Daily coverage of the world of cars.
My son just wanted to look. As a young car-obsessed kid interested in a future of car design, he is desperate to own a sports car. The kid has taste, though, and knows the value of a Porsche over a Corvette.
He wants his first car to be a Boxster so he can drive to high school in style.
He wants my new bride and me to own a 911.
Wishful thinking, right?
Summer has come, school has ended, and students have graduated. If you have a student in your family, you’re probably wondering what would make a good graduation gift. Well, why not a car? Nothing too expensive or super outlandish, of course. Something with a small price tag, good safety features and good fuel efficiency. Well, if you’re generous enough to be shopping in the automobile market on behalf of a recent graduate, let us point you in the right direction. With fuel economy, safety and, of course, affordability in mind, we’ve compiled a list of vehicles we think would make absolutely phenomenal graduation gifts.
Ahhhh, Memorial Day. It’s the time of year when we leave early from work on Friday, load up our favorite recreational vehicle with hot dogs and baked beans, then drive for 14 hours to a place that would take only 3 on any other weekend.
Yes, this is the sacred time of year when we also take Monday completely off of work and take time out of our busy schedules to remember and reflect on the fact that 1.4 billion other families with RVs also take road trips on this weekend… to the exact same campground.
This is why we pledge every year to revise our Memorial Day schedules in hopes of missing the traffic.
Of course, everyone forgets and makes the same travel rituals again next year.
This weekend, my family and I embarked on a day trip to Seattle, completely unaware of the fact that every other human on Earth would be traveling the same highway.
I didn’t intend to become a Memorial Day statistic this year. I typically like to enjoy my Memorial Day by going to Costco and forgetting that it is closed so employees may spend the day remembering why they don’t like to travel on Memorial Day.
Rather than a peaceful 4-hour drive, this trip consisted mostly of idling over a mountain pass with one kid chanting she had to pee and the other making dire warnings about an impending poop.
Of course, the true intent of Memorial Day is to take time to remember and honor those who have passed on to the great freeway in the sky. For some reason, we as a society have decided that the best place to do so is in an outhouse on the side of a backed-up Interstate.
Maybe next year we’ll all remember to stay home and honor our ancestors from the comfort of our living rooms.
Happy Memorial Day! Did you take a road trip this year?
-tgriffith
What’s your daily driver?
Most of us have a car we drive every day to work, to the grocery store and to the corner market when we’re jonesin’ for a peach Snapple.
The car that transports us in our daily activity usually is not the same car we dream of cruising, or racing, on the weekends. Whether it’s a project car or an off-the-lot new car that you’ve always dreamed of owning, odds are you’re not going to drive it every day once it’s been obtained.
But you know what? Maybe you should.
We called it the War Pony.
With a name like that, you might expect something like an old muscle car, but no, this was a 1987 Ford Festiva. A red one, just like every other older Festiva. This particular car was owned by my friend Wesley, who bought it as his first. Wesley is a Navajo native and, when I knew him, routinely drove his car from his job in Seattle to his home on the Navajo reservation.
Wesley worked as a Navajo language professor at the University of Washington and had over 250,000 miles on the old War Pony. Considering his commute, that was a source of worry for me. I routinely asked him if he’d ever get rid of it in favor of something newer since he was, after all, making a college salary. He refused, because the War Pony served him well, and he had no desire to get rid of it.
I lost touch with Wesley about 10 years ago. This weekend I heard from him out of the blue, and you can guess my first question:
“Are you still driving the War Pony?”