The Long Answer
08-23-2005, 03:26 AM
#1
3rd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location:
Posts: 571
The Long Answer
A long time ago (like, last year) in a galaxy far, far away (up closer to 287) I decided that I was going to buy myself a new car. I decided that it was going to be something special, that I was going to get one that I really wanted.
I never had a new car, cars that I have had were bought out of necessity when the previous car died, or was crashed, or otherwise became unserviceable.
I would find an acceptable car in my limited budget and buy it and that would be my car for the next few years. Older now, and more prudent if not wiser, it seemed that I had come to a time when I, having secured what seems to be an acceptable career for myself and being for the most part emotionally and financially stable could afford what some would call a "nice" car. Its transmission would be manual, and I would have it, and it would be mine, and I would call it Fluffy, and so it would be my Fluffy.
But which car? I like the Vanquish. Imagine how disappointed I was when I found out they actually cost more than $30k. I told them I could maybe do $40k, but they didn’t seem like they were going to go for it, so I moved on.
Still, there were a few cars I was interested in at around $30k. Notably the 2005 Maxima. I own 2000 Maxima and have been happy with it for several years. It was a refreshing change from my previous vehicle (a gunmetal grey 1983 Coupe DeVille) though I must say a little piece of me died with that Caddy.
I think it was the Maxima which developed my taste for cars that accelerate quickly. I took the new model Max for a ride. I love the redesign and it looks great in black too. 265HP to boot, not too bad for a sedan.
But I started feeling like I wanted something a little sportier. Like the Z. So I took the Z out for a ride. The Z is lots of fun.
Shopping around, I felt myself gravitating towards sportier cars. I tried the RX-8, mainly because I dig rotary engines, and it’s also fun, it handles nicely and it’s quick but it’s smallish and lacking torque.
I looked around some more, but I was still pretty into the Maxima. I like to buy things on impulse anyway and they had one on the lot, ready to go just the way I wanted it. There was still one more car I wanted to try.
That was, of course, the 2005 Mustang GT. I hadn’t seen one in person yet, it wasn’t really something I was considering, but someone whose opinion I value said to me in a Russian accent: “You should try the Mustang. You’ll like it.” And I said: “I will.”
So I found a dealer that had one and I went to check it out. The effect was pretty much instantaneous. When I saw it, even before I got in, I said to myself: “I think this is the car.” And then I got in, and I started it up and all doubts were laid to rest.
Just in case, I went ahead and completed the test drive. That poor salesman. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into, but it was clear that I was meant to have the car.
So that night, I pondered over it. I went through all the reasons I shouldn’t get a Mustang. It’s expensive, it isn’t practical, there’s insurance, fuel economy and the certain rise of fuel costs, it isn’t going to be good in the winter, and so on and so forth. Yeah whatever. Like I ever really cared about any of that.
And then the phone rings. To make a long story short, he totaled my Pathfinder, which I had purchased cheaply for snowboarding purposes some time ago. Not a devastating loss in and of itself, but this was in important part of the plan. A sturdy, practical, all weather vehicle for use in non-Mustang compliant situations (ie: snowboarding.)
So that set me back about a month. I revised the plan to trade in the Maxima. Instead, I would keep the Maxima and fork out a huge cash down payment for the Mustang which I would conjure out of thin air. Later, I would sell the Maxima and with the proceeds purchase a used Jeep. It was brilliant, but I needed to raise a few grand to meet my goal of paying off half of the car up front.
No sweat. Except for the fact that on that very weekend, the man decides to crack down on poker clubs in NYC and thus I lost access to a substantial portion of my income.
I decided that it was some kind of test. I’m an atheist, so I don’t know who would be testing me or why, the only thing I can come up with is aliens. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was NOT going to be defeated, not by any force in the universe known or unknown and so I spent the next four weekends in Atlantic City. In the course of a month I managed to pull it off. Keep drawing to those inside straights and low flushes, boys, and I dare say my next car WILL be a Vanquish.
So, while all this is happening, my roommate stops collecting a paycheck and now I’m stuck covering his half of the rent. Luckily I had factored this possibility into the whole equation and honestly it didn’t come as that much of a surprise. Though, like the crashing of the Pathfinder, the timing was just bad.
So now, that I was ready to buy my GT, there wasn’t a GT to be found in all the land. All the dealers said “September” and I said “F*** September!” I did manage to find a dealer with an unwed GT on order which met my specifications. So I marched down to the dealership and put my deposit down. VIN in hand, I knew walking away that somewhere in some far off place, like Michigan or something, my GT was being built.
And now comes the part of the story all too familiar to many of us. The part where you have to wait 4 months for your pony, and the dealer keeps telling you “It might come in this week.” Am I way off in thinking that in the modern world if you have an impulse to drop $30,000 on something you should be able to do it within a week’s time?
But what could I do? So I waited with the patience of a Buddhist monk. Yeah right, a monk with A.D.D. and a coke problem maybe. Finally, in the first week of August, I got my car. And it’s mine. Down down down, go go go, mine mine mine.
