefer cars to be in a color, not greyscale. I would prefer something not in black, grey, silver, or white…
Anyone searching for a car with a manual transmission will tell you that this cuts any search results down from thousands of vehicles to very few. For many things this meant down to none within 500 miles.
With these things in mind my search narrowed down further. There are few wagons with manuals, and because of this when they come up for sale they get a higher price tag, often putting them out of reach as a cash car. I bid on a couple on an auction site, but they always went over what I was willing (or able) to pay. With that in mind I tried to widen my search a little, and included a couple of “luxury SUV’s” in the mix. I have always considered SUVs to be station wagons with a lift kit.
So I found one on an auction site that fit the bill. SUV, in good shape, with a manual transmission and rare because of it. The auction was ending in the middle of the day, so I bid before going to bed when I got home and set an alarm for 15 minutes before the end of the auction. When I got up that afternoon, I was still the high bidder, but someone outbid me by $200 in the final minute, so I put in one more bid for only $100 more expecting to be outbid again and/or start a little battle over this car that I would willingly concede because I didn’t want to overpay. No followup bid came. I was the high bidder, and at much less than I had been willing to pay, and close to what I thought the car was worth anyway.
The car is in Florida, and I’m in Texas. I’m not one to let a little thing like this stop me.
I checked shipping companies that all wanted an arm or a leg to pick it up and deliver it for me, and I checked available flights. I found that even with high gas prices it will be cheaper to fly down and drive it back myself.
Over the following couple of days the seller and I went back and forth in text and email to iron out a couple of things and I went to the bank for a cashier’s check and FedEx to overnight it. I made a plane reservation and took a couple of days off of work to personally go get it.
This morning I went over to the local tax office to get a temp permit so I can drive it home. The clerk told me that what I was asking wasn’t possible, that the permit wasn’t good outside of Texas. Once I pointed out the wording of the DMV website and asked him to consult with his boss, he backed down. The single word that determined if I got a permit? “OR” The site says, “A One-Trip Permit is valid for one trip only between the point of origin and the point of destination and the intermediate point as shown on the receipt. The point of origin or destination must be in Texas.” (Emphasis mine.) When it comes to if something is permitted or not, those little words matter. The computer let him put in the information, and he printed me off a temp permit.
Tomorrow (the 9th of August) I’ll board a plane to fetch a car and drive it 1100 miles home.
Wish me luck. Story follow up when I get home.