The Perfect Car - An Appreciation
The first car I ever bought in my life was the perfect car. My life moved on, and I outgrew the car, but I still think of it fondly and I sincerely doubt that I will ever have such a wonderful car again. Whenever I see an ocean blue 1991 Mazda Protégé on the road (which admittedly is not too often), I always stop to check if it is mine, even though I know that mine is back in Kentucky somewhere.
I bought the Protégé right before I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. I knew that lots of people bought cars right after college, but since I still thought of myself as a kid, I was really surprised to find myself behind the wheel of a car I owned (or after 60 easy payments of $200 would one day own). For those of you who don’t know, a Protégé is a small, four-door, decidedly unsporty car. I thought it was cute, but basically, it was just a car, the kind of car that would be depicted in a dictionary to demonstrate the meaning of the word “car.” It was the lower end model – with cloth seats and manual locks and windows, but to me it was a luxury automobile because it was mine all mine. Unlike my parents’ cars, the Protégé had a tape player and functioning air conditioning (for years I felt guilty about turning the air conditioning on, since my parents always traveled with the windows open and the vent on). It had automatic seat belts, rear seats that folded down to enlarge the trunk, and a lever inside to open up the gas cap. My favorite part was the “hold” button on the gear shift which would let you accelerate up steep hills without changing gear.
I suppose the care and attention I gave to my first car was not unusual. I washed it every month, got the oil changed on a regular schedule, and bored everyone with stories and praise for my car, much as normal people would bore people with stories of their children. I always kept it locked, as if a ring of car thieves would be gunning for a $12,000 little car. I was in automotive heaven, but sadly, no one else on the road seemed to appreciate my car.
About five days after I moved to Charlottesville, I found a half-inch long ding on the driver’s side door. I was devastated, unable to understand how anyone could cause such injury to such a beautifully engineered vehicle and drive away without a note or offer to repair the damage. Little did I know that that was just the beginning of the abuse my poor little car would suffer at the hands of other motorists. One night in Philadelphia, someone sideswiped the entire driver’s side, denting and scratching both doors. A few months later someone changed lanes without waiting for me to get out of their way, and slammed my car into the jersey wall along the Schuylkill Expressway, leaving a dent and a scrape on the passenger side. I would later find out, this fender bender caused other unseen damage. It started a leak in the trunk that over time caused the entire trunk to become a huge rust basin and bent the rim on the rear wheel which caused the hubcap to fall off every time it was replaced. I bought the car as a student and kept it through a succession of low paying jobs, so the Protégé’s wounds piled up, because I had no money to fix them.
I must admit, the Protégé had a few other problems that it brought with it from the factory. The little clip that was supposed to pop open the door over gas tank was too tight, and would pop right out of the little door onto the ground at the gas station. The brakes it started with must have been as low grade as the manufacturer could get away with, because they had to be replaced after 18 months. The worst flaw was the defrosting system, which did not work in the front. Hot or cold, air conditioner or not, the front window would never defog, and one day the windshield even had ice on the inside that I was trying to scrape off while driving through rush hour traffic. But these were minor inconveniences. Eventually I just removed the clip from the gas tank door and I would open it by pulling the lever with my foot while stretching back to push on the door with my hand. Once I got a lifetime guarantee on brakes at Midas, they lasted for years. And really, how hard is it to stick your head out the driver’s side window and squint when the windshield is too foggy to see through?
Five years into our relationship, the Protégé was no longer pretty, but it was still a great car. I could go hundreds and hundreds of miles on every tank of gas and it handled better in snow than any SUV. It was small enough to parallel park all over the city, but big enough that I wasn’t afraid to drive on the highway. Yet, when I got married, my husband used to infuriate me by referring to my car as a “hoopdee,” mocking the dents and the unconventional method I used to open the gas tank. I still wonder where he got the nerve. I had been together with my car for five years, it was a definite part of my identity, and everyone who knew me knew my car. My husband should have been the one treading carefully – by the time we tied the knot my car was paid for, and he didn’t have one. He was lucky to find a bride that could come into a marriage with such an impressive dowry.
