[Note: This was part of a set of posts I wrote under self-imposed constraints. I'm aware that it cuts off somewhat abruptly.]
I'm about 95% sure Disney can't copyright the word 'cars'.
My first car was a 2000 Toyota Echo I called "The Green Lady". The Toyota Echo was the physical incarnation of thrift. Imagine if somebody pinched a Corolla between their fingers until it looked like a bean and forgot to install any of the standard features. She had a stick shift but no tachometer. There was a scar on the right side of her body from a prior marriage that I didn't mind but couldn't forget. On the other hand, she got 40 miles to the gallon and the only repairs I had to make in 8 years was to replace the O2 sensor. It was the perfect car for a broke college student and I swore I'd drive her until she fell all the way apart.
The Lady was totaled when a housewife in a Cadillac Escalade rear-ended me after blowing through a stop sign. Tall, thin and worried that her husband would find out "it happened again", she tried to pay me off with $500 and later denied the insurance claim. I think we've all met versions of this person, sufficiently insulated from the trials of life to not have to give a shit, not insulated enough to escape the wrath of her benefactor, and trapped in anxiety because of the tension between the two.
My second car was a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer. I don't know that I've ever seen such an overwhelmingly beige vehicle before or since, but she had power locks and windows and even a tachometer. Your second love never feels quite the same as the first and it gets harder to make the same grand oaths a second time, but I welcomed her to the family, swapped the 'L' for a 'D', and called her my 'Dancer'. She had an extra 20 horsepower over the Echo and the difference was enough to make it feel like we could fly through traffic.
Dancer drowned in August of 2017 while I was away visiting family. My partner and I had flown to London the day before and woke up to the news that a freak storm parked over New Orleans and buried our neighborhood under 9 inches of rain. The water drained away eventually and she sat under the August sun like the Dirty South's worst sauna.
My third and current car is a 2010 Mazda3. I bought her from a shady lawyer in New Orleans who offered to help cut me a break on the taxes if I could pay in cash which I'm sure was legal since he was a lawyer. It's a shame I couldn't take him up on it but it's been a slow road getting enough money to commit even light tax fraud.
She's a nicer car than the other two with power locks, power windows, bluetooth, another 30 horsepower--at this rate I'll break the 200 horsepower threshold sometime circa 2035--and a cute chime that greets you when she starts up, but after a few breakups it gets harder to maintain the romance of youth. She's the first car I haven't been able to nam.
I'm about to buy a new car. I've never bought a new car before. I've never bought a car that cost more than what I had stashed under the couch. My churchmouse ancestors squirm at the extravagance of it, convinced that a few years from now I will be slumped over the steering wheel, staring into a kaleidoscope of warning lights and the zero balance read out from my bank, and remembering the purchase of a $30k crossover as the final step of spiritual corruption by American consumerism that left me a sad middle-aged husk filled with regret.
I am overthinking this but every other car I’ve ever bought was chosen because it was the most economical choice under $5k and that cuts out a lot of decision-making. You don't get anything special. You get a base trim sedan, ideally a Toyota, with the lowest mileage available.
You don’t get all-wheel drive or an older Lexus or an off-roader or even a lightly used truck. You don't get options.
Now I have options. I get to decide what I want and where I want to go. What kind of adventures I want to be ready for?
My fourth car is