Pelican Parts: Stories from Our Readers

I had an epiphany about this shortly after my first wife, Lori, died. I had bought a truely ratty Porsche 914 a few years before and sank a huge pile of money into the poor, worn-out, thing. I paid $2850 for it, immediately put in $1600, including a four wheel alignment it had needed for the last two paint jobs. When I finally sold it, I calculated I’d spent a grand total of something like $11,000 (!!!), or about $0.55/mile after recovering $1600 by selling it. When I bought it, it needed a paint job and a new tranmission. It still did when I sold it, although I’d fixed the worst of the rust damage, stopped the oil leaks, replaced the brakes, brought the heater back to life, found a replacement set of Mahles and a factory service manual, and replaced the garbage aftermarket mirrors (One fell off as I was driving home- no kidding!)

You’ll note that one can get a considerably better car for $4500 (actual cash outlay at purchase time) than $2850, and that the $9K or so I spent other than on gas and insurance could have bought a considerably better car that that! (I’ve never seen a daily driver 914 for anything above $7500)

So Lori had died and I couldn’t drive the damn 914 the whole time because the engine had a scary mis-behavior which turned out to be a failed cam-follower ($200 to have fixed) and a few months later I was visiting my friends Ted and Lisa in Hawaii. I was body surfing at Makena Beach on Maui, and Ted was just hanging on the beach, watching, napping. After about 5 hours, I realized that I couldn’t ride ALL the waves- I was going to have get out of the water before all the good waves finished coming in.

So I, reluctantly, emptied the sand out of my pockets and slowly walked out of the water up onto the beach. And I said to myself:

"There will always be another wave." And I thought about the dumb car, sitting at home and I said "There will always be another sports car." Then I thought about my life up to then, and my hopes and fears, and I said "And there will always be another woman."

And then I turned around. The best set of waves of the day were coming in. I flopped back into the water in my flippers and rode a couple of them ok. Then I emptied the sand out of my pockets again and waited a bit for any more really good waves, and where there were none, I went in.

It took me another year to sell the car, but I understood that I could replace it any time I wanted at that point.

I saw the car I’d wanted to buy at the first swap-meet I went to after I bought the one I did buy. $4100. At the swap meet I sold mine at, I saw another perfectly good one I could have happily owned for $3200 or so. But by then I had no heart for it. I’d have saved an easy $5k and endless agrivation if I’d waited and bought a first-class car in the first place. I did myself no favor buy jumping at the first minimally acceptable one I saw.

After I sold the 914, I drove the ‘family’ Golf for a month, but it had too many memories and no sunroof, so I traded it in for a brand new Corrado VR6. After a 101,000 miles, and one unschedulede service item, I think I probably made the right move. The Corrado can carry a bass guitar, amp and friend, all on the inside. I keep the aircooled 2.5 seat Jones at bay with a 1970 single cab VW pickup. And I still dream about driving (steering, not accelerating) that 914. I’m pricing the market for 914s and old 911/912s, now. The Corrado supported a courtship and a wedding, and we need space for a baby seat now!

Bill

	Find out about ordering parts for your car...
		Select here to find out about ordering information, shipping options, and our money-back guarantee on all parts.
	Email us with your comments & questions...
		Send us feedback on our web site - We're constantly trying to improve.
	Return back to our home page.