Eight years ago, I purchased a Toyota Camry, a car known for its durability. I maintain my car, so expect it to last 300,000 miles, which means I’ll be driving it another 12 years unless, in a stroke of good fortune, I crash it and get to buy a new one. Anticipating that blessed event, I’ve been studying automotive brands, engine options — hybrids vs. internal combustion vs. electric — and type — sedans, coupes, SUVS, convertibles, muscle cars, trucks, hatchbacks, vans, and wagons. After exhaustive research, I’ve finally decided which car will be my next one:
I want a red one.
I’ve owned 15 cars, all of them beige or gray. My first new car, purchased when I was 22, was a brown station wagon. I was single and childless but wanted to be ready just in case I got married and had children. I purchase cars years before I have need of their intended purpose. My Toyota Camry was supposed to be my retirement car, which I bought 11 years before I intended to retire. When I acquired a truck, it was to move my then 2- and 5-year-old sons to college. My next car is going to be the one I should have purchased when I was 18 and bought a used beige Volkswagen Beetle. It’s going to be a red convertible with no rear seat. It won’t carry groceries, dogs, or grandchildren and will therefore be eminently impractical. For the first time in my car-buying life, I won’t consult Consumer Reports or discuss its reliability with my mechanic. I won’t worry about gas mileage, how it handles in the snow, or its resale value. I won’t fret over its safety rating. Dying quickly in a crash is far superior to dying slowly in a nursing home. Nor will I consider, even for a moment, what my fellow Quakers might think when they see me speed past in a red convertible. There are a Corvette, a Jaguar, a Miata, and an Audi convertible in our meetinghouse parking lot on Sunday mornings. The Jaguar man has a whole lot more fun in his car than the Subaru people do in theirs. I want my next car to be so flashy, the Quakers talk about me behind my back.
Six of my cars were purchased new, but even then I didn’t pick the color, settling for the discounted dregs from the previous model year, the colors no one else wanted. My next car is going to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a car but have never had, which is to say, retina-popping red. I want it so red it gives people headaches just to look at it.
My wife told me I’m having a midlife crisis, but my crisis began when I was 18 and bought the Volkswagen Beetle. The engine blew on the 31st day of a 30-day warranty, a harbinger of my automotive life, which has been a succession of blown engines, spongy brakes, leaky transmissions, broken axles, and seized bearings. Except for my Toyota Camry, which has been mind-numbingly perfect. It has never, not once, let me down. It is the faithful spouse who would never stray, the sensible shoes of cars, the Kenny G of transportation. If it were a religion, it would be a Presbyterian.
When I buy my red car, I’ll be acquiring a new wardrobe to go along with it, mostly leisure suits, just like I wore in 1979, with wide lapels, plaid ties, and white shoes. I’ll have to hire a bodyguard to keep the women back. He can ride with me in my red car, since I’m almost certain my wife will refuse to be seen with me.
Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor and author of 22 books, including the Harmony and Hope series, featuring Sam Gardner.
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Comments
Mr. Gulley, this HAS to be one of your best features yet. Truth is stranger (and often funnier) than fiction, so I know a good part of this is true regarding your cars up to this point. I think you deserve a sexy red sports car, but please exercise a lot of caution. All cars are extremely overpriced, and lose about 1/3 of their value once driven off the lot.
I follow two reputable guys, Zac Rios and Hayden Schreier on their respective You Tube channels with horror stories about new cars living at the dealership’s garage with one thing after another. A lot of it is from unnecessary distracting ‘tech’ (junk) that shouldn’t even be in a car in the first place. The average price alone is now $50k.
Over the past several years the quality of cars (all makes) has gone down as the prices have skyrocketed. Both guys feature customers from TikTok videos and their expensive mistakes. Many compounding their negative equity by going from one new car to another, hoping it will be better. Many are repoed because the “owner” can’t make the $800++ per month payments; not even including the high insurance!
I think Alex has a good point in getting a five (or so) year old Mazda Miata. One with a good track record that’s had the devaluation and such already, but still runs new, and would be new to YOU! I’d also think/hope driving in In. is not the nightmare it is in Ca., where you really only want to drive when you have to, to get from A to B and back.