Clearly as a young couple with two careers, we were going to need a second car, so shortly after my husband returned from Korea, we went to a Ford dealer and bought a 1997 Explorer. The Explorer was blue, but in every other way it the opposite of the Protégé. The Explorer was the top of the line model, with leather seats and automatic everything. We had plenty of money and no kids, so we didn’t even think twice about the gas it would guzzle. I admit I thought I was good looking for a truck, and fun to drive, but I left it to my husband. I loved my Protégé, and with my new short commute to work, I only had to put gas in it once a month. When it was time for us to move, we left our daughter with my parents, tuned up the Protégé and drove it to Kentucky together where we could safely leave it while we dealt with the movers.
And so we moved. We had another daughter, and we drove the Protégé and the Explorer well past the happy day when both were paid off. Even my husband came to appreciate the Protégé as the little car that could - it required so little attention, and yet was always up for whatever drive we needed. I viewed the Protégé’s advancing age as an accomplishment, and took pride in the fact that I had been driving the same car for 12 years. Ironically, I never understood why other people liked their old cars - I found it kind of pathetic that people would hold on to a junky car out of sentiment - but I never thought of my car as junky.
And then came baby number 3. We knew that we were going to have to get a new car when we got the new baby, because 3 car seats wouldn’t fit in the Protégé and were hard to manage in the Explorer. My husband thought we should sell the Explorer since it was worth more, but one of our neighbors observed that if we got rid of the Explorer, we would only have one family car. If our new car needed work or an oil change, we’d have to rent a car to go anywhere as a family. And so I faced the big decision. After 12 years together, I knew it was time for my car and I to part company. The Protégé had been the perfect car for me for more than a decade, but it wasn’t perfect for me anymore, not with all these stinking kids, so it was time to let go.
My husband put a “for sale” sign on the car, parked it in the designated area on post, and two days later, someone called with an offer to buy it. As it turned out, we sold it to the family of a woman who worked at our daughter’s preschool. Much as a person who adopted a puppy might inform the prior owner of the dog’s progress, she kept me informed of my car’s performance. Her son removed my college sticker from the back window, got some of the dents fixed, and put in a new stereo. He drove it into a ditch and cracked the frame, but they got it repaired and back on the road. She told me that her son loved his new car, and described how he kept it spotless inside and out. Sometimes I miss my car and my life that went with it, but I’m happy knowing that it has found a good home. I’m not surprised that it has charmed its way into someone else’s heart.
I bought the Protégé right before I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. I knew that lots of people bought cars right after college, but since I still thought of myself as a kid, I was really surprised to find myself behind the wheel of a car I owned (or after 60 easy payments of $200 would one day own). For those of you who don’t know, a Protégé is a small, four-door, decidedly unsporty car. I thought it was cute, but basically, it was just a car, the kind of car that would be depicted in a dictionary to demonstrate the meaning of the word “car.” It was the lower end model – with cloth seats and manual locks and windows, but to me it was a luxury automobile because it was mine all mine. Unlike my parents’ cars, the Protégé had a tape player and functioning air conditioning (for years I felt guilty about turning the air conditioning on, since my parents always traveled with the windows open and the vent on). It had automatic seat belts, rear seats that folded down to enlarge the trunk, and a lever inside to open up the gas cap. My favorite part was the “hold” button on the gear shift which would let you accelerate up steep hills without changing gear.
I suppose the care and attention I gave to my first car was not unusual. I washed it every month, got the oil changed on a regular schedule, and bored everyone with stories and praise for my car, much as normal people would bore people with stories of their children. I always kept it locked, as if a ring of car thieves would be gunning for a $12,000 little car. I was in automotive heaven, but sadly, no one else on the road seemed to appreciate my car.
About five days after I moved to Charlottesville, I found a half-inch long ding on the driver’s side door. I was devastated, unable to understand how anyone could cause such injury to such a beautifully engineered vehicle and drive away without a note or offer to repair the damage. Little did I know that that was just the beginning of the abuse my poor little car would suffer at the hands of other motorists. One night in Philadelphia, someone sideswiped the entire driver’s side, denting and scratching both doors. A few months later someone changed lanes without waiting for me to get out of their way, and slammed my car into the jersey wall along the Schuylkill Expressway, leaving a dent and a scrape on the passenger side. I would later find out, this fender bender caused other unseen damage. It started a leak in the trunk that over time caused the entire trunk to become a huge rust basin and bent the rim on the rear wheel which caused the hubcap to fall off every time it was replaced. I bought the car as a student and kept it through a succession of low paying jobs, so the Protégé’s wounds piled up, because I had no money to fix them.
