Greetings all!
My name is Chris, and I am addicted to buying cars.
There, I said it.... First step to recovery.
Anyway, I found a deal I could not pass up yesterday. Snagged an '88 Coupe with a 5 speed. Here's the story in a nutshell. Know what? Eff that. This is gonna be long, so maybe grab a beverage and a snack, coz I'm about to go into "All About ME" mode for a few minutes. Hope ya don't mind.
OK, the car:
I'll update with pix soon, so hold your horses, pardner!
I purchased the car from its second owner. Original owner was a doctor out of California. Anything the car needed, it got. I have a large folder of receipts for that. And the window sticker. $26,000 and change was pretty steep for '88. I was fortunate enough to have been able to purchase a brand new Toyota MR-2 back in the day, and it was $17,000.
Anyway, the doctor drove it and took care of it until he purchased something else, then gave it to his son to borrow while his son's car was in the shop. I believe the car has pretty much been sitting for the past five years, but a family friend of the doctor needed a cheap car, and the family sold it to him for a song. $2,000.
The guy bought the car, so the doctor's son drove it from Washington state (where they live now) to the guy I bought it from, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The second owner drove it for about 1,000mi. then started having medical problems that prevent him from driving, so he had to dump the car.
He put it on Craigslist for $1,500 and I called him within minutes of him posting the car. Another lady beat me to his house, and said she would give him $1,750 for it, but fortunately the guy was a good egg, and because I called him before her, he gave me the first right of refusal. I drove the car, matched her offer, and brought it home.
The car has 155,000 miles on it. Runs great, and is in decent shape. I would say it is excellent mechanically. The seats aren't great, especially the tops of the rear seats where you typically find sun damage on older cars like this.
The driver's side rear window doesn't go up and down, although the fact that it should really surprises me. I would have figured they were fixed windows. Pretty cool.
This car is pretty well loaded up. It has the stereo with the equalizer, and the fingertip volume control. (Forgive me, I'm sure there are cool names for these features, but I just got the car last night, and don't know much about it)
Kind of a medium to dark metallic blue with blue leather. Pix soon, as I said.
The car had a new steering rack put in at around 100k miles. I notice the steering doesn't return to center as it should. Feels heavy. The dash lights also seem dim. So the first thing I'm gonna do is get a new battery for it. I've seen batteries make cars do all kinds of weird crap, so we'll see what happens there. I'll probably leave this one pretty stock, but I'd like to see it sitting a little lower on 18" wheels. Maybe a 225/40/18 if there is such a thing. But that won't happen for awhile. My wife is not all that happy that I have three cars that she can't drive. "Sorry, honey. It's a manual." She's got an '07 Suzuki SX4, so she needs to be happy with that. All three of my cars put together aren't worth what we paid for her's new.
I'm a car guy, and as mentioned, have a few other toys. I have an '89 Isuzu Amigo that I have an irrational attachment to. And my most bestest favorite car is my '93 Corvette. It is a 40th Anniversary Edition. Ruby Red. It is in decent shape, but not so nice that I'm afraid to drive it. I wouldn't want to own a car I couldn't flog every once in awhile.
And for the record, I do not think the Vette is the coolest thing on wheels. I do not own any gold chains, nor will I wear any piece of clothing that says "Corvette" on it. I dig Corvettes, but mostly I bought this car because it has 300hp, gobs of torque, is rear wheel drive, and only cost $9,000. You can't beat that, I'm tellin' ya!
I'm 39 years old, so I dunno if that makes me the old guy or what. Not rich by any means, but I am blessed to be able to buy myself toys every once in awhile. Life is good.
Just got laid off from my job making TV commercials for a national cable company's advertising arm, but am starting my own video production business, and feel pretty darn good about it, despite the crap economy.
I should not have spent money on a car right now, but the Vette and my Amigo are both two-seaters now, and since I am working out of my house, I thought I should have a car that I can haul my kids around in to get them to school, the dentist and whatnot. I probably should have tried to sell the Vette and the Amigo and get one nicer vehicle that was practical, but where's the fun in that?
I'm looking forward to learning more about this beautiful car, and getting to know youz guyz!
I'm in Pueblo, Colorado, so if any of you are local, I wouldn't mind meeting up to BS about cars and stuff.
Sorry for the length. Hopefully I did not offend.
Cheers!
Acura Pix:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/100_0112.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/100_0113.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/100_0114.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/100_0117.jpg
Here's my Amigo:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1.../FrontPas2.jpg
And here's the Vette:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/P1190077.jpg
