[mikefocke]

2 Boxsters

The first one: I had been looking at the classifieds (remember them?) and the kids were through school and the bills were paid. My wife said to me " you have been looking forever, why not just go buy the car". So off I went to buy a 928. Only on driving the shark, it was to big and heavy. Ok...maybe a 'vette? No. BMW? In a half block I knew it wasn't for me. Sure puzzled the sales guy when I was back in 2 minutes. Miata? Too small. Honda? Ditto. I'm not but 6' and maybe 195 then but you gotta fit and see through the windshield and not have your eyes at the level of the roof support. So I saw an ad for a Boxster about 25 miles away. It fit me on first drive. I had comparative prices, she wanted the room in her garage for a hummer (three kids now) and I paid her a deposit and went back home in my car to get someone to drive me back. Came back with a check only to find that her kids had scraped the side while riding their bikes. She said she'd pay to have it redone so I took it home. Took it to a body shop owned by her brother and they gave me an estimate. She paid me in cash as I recall thinking I would get it done closer to home. I took the car home, buffed the scratches out and was happy as a clam until

While driving along the day after Thanksgiving to get a price on fixing a chip in the windshield, I saw a Boxster sitting in a used car lot. Looked over and BAMM. Ran into the back of a pickup that had stopped in the road. My fault. No sweat, maybe $3k in my experience with my son's accidents. Driveable. They stopped the estimating at $26k and the insurance company actually paid me several thousand more than I had paid for the car 6 months earlier. So I waited till after Xmas with snow on the ground and saw another ad. Young gal (yea, both were chick's cars) was an outside salesperson and needed 4 doors. I PPI'ed this one and it needed maybe $2k of work to bring everything up to my standards. Bought it with 5" of snow on the ground. Then went looking for some tires. Found a set a dealer was selling which were take offs. $600 for Michelins with maybe 50 miles on perfect wheels. Now I was set for about 5 years of reliable, pleasurable driving.

Then I realized I hadn't even put 1k miles on it in the prior year. I had moved, no P-car service for 50 miles. It was time to let it go. Ad on CL and the first caller bought it. Less than 2 hours. I've since learned that my buyer had sold it. New owner found some papers in the car with my name and contacted me. So that car has now had 5 owners at last count. 90k miles.

I've been lucky enough and frugal enough to have owned 5 sports cars, 2 Alfa's and 3 Porsches.