Thursday, December 22, 2005

On something completely unrelated to politics

Okay, so I will get back to the political ranting shortly, because God knows there's plenty to rant about, but right now I'm facing a somewhat more immediate issue. You've all heard me rant about my crappy car and the awesome lengths Volkswagen hasn't gone to in the interest of making amends. My original, and still off-pissingest, gripe has to do with the driver's side window motor, which makes its own decisions about when the window needs to be open and when it needs to be closed and merely rolls its little window-motor eyes when I try to encourage it in one direction or the other. I've joked with friends that, ha ha, some day that window is just going to not come up at all, ha ha, and it'll probably happen at the absolute least convenient time. Like, when it's 26 degrees out or something.

If you're guessing that I drove to work today in scarf and gloves, watching my breath make little clouds in front of the steering wheel, you get a gold star. And this is the absolute frigging last straw (unlike all of the other straws that have purported to be last but have proven, at best, penultimate). Despite my prayers for an apocalyptic impact with an Audi TT driver who immediately admits fault for the accident and offers to replace my car, no questions asked, the best I've been able to come up with is an uninsured Kia, and it looks like I'm going to be pawning my Christmas presents for a down payment on a non-piece-of-shit car.

Here's what I'm thinking: I want a car that's almost completely immune to these pissy little computer problems that keep costing me so much money. We're talking about a car that's slightly more technologically advanced than a Model T, something wholly mechanical but that I don't have to crank to start. I'm still fighting with myself over the issue of airbags, because on the one hand, that's just one more bit of electronics to fail catastrophically when I really need it, but on the other, I'm really too cute to splatter across a windshield.

The general idea is to get a car that never has to go back to the dealership to get its computer reset, and that can be repaired with little more than a torque wrench, some duct tape and appropriate amount of swearing. Here's kind of what I had in mind:

- 1968 International Harvester Scout

- 1970 turbo Mini Cooper

- 1989 Land Rover Defender

Audience participation time - keeping in mind the requirements that I've laid out for my next car, and getting some idea of my personal preferences from the choices I've named above, what do you think? Any opinions on the cars I've listed? Anything I haven't mentioned that I might want to look at? Think that this is just a bad idea in general? Remember that price is no object, assuming that the seller accepts used DVDs and/or sexual favors as payment.

No comments: