Camera Roll Dive

April 25th 2018

The fleet available to my brother and I at the time. From left to right:

The 1973(?) MG-B which his godmother owned since new, when it was purchased from a showroom somewhere in Monterey. It was a hoot to drive around but it was never driven enough and thus temperamental. Eventually, sometime during his time in college, it was offloaded to a friend of ours for $1000 and is still merrily driven around town.

The 2000-something VW Passat wagon. The legendary “$500 car.” It had sat for a while somewhere in West Georgia (the state), owned by our Uncle Chris’ friend. He didn’t want it. Negligible sums of money exchanged hands. It became ours. It really was a fantastic car: 4WD, grey leather interior, manual with some semblance of a clutch remaining, and quite zippy. However, it had one near-fatal flaw: It smelled like wet animal and death. No amount of damp-rid, scented vent things or airing out availed it of its signature, pervasive dank smell that came to define any amount time in it. Its time under the Georgia pines did not help.

My brother and I would take it during COVID times to Whitehall, Ohio, to be given to one of mom’s oldest friends. As a good deed. My dad was not appropriately consulted. He still mourns its loss. We promptly forgot to bring back any physical evidence that we no longer owned the vehicle. I swore we brought it back, the deed of transfer or whatever. To this day I do not know how that happened. It may be involved in crime. It may be sitting in a chop yard. No idea.

Lastly is Stu 1, the Volvo that started it all. The one that opened the floodgates to all these damn cars. 1985 245 DL with the B230. A great example we got for $1800 that I promptly ruined.