Vehicles I've Owned

I'm in the market for a vehicle … my current ride is getting old and the repairs are becoming frequent enough (and expensive enough) that it's time to find something different.  Notice that I didn't say "something new," because I can't afford a new car right now.  I might be able to swing the payments … but the insurance would eat me alive.

I got to thinking about the cars I've owned.  I've been driving for about 35 years now (yes, I'm giving away my age).  I've had seven "primary vehicles" in that time, unless I've overlooked one.  I've owned another three vehicles … at one time I had two vehicles, and I've owned two that were my wife's car.  (The rest of the time, she has driven one of her parents' cars.)

My first car was a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.  I learned a lot about cars with that one, and it's one of two vehicles on which I broke even.  My older brother, who is two years older than me, got it when he was sixteen.  Two years later, he was ready to trade it in on a new vehicle as he left for college; the dealership was going to give him $100 for it, so I paid him $100 and assumed ownership.  Two years later, I sold it for $100.

The other car on which I broke even was a Chevrolet Caprice; I don't remember what year model it was.  The fellow I bought it from had driven a lot of highway miles, so the price was lowered because of the high mileage.  I lived six blocks from work, five blocks from the grocery store, three blocks from the Laundromat – and seldom went anywhere else.  I drove the car for a couple of years, at which time it was considered a low-mileage vehicle.  I sold it for about the same amount I'd paid for it, two years previously.

I've forgotten the year models on almost all of these, but my other primary vehicles have been a Chevrolet Monte Carlo (which I only owned for about five months), a Buick Electra, a Toyota Corolla, a Ford van, an Oldsmobile 98 Regency, and a 1995 Ford Ranger (my current vehicle).  We had a 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier for my wife, and a 2000 Buick Century was the second vehicle we bought for her to drive.

I've only bought one car brand new … the Cavalier.  Everything else has been used.  And just about all of them were driven for quite a few years before I got rid of them.  After all, I bought my Ranger in 1997 when it had 13,000 miles on it; I've had it for 15 years, and it has 188,000 miles on it.  That has become my pattern … buy something used and drive it a long time.

Hopefully I'll find a good replacement in the next few weeks.  I hope to find something with low mileage ... and drive it for a number of years to come.