![]() 03/02/2014 at 15:10 • Filed to: None | ![]() | ![]() |
It was the car that took me to my first day of Kindergarten. It was the car that my family spent hours upon hours in, driving across America, seeing its beauties and its backwoods. Besides the a few figments of memory I have in my moms Audi before the family picked up the Swede, this is the first car I truly REMEMBER.
1997. White. NA. Stick. Wagon. Rear Facing Seats. So much Jalop. Tan interior with the most comfy seats I could imagine, and a tape deck for BOOKS ON TAPE. Such comfort. Amaze. Wow.
These 186 inches of Swedish engineering were now the standard I held all other cars to... Until my Dad came home with a brand new 1998 British Racing Green Z3 straight out of James Bond. (More on that in another story).
Manual. Rear Wheel Drive. This was the same as the Volvo Right? Just .... Cooler?
The day this thing pulled in the drive way I jumped in the drivers seat and started attempting to shift through the gears (About 7 years old), pretending I was a race car driver, never once having seen a race. This was my first truly great memory of happiness, and one I hold very near to me. Now... My expectations were set pretty high. I mean, I was being driven to elementary school in this thing! Man the ladies were gonna love me..
Fast forward to middle school, I noticed that not all cars were manual like my parents. They had these things called... automatics?? I found this strange. My parents instilled in me that learning to drive a stick-shift was something like a "rite of passage". That only "real drivers" drove manual. As a ten year old I accepted this challenge, not knowing what was to come.
My next great car memory came to me in the Volvo while my family was on a trip to a family reunion at the Moon River Ranch (TEXAS). At the time I absolutely hated country music.. It was old and tired and nothing like the rad hits of the early 2000's, right!? I had never really listened to lyrics critically in a song before. That is until Brooks and Dunn's "Red Dirt Road" came on as we beamed past the countryside approaching twilight.
It was beautiful. As if the Song, the Car, and the Moment were all synced into this one, seemingly perfect moment in history. My love for music and car's was born that day. I put together that car's were like vessels, briskly guiding us along the pathway of life, encapsulating precious memories, and leading us towards new ones.
3 days later my dad entered me into the "Red Dirt Road" contest, in which he showed me that the prize of the contest were back stage passes and..... a 1966 GTO. I was hooked.
To be Continued...
![]() 03/02/2014 at 15:14 |
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A woman, a very very very wise woman who lives nearby, owns a T5-r in the iconic cream yellow color... I'm pretty sure I love her.
![]() 03/04/2014 at 19:39 |
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You totally left out the part where your 850/S70/V70/XC70/C70 bankrupts you in repairs.
Given that you owned an NA, that might explain why you had a better experience.
Had a '98 S70 GLT and '99 V70R. Both cars cost me far more than their purchase prices in repairs.