Once upon a time, I was infatuated with cars. Not what I’d call a gearhead, I saw myself more as a car guy, a driver and admirer, not a tinkerer.
At the tender age of five, I could already identify the make and model of almost every car. On road trips, I’d drive my parents up the wall, reeling off the make and model of every car I saw. I think my dad was impressed, and he’d often point out a vehicle for me to identify. His motive was likely to get my mom to stop driving from the back seat for a minute.
Before I could legally drive, there was a slot car hobby. Different makes, models, and hot rods populated my stable, kept in a cigar box with the parts and pieces that made up my “road race” set. But getting behind the wheel, and not just sitting on my dad’s lap and turning the steering wheel, was a significant goal.
Finally, when I was 12 or 13, he let me drive the car from the highway on Fernlund Road to Grandpa’s farm. It was maybe a mile or two, but it seemed much longer. The car was always a full-size, early-to-mid-60s American-made sedan. Until I was old enough for a learner’s permit, every time we were in Crosslake, my old man had to take me driving on that gravel road.
The day I turned 15, I scored my learner’s permit. From then on, my parents couldn’t go anywhere without me driving.
As my behind-the-wheel proficiency increased, I started getting tired of hauling a couple of old people with me on every drive. Counting the days until I turned 16, I found a part-time job at a local steak house and started saving money for the car I’d buy when I was officially licensed.
All this reminiscing is because we bought a new car last week. A few years ago, we sold my aging Subaru, which we’d named Stella (we named many cars over the years). With that, we became a one car household after years of owning two or more.
Our sole vehicle became a five year-old Chevy Equinox. It served two old folks well.
The Bohunk, who has become the primary driver in our household, has been lobbying for a new car since last fall. When lunching with our son Dan, a car-buying and selling guru, just before Christmas, Becky got right into it—asked his opinion on whether we should get a new car and whether to lease or buy. He affirmed her desire for a new car. Mom is never wrong.
Since the Equinox was never named, had relatively low miles, and the tires were good until next fall, I was hoping to delay a new car purchase indefinitely.
I hate dealing with car dealers. I refuse to step into a dealership unless it’s an absolute necessity because most showrooms operate on a psychological “shell game.” It’s a decades-old business model built on information asymmetry— one person has all the data, and the other just has the checkbook. They shuffle numbers between the sticker price, trade-in value, down payment, and monthly installments until your brain is in a fog. It’s a dance that insults the intelligence. There’s a strategic reason car deals take four hours; the “let me talk to my manager” routine is a calculated move to wear down your mental resistance. By hour three, most buyers are so drained they’d sign almost anything just to escape with the keys.
So, when Becky decided to go to a few dealerships last Saturday to see and touch some of the cars on her short list, I stayed home with fingers crossed, wishing she wouldn’t find the next car of her dreams. But she found a fire-engine-red Chevy Trailblazer to be our next car. Son Dan stepped in by phone to talk cartalk (trade, finance, price) with the salesperson who roped his Mama in. He’s outstanding at that kind of thing, and, for a long time, his efforts have kept me from brutally assaulting the poor folk who sell cars for a living.
Buying a car is tough, and honestly, I’ve given up being a ‘car guy.’ The 5-year-old in me doesn’t recognize the make and model, but the car-mudgeon in me that rants about how modern cars look like melted soap bars has to admit: Rosa the red Trailblazer looks pretty sharp in the driveway. And as they say, happy wife…
