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My Life in Car Years
I have owned a great many cars in my life. Far more than I probably should have at this age, truth be told. Some of my car purchases and adventures are probably quite interesting to car enthusiasts while others are simply a representation of the phase of my life I was in at that time. Over the next few weeks to months I look forward to waxing poetic about the cars I’ve loved, the ones I’ve hated, and what they meant to me at that time in my life. Like all things here on ThePennyMillionaire some of these vehicles are quite nice but not nice nice: no Lamborghinis or Bentleys to be found, just cars that are attainable or a slight stretch for the not-quite-millionaires out there.
Here’s a sneak preview of just a few I’ll be discussing:
1966 Mustang – the inheritance
1992 Toyota Camry – the Millennial’s coming of age car
2003 Subaru Impreza – the learning experience
1993 Mazda RX-7 (FD) – “I bit off more than I can chew”
2016 Cadillac ATS-V – The one I regret giving up
As I type this out it feels like so many vehicles and yet it’s not even half of the ones I’ve owned up to this point. I look forward to sharing my passion for cars, my painful learnings, and a heavy dose of nostalgia along the way.
1992 Toyota Camry
I don’t have a lot to say about my 1992 Toyota Camry that hasn’t already been said. Growing up in the 90s meant this was one of the most common cars on the road all the way through my teenage years and my particular example offered strong support for the “most reliable” mantra that Toyota is famous for. Yes, it had manual windows and door locks, and yes, the heat took so long to warm up in the winter that I was usually entering my school parking lot by the time I could feel my fingers again, but this car soaked up every bit of abuse that three teenage drivers could throw at it and came back for more.
As much as I enjoyed my high school years and the memories of where that car took me, I oddly don’t find myself reminiscing at all about the car itself. In fact, I often forget that I drove it at all- skipping mentally from my “first” car of the 1966 Mustang to my “college” car of a Subaru Impreza. In a way this may be the most fitting tribute I can offer to the ultimate “appliance” car: its tenure was so dead reliable, so completely unmarred by breakdowns or causes for concern that I am able to skim over the travel portions of my memory and go straight to where the Camry ferried me.
While the Camry may not be a car that stirs strong emotions for me, it certainly earned my appreciation. Its dependability and practicality made it a perfect companion, even if it didn’t leave a lasting emotional impression.
2016 Cadillac ATS-V
If you ask most people about “the one that got away” they probably don’t picture an almost 10-year-old Cadillac coupe.
For better or for worse, I am not most people.
My purchase of an ATS-V was a surprise decision even to me: I had just sold my RX-7 and was looking for something to fill the “fun car” gap in my life but ideally with about ten times the reliability. The typical wisdom would point car folks to Mustangs, Camaros, and 370Zs for cheap and reliable fun but I have always had a bad habit of wanting to go with something a little more rare with my car purchases. Cue the ATS-V: a twin turbo V6, rear wheel drive coupe with sharp styling and only 5,500 units produced.
The process of finding an ATS-V to purchase was an unexpected challenge and could be another short article by itself. Suffice to say that after learning about online escrow services, the surprisingly shady industry of vehicle shipping, and the many perils of purchasing a vehicle sight-unseen, a 2016 Phantom Gray Metallic ATS-V Coupe was parked in my driveway. This particular model was low mileage with Recaro seats and an aftermarket exhaust that gave it just a tinge more growl at idle but still maintained the valve system; a substantial upgrade for my neighbors from my poorly muffled LS engine from the car before.
Many automotive journalists say that the hallmark of a great sports car is that it feels like it shrinks around you at speed. How great, then, is a car that shrinks around you while parked? From the moment I first sat in the driver’s seat the car felt as if it had been custom-built to my taste. The seating position was low but comfortable, the exhaust note wasn’t too loud or too muted, and the interior was small enough to feel sporty but large enough to not feel cramped: everything fell into a goldilocks zone of just right. While the styling had initially not been exciting enough for me, I quickly grew to appreciate that the average person was unable to differentiate between my car and the base ATS trim. Unlike the immediately recognizable design of my RX-7, this one fell much more into the “if you know, you know” category. On occasion I would get waves or a thumbs up from other drivers (or much more frequently if they were in CTS-Vs) but for the most part my car just blended in. Power too was plentiful but not unmanageable. The V6 alone was enough to get the car moving from a stop at a brisk pace, and as soon as the turbos started contributing the car was capable of passing anything this side of a Corvette.
Several years and multiple cars later I still have not found anything that felt quite so me. I have owned faster cars, I have owned cars that were more comfortable to drive to and from work, and I have owned cars that were much more lauded by journalists for their driver engagement and “fun factor”. However, when I think about what car I miss the most from my collection, which car I would happily drive down the interstate to work in the morning and the backroads on the way home, and which car simply fit me, there would only be one answer: my ATS-V.
2013 Ford Focus
Shortly after graduating college and getting my first full time job I decided that it was time for me to purchase a car that was newer and, more importantly, reliable. After shopping around a bit I landed on a Ford Focus hatchback in titanium trim. Compared to my previous car experience this may was well have been a Rolls Royce: heated leather seats, remote start, and ambient interior lighting were all features I couldn’t believe were available to me in my budget. This was also the first time in my life I had applied for credit and would have to make car payments to the tune of a daunting $225 a month.
The Ford Focus, I quickly learned, was a car that had a Achilles heel. Anyone who has ever owned or researched this car- and likely a good number of lawyers involved in the class action lawsuits- will instantly know what I’m referring to: the Powershift transmission. If the transmission could be ignored I would have greatly enjoyed my time with this car. The heated seats, remote start, and sunroof were features I used constantly. On open highways where I was gentle on the throttle I could even get near 40 mpg, although even a slight uphill slope made the engine significantly more thirsty. All in all a pretty great commuter car for a recent college grad on a modest budget. Almost.
The transmission turned every drive into a frustrating, bumpy experience. Accelerating from a stop would inevitably lead to shudders and jerks between gears 1-2 and even 2-3 on occasion. As an owner you just get used to it and you learn over time how to minimize (but never truly eliminate) the more violent shudders; to an outside observer it was often a more concerning experience. In fact, I had once taken my car to CarMax to see what they would offer me as a trade in toward another car. After taking it on a short drive around the parking lot they came back with a painfully low offer and a red note on the sheet stating “transmission problems”. I received some incredulous looks when I told the rep I had taken the Focus in for service less than a month prior and was told the transmission was “within spec” according to Ford themselves. I knew full well this wouldn’t impact my offer in any way, but I wanted to at least defend my pride and confirm I knew a transmission shouldn’t behave that way.
Evidently this was something that a great number of people at Ford had not known.