I’ve had it for a few weeks now, I’ve taken her on a road trip or two, she’s all broken in and doing fine. I haven’t had any of the problems with the gas tank or the stereo that I’ve heard about and, so far, everything seems fine (knock, knock.)
The bad news: This car attracts cops like it were coated in powdered sugar and stuffed with jelly. But I will be stealthy, and stick to the shadows and hopefully I’ll be ok.
So now, I go on a rant about all the things I like about the car. First and foremost, I like that engine. I like that it makes the car go fast and I like the fact that it scares cats. I like the sound it makes when you go through a tunnel at 90 in 3rd gear with the windows open. I like that I can close the passenger AC vents and blast myself with supercooled air on hot days. I like that I can store over a thousand songs in the Shaker, so that when someone pulls up next to me at a light in their adorable little tricked out Civic and starts thumping their bass at me I can hit them back with 1000 watts of bagpipes. That’s right motherf***er, bagpipes.
There’s this guy who works in the same building as me, and we both like to show up for work about an hour late so we end up parking in the same part of the lot every day. He drives a beautiful pewter-grey Carerra GT and I tell him every day that I’m going to steal it. So last week he sees me getting into my Mustang and he gets out of his Porsche and jogs over to check it out.
“Wow, it’s the new one! You just picked it up?” And we talk about the car and how great it is and about it reminds him of the Mustang he had back when candy bars cost a nickel or whatever. You see, that’s what I love most about this car. The 2005 Mustang has this X-Factor going for it like nothing else on the market. It’s enough to get them out of their
I never had a new car, cars that I have had were bought out of necessity when the previous car died, or was crashed, or otherwise became unserviceable.
I would find an acceptable car in my limited budget and buy it and that would be my car for the next few years. Older now, and more prudent if not wiser, it seemed that I had come to a time when I, having secured what seems to be an acceptable career for myself and being for the most part emotionally and financially stable could afford what some would call a "nice" car. Its transmission would be manual, and I would have it, and it would be mine, and I would call it Fluffy, and so it would be my Fluffy.
But which car? I like the Vanquish. Imagine how disappointed I was when I found out they actually cost more than $30k. I told them I could maybe do $40k, but they didn’t seem like they were going to go for it, so I moved on.
Still, there were a few cars I was interested in at around $30k. Notably the 2005 Maxima. I own 2000 Maxima and have been happy with it for several years. It was a refreshing change from my previous vehicle (a gunmetal grey 1983 Coupe DeVille) though I must say a little piece of me died with that Caddy.
I think it was the Maxima which developed my taste for cars that accelerate quickly. I took the new model Max for a ride. I love the redesign and it looks great in black too. 265HP to boot, not too bad for a sedan.
But I started feeling like I wanted something a little sportier. Like the Z. So I took the Z out for a ride. The Z is lots of fun.
Shopping around, I felt myself gravitating towards sportier cars. I tried the RX-8, mainly because I dig rotary engines, and it’s also fun, it handles nicely and it’s quick but it’s smallish and lacking torque.
I looked around some more, but I was still pretty into the Maxima. I like to buy things on impulse anyway and they had one on the lot, ready to go just the way I wanted it. There was still one more car I wanted to try.
That was, of course, the 2005 Mustang GT. I hadn’t seen one in person yet, it wasn’t really something I was considering, but someone whose opinion I value said to me in a Russian accent: “You should try the Mustang. You’ll like it.” And I said: “I will.”
So I found a dealer that had one and I went to check it out. The effect was pretty much instantaneous. When I saw it, even before I got in, I said to myself: “I think this is the car.” And then I got in, and I started it up and all doubts were laid to rest.
Just in case, I went ahead and completed the test drive. That poor salesman. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into, but it was clear that I was meant to have the car.
So that night, I pondered over it. I went through all the reasons I shouldn’t get a Mustang. It’s expensive, it isn’t practical, there’s insurance, fuel economy and the certain rise of fuel costs, it isn’t going to be good in the winter, and so on and so forth. Yeah whatever. Like I ever really cared about any of that.
And then the phone rings. To make a long story short, he totaled my Pathfinder, which I had purchased cheaply for snowboarding purposes some time ago. Not a devastating loss in and of itself, but this was in important part of the plan. A sturdy, practical, all weather vehicle for use in non-Mustang compliant situations (ie: snowboarding.)
So that set me back about a month. I revised the plan to trade in the Maxima. Instead, I would keep the Maxima and fork out a huge cash down payment for the Mustang which I would conjure out of thin air. Later, I would sell the Maxima and with the proceeds purchase a used Jeep. It was brilliant, but I needed to raise a few grand to meet my goal of paying off half of the car up front.
No sweat. Except for the fact that on that very weekend, the man decides to crack down on poker clubs in NYC and thus I lost access to a substantial portion of my income.
I decided that it was some kind of test. I’m an atheist, so I don’t know who would be testing me or why, the only thing I can come up with is aliens. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was NOT going to be defeated, not by any force in the universe known or unknown and so I spent the next four weekends in Atlantic City. In the course of a month I managed to pull it off. Keep drawing to those inside straights and low flushes, boys, and I dare say my next car WILL be a Vanquish.