I must admit, the Protégé had a few other problems that it brought with it from the factory. The little clip that was supposed to pop open the door over gas tank was too tight, and would pop right out of the little door onto the ground at the gas station. The brakes it started with must have been as low grade as the manufacturer could get away with, because they had to be replaced after 18 months. The worst flaw was the defrosting system, which did not work in the front. Hot or cold, air conditioner or not, the front window would never defog, and one day the windshield even had ice on the inside that I was trying to scrape off while driving through rush hour traffic. But these were minor inconveniences. Eventually I just removed the clip from the gas tank door and I would open it by pulling the lever with my foot while stretching back to push on the door with my hand. Once I got a lifetime guarantee on brakes at Midas, they lasted for years. And really, how hard is it to stick your head out the driver’s side window and squint when the windshield is too foggy to see through?
Five years into our relationship, the Protégé was no longer pretty, but it was still a great car. I could go hundreds and hundreds of miles on every tank of gas and it handled better in snow than any SUV. It was small enough to parallel park all over the city, but big enough that I wasn’t afraid to drive on the highway. Yet, when I got married, my husband used to infuriate me by referring to my car as a “hoopdee,” mocking the dents and the unconventional method I used to open the gas tank. I still wonder where he got the nerve. I had been together with my car for five years, it was a definite part of my identity, and everyone who knew me knew my car. My husband should have been the one treading carefully – by the time we tied the knot my car was paid for, and he didn’t have one. He was lucky to find a bride that could come into a marriage with such an impressive dowry.
Clearly as a young couple with two careers, we were going to need a second car, so shortly after my husband returned from Korea, we went to a Ford dealer and bought a 1997 Explorer. The Explorer was blue, but in every other way it the opposite of the Protégé. The Explorer was the top of the line model, with leather seats and automatic everything. We had plenty of money and no kids, so we didn’t even think twice about the gas it would guzzle. I admit I thought I was good looking for a truck, and fun to drive, but I left it to my husband. I loved my Protégé, and with my new short commute to work, I only had to put gas in it once a month. When it was time for us to move, we left our daughter with my parents, tuned up the Protégé and drove it to Kentucky together where we could safely leave it while we dealt with the movers.
And so we moved. We had another daughter, and we drove the Protégé and the Explorer well past the happy day when both were paid off. Even my husband came to appreciate the Protégé as the little car that could - it required so little attention, and yet was always up for whatever drive we needed. I viewed the Protégé’s advancing age as an accomplishment, and took pride in the fact that I had been driving the same car for 12 years. Ironically, I never understood why other people liked their old cars - I found it kind of pathetic that people would hold on to a junky car out of sentiment - but I never thought of my car as junky.
And then came baby number 3. We knew that we were going to have to get a new car when we got the new baby, because 3 car seats wouldn’t fit in the Protégé and were hard to manage in the Explorer. My husband thought we should sell the Explorer since it was worth more, but one of our neighbors observed that if we got rid of the Explorer, we would only have one family car. If our new car needed work or an oil change, we’d have to rent a car to go anywhere as a family. And so I faced the big decision. After 12 years together, I knew it was time for my car and I to part company. The Protégé had been the perfect car for me for more than a decade, but it wasn’t perfect for me anymore, not with all these stinking kids, so it was time to let go.
My husband put a “for sale” sign on the car, parked it in the designated area on post, and two days later, someone called with an offer to buy it. As it turned out, we sold it to the family of a woman who worked at our daughter’s preschool. Much as a person who adopted a puppy might inform the prior owner of the dog’s progress, she kept me informed of my car’s performance. Her son removed my college sticker from the back window, got some of the dents fixed, and put in a new stereo. He drove it into a ditch and cracked the frame, but they got it repaired and back on the road. She told me that her son loved his new car, and described how he kept it spotless inside and out. Sometimes I miss my car and my life that went with it, but I’m happy knowing that it has found a good home. I’m not surprised that it has charmed its way into someone else’s heart.
posted by Shannon at 11:04 PM
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