Dear Editor:
My fist car was a very staid Corvair, and, just loved it, despite the adverse remarks about them by Ralph Nader. I was even in the mood to buy a second one with 4-doors as kids were now coming into the picture. The year I needed that, Chevy dropped the four door version. As it was, this Corvair failed me, when the carriage-bolt holding the engine onto the frame broke and left us stranded. We crammed into my brother-in-law’s fast back Mustang to get home. Sad. I still have fond memories of that Corvair. The replacement for that car was a Chev Nova, and, it was a total disaster…..there isn’t space for all the wobblies I had with that car. Gratefully, I got 95% of my money refunded and I saved my job. The boss was NOT happy with me going to the dealer all the time. I got his notion. Then a Dodge dealer was selling Dodge-Darts for next to nothing, and, I bought one. Turned out it was a California car that was supposed to go to Ontario California, not Ontario Canada. That car had more plumbing than a hospital diarreaha ward. I got a mechanic to remove it all of it, and, I get back the decent gas mileage I should have been getting. Then we had a spate of “K-car”, they WERE wonderful and sad that Chrysler dropped them. I now have a Chrysler 300 with NO apology. It was on the lot with 24,500 miles equivalent and have put about another on it. The Chev Impala I had W A S a wonderful car, but, with 60,000 miles equivalent, I couldn’t pass up the Chrysler. I figure if I can keep it safe, the car will now out live me. I certainly would N O T have bought it brand-new it has about 500-toys-bells-whistles that I really do not need, and, have NO interest in learning what they are all about….so much so that I am frightened that I might get blown out the double sunroof it has. It has the same gas mileage as the two Impalas, and, one Malibu I have owned and is a true pleasure to drive despite being a “large car”.
With neighbors having their all-electric mini-cars failing around us, I will keep this Chrysler and will consider an Amish buggy with warm blankets, if I am forced to drive an all-electric car by the government.
Sincerely.
Gord Young
Peterboro Ontario [still not the 51st State]
Canada
i am the exact opposite of Mr Gulley. I owned a whole series of fun cars. Since i lived in Canada my first cars were
Austins but i did get a powder blue Morris minor convertible which morphed into my very first bug eye Sprite with then led to a Triumph TR3 and amazing i made a huge mistake and bought a 1954 Jaguar XK120 that nearly bankrupted me but i did get a huge trade in for against my dream car a brand new Ferrari Red 1966 XKE with ‘real’ knock off Borani spoke wheels; That car treated me like the worst cheating woman. She me on, sitting in my driveway like a dazzling bright red siren song that would never start, overheated, the roof leaked like a sieve and it went through throw out bearings like the were easily replaceable which they were not. But every car since has been a two door or four door Staid Volvos or Subaru’s but now in my 84th year i decided to have on last kick at the sports cars and i drive a five year old Silver Mazda Miata M5 6 speed with the easiest top i’ve ever had in any car and i LOVE it
First, just a tip regarding insurance on a red vehicle. That colour is more expensive to insure for some reason according to my agent. Second, a convertible is more expensive to insure on top of that.
Anyway, in the words of the late, great Sly Stone there’s “different strokes for different folks.” I am the proud owner of a 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger with the original 225 cubic inch Slant 6 engine. I did not pay an arm or a leg for “Goldie” but I am having some things replaced & upgraded included the wiring, stereo system, and vinyl top among others. That’s my post-retirement ride. I already own a 2014 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle which I am gonna hop on in a bit for today, a 1998 Dodge Ram 1500 SLT Laramie pickup truck (my daily driver), and a 2023 Ford F-150 XLT pickup truck (travel truck). It’s funny. I purchased that 1998 truck about four years ago for little of nothing, with a great 318 cubic inch V8 engine, and now with just about 125000 miles and I enjoy driving it better than my newer 2023 truck which has all the whistles and bells, many of which I have no idea how to use. I purchased that older truck to use for knock-around jobs and on my farm not realizing I would really enjoy the heck out of driving it. And with the oncoming winter here in the rural south, its heater more than satisfies.
My point to all this is if you want it, can afford it, know you will enjoy it, then go for it! Life is too short not to have fun and experience. The big thing to remember….Just don’t get into debt over your head in achieving your dream vehicle or traveling on that dream destination. Sorry, if that part offends you. Given the times we now live in, I felt that had to be included.
Good for you! I made this decision when I was 47, with still enough life in me to enjoy these cars, and I never went back. It’s never too late for fun cars. Or as a more eloquent person once said, life is too short to be driving boring cars.
Here’s a more outrageous idea (they’ll have a fit at the clubhouse): save for a bit, buy your red convertible, and keep the Camry too. You’ve earned the right to both be practical and have fun.
Good stuff, kind sir. Keep em coming- I look forward to each one.
This man just gets funnier and better every time I read his work!!!! I love his humor. My favorite article!!!!!