CAR ∨

I have owned seven (and a fraction) cars over 55+ years: my first love; my balls out sports car; a piece of a race car; five family haulers. As we begin this reminiscence I still have two of them, the sports car and the last family hauler. These two are more than coincidentally the only two cars, as of now, I have bought new.

I decided early on the performance sweet spot I valued most. I picked an iconic marque to exemplify that performance: the Ferrari 308 GTB, with its mid-engine, dual cam V8 and 5 sp. manual transmission; lateral acceleration >.80g; 0-60 < 7.5 sec. (It was the model driven by Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in Cannonball Run.)

My three favorite cars fit this pattern well: 1967 Lotus Elan S3/SE drophead, like one driven by Emma Peel in the Avengers British TV series (M. appeal); 1990 Audi Quattro 200 turbo (elegant road car); 2002 Audi Quattro A4 3.0 (the year before the young turks took over at Audi Design and ruined their appeal). All had manual transmission, 4-5-6 speed respectively to match the number of engine cylinders. In all my buying, I was never seriously tempted to buy above this performance box. I was value oriented and somewhat non-competitive, so never wanted to pay a premium for some excess performance that I would almost never use. I  evolved to seek comfort, elegance, quality, and good value as discriminators after my base performance bonafides were met.

I have driven around 800K miles to date. I probably won’t make a million. My first two were bright yellow. Then it was bright red, dark blue, pearl white times two, and currently metallic silver. The color seems to have slowly drained from my life.

I have always liked cars. I subscribed to Road & Track for a while and will always go for the car mag in any waiting room. I have gone to many car races and dabbled in amateur racing, as an investor and support crew. I know what the new models are and what they can do. I liked to work on my cars, back in the day when that was even remotely possible for a non-expert with no model-specific tools.

Growing up a typical boy, I was fascinated by trucks and tractors. If it had wheels and made noise, I liked it. I cut pictures of tractors and trucks out of the yellow pages and magazines as soon as I was old enough to use scissors. I would sit by the side of the road and watch license plates to see where cars were from, the cars, not so much the people. I loved to make roads, bridges, and tunnels in my sand box for my toy cars. A tractor would come once a year and cut the hay in the field next to our house. Then the hay would be baled. I got to ride on the tractor once, a dream come true. I also got rides on my Aunt and Uncle’s tractor in the summers. Loving the smell of freshly mown hay and grass, I aspired to be the man who drove the tractor along New England roads, mowing the grass on the shoulders. What could be a better life? (Though I’d have to do something about my grass allergies.)

I learned to drive around age 14 in Nebraska. My father was a traveling salesman at the time and he took me along one summer, turning the car over to me for a couple of stretches, and allowing me to drive through a town. From high school on, I grew up in the car culture of Southern California. I never cruised or owned a hot rod, nor did my friends. But I did my share of drive-in movies and drive-in fast food service in my parents’ cars. I never took behind-the-wheel driver training. I got my license when I was 17 and bought my first car when I was 20.

I am elderly now. And because I tend to use all the available performance when I drive (my first traffic ticket was for doing over 100 in a 65 zone on an open stretch of road – fortunately encountered a nice CHP officer – speedo said 114 but he only wrote me up for 85), I attribute my gaining elderly status to my sensible, limiting choices, and to his advice: keep it up, bud, and when you get there you will be broke or dead.  This was on a road like the one on which James Dean perished in the Central Valley; who knows where I’d be if I could have afforded a Porsche.

My current ride is over 15 years old and I still get a kick driving it. But it is running out of support time, many small things are quirky or inoperable, and its mechanical sophistication will be very costly to repair, particularly the engine with its hydraulically-controlled variable camshafts.

A hard part of old age for me will be less driving. I know that my sports car is the last one of its ilk I will ever own. It’s been with me for 50 years and rated a spot in the garage, even as a non-runner. It is my archetype for fun car. But it’s time to face the facts and part with it. Just want to try to get it running first, or at least make it look like a complete car again.

So new cars are on my mind once more; I perhaps have one car left to buy, number eight. Automotive performance is off the scale now; I could afford a car that has twice the forward acceleration as my baseline spec. But I will resist and stay true to my vision of myself. Audi, my old flame, is now too pricey, too tricked out in style, Audi marketeers here in the USA less and less interested in providing configuration choices that I value, continually chasing the well-heeled young tiger market within a one size fits all profit motive. I’ve driven Audi for 45 years, but this elder tiger has left AudiUSA in the rear view mirror.

Having surveyed the field, at the beginning of 2018, VW pops up as my new go-to brand, and the Golf seems the right platform. VW is offering 6 years or 72000 mile warranty for 2018. The Golf R is following Audi to its target market, enough performance to get me in trouble, and for me, not a good value. But it seems such a fabulous package of goodies, that  I will test compare it to any more sensible choice to see if I can justify price. It comes with an optional 7-speed DSG (dual clutch, automated manual) transmission. We bought Debby a 2007 TT with a DSG gearbox and I thought it was a great substitute for a third pedal, although its sequential nature eliminates some random gear selection foolishness (for entering freeways, 2 to redline, then 5), but 98% of the fun and performance remains.

Since I live now in the rain forest called north coastal Washington, close to tall snowy mountains near 48°N, my minimum mechanical requirements are AWD and dual clutch automatic transmission; hence, my remaining VW choices are Golf Alltrack, and the base version of the Golf Sportwagon. Since the base version eliminates too many options I consider nice to have, I likely will end up with either an Alltrack or a Golf R. Since I could buy nearly two Alltracks for the price of the ‘R’, I suspect the jury already has reached its verdict. Now I must free the garage space for it.

Final Footnote:

The Lotus has found a new home and is being restored by an aficionado. He sent me a video if its first successful engine trial run in over 50 years.

Golf-R for 2018 never materialized here, but I found a 2017 Alltrack with 6-speed DSG transmission on the local dealer’s lot, with every top-end option, heavily discounted. My third new-bought car, and second with boosted engine, it is now in our driveway. We sold the A4 on eBay; the buyer flew in from a neighboring state to do the deal.

The Alltrack weighs less than 3400 lbs., and is Silk Blue metallic,  so there is some color in my motoring life once again. It is a mite underpowered as delivered, negotiates twisties with aplomb, stops competently, and a passenger can sleep while highway cruising. A practical choice, it can haul more than I can imagine needing and is setup to do light off-road tripping.

Sensing it would be simple to increase its performance into GTI territory,  I bought it and laid on a mild tune (changing a few settings in the ECU computer) to scavenge back the ~40% in both hp and torque that VW marketing gurus had tossed in their bin of stolen possibilities. It becomes the fastest car I have ever owned. The upgrade cost was 600USD up front plus the small additional expense of premium grade gas. This Alltrack RS (racing sleeper) becomes the chosen one to rocket me and my big grin through my final ride.

But wait, perhaps a used Audi A7 with rear-wheel steering might be worth a look? Or a similar well-used Panamera? Or maybe another sports car drop top, a used Porsche Boxster. Sensibility, don’t leave me alone to wrestle with such longings.

Proceed to First Car.
Proceed to Sports Car.
Proceed to The Family Haulers