So, while all this is happening, my roommate stops collecting a paycheck and now I’m stuck covering his half of the rent. Luckily I had factored this possibility into the whole equation and honestly it didn’t come as that much of a surprise. Though, like the crashing of the Pathfinder, the timing was just bad.
So now, that I was ready to buy my GT, there wasn’t a GT to be found in all the land. All the dealers said “September” and I said “F*** September!” I did manage to find a dealer with an unwed GT on order which met my specifications. So I marched down to the dealership and put my deposit down. VIN in hand, I knew walking away that somewhere in some far off place, like Michigan or something, my GT was being built.
And now comes the part of the story all too familiar to many of us. The part where you have to wait 4 months for your pony, and the dealer keeps telling you “It might come in this week.” Am I way off in thinking that in the modern world if you have an impulse to drop $30,000 on something you should be able to do it within a week’s time?
But what could I do? So I waited with the patience of a Buddhist monk. Yeah right, a monk with A.D.D. and a coke problem maybe. Finally, in the first week of August, I got my car. And it’s mine. Down down down, go go go, mine mine mine.
I’ve had it for a few weeks now, I’ve taken her on a road trip or two, she’s all broken in and doing fine. I haven’t had any of the problems with the gas tank or the stereo that I’ve heard about and, so far, everything seems fine (knock, knock.)
The bad news: This car attracts cops like it were coated in powdered sugar and stuffed with jelly. But I will be stealthy, and stick to the shadows and hopefully I’ll be ok.
So now, I go on a rant about all the things I like about the car. First and foremost, I like that engine. I like that it makes the car go fast and I like the fact that it scares cats. I like the sound it makes when you go through a tunnel at 90 in 3rd gear with the windows open. I like that I can close the passenger AC vents and blast myself with supercooled air on hot days. I like that I can store over a thousand songs in the Shaker, so that when someone pulls up next to me at a light in their adorable little tricked out Civic and starts thumping their bass at me I can hit them back with 1000 watts of bagpipes. That’s right motherf***er, bagpipes.
There’s this guy who works in the same building as me, and we both like to show up for work about an hour late so we end up parking in the same part of the lot every day. He drives a beautiful pewter-grey Carerra GT and I tell him every day that I’m going to steal it. So last week he sees me getting into my Mustang and he gets out of his Porsche and jogs over to check it out.
“Wow, it’s the new one! You just picked it up?” And we talk about the car and how great it is and about it reminds him of the Mustang he had back when candy bars cost a nickel or whatever. You see, that’s what I love most about this car. The 2005 Mustang has this X-Factor going for it like nothing else on the market. It’s enough to get them out of their
08-23-2005, 05:43 AM
#2
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 20
RE: The Long Answer
Wow. I can't wait to post my story. The pride in owning that vehicle.
I've been working as hard and as much as possible to get this vehicle. I'm putting 10,000 down, and that should be approximatley the day after christmas. I've gone to 3 dealers now, and even a salesman to whom i have blood relation to seems to be skeptical of my ability to buy one. Everyone keeps trying to talk me down to the V6 after talking me up to the GT. It's the vehicle i am buying, especially after finding out how "affordable" the insurance is. In my terms of course, i planned on spending alot more on it than what I was quoted at. Especially being the age that I am. It's all going to be well worth the wait. I didn't work 60 hours over the last 4 days for nothin'.
I've been working as hard and as much as possible to get this vehicle. I'm putting 10,000 down, and that should be approximatley the day after christmas. I've gone to 3 dealers now, and even a salesman to whom i have blood relation to seems to be skeptical of my ability to buy one. Everyone keeps trying to talk me down to the V6 after talking me up to the GT. It's the vehicle i am buying, especially after finding out how "affordable" the insurance is. In my terms of course, i planned on spending alot more on it than what I was quoted at. Especially being the age that I am. It's all going to be well worth the wait. I didn't work 60 hours over the last 4 days for nothin'.
08-23-2005, 09:05 AM
#3
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location:
Posts: 129
RE: The Long Answer
Wow your story is much more passionate and exciting than mine.
Step 1: Out of thin air decide "My '98 Monte Carlo is getting old. I need a replacement."
Step 2: Hit the web, look for V6 cars in the 20-30k range. "Hmm.. the new Mustangs look good, have positive reviews, and are in my price range."
Step 3: Visit Ford website, Build-a-Mustang, find one with specs I like listed at a nearby dealer
Step 4: Drive to Ford dealer, ask about car I saw online. "Oh, that car uh.. we don't have it uh.. we don't know where it is. Maybe we haven't gotten it yet. We'll call you when it's here."
Step 5: Dealer does not call after four days. I give up.
Step 6: Take Monte to Chevy dealer to get new problem repaired while looking at Chevys. New Monte is too big, Malibu looks good but WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CHROME BAR IN THE FRONT AND WHY CAN'T I GET BLACK LEATHER INTERIOR?! (they are kinda cool otherwise)
Step 7: After dealer quotes me $400 and 5 hours to replace some spark plugs and an oil change (love dealerships) my cell phone rings. Ford dealer has the Mustang.
Step 8: Get Monte repaired, drive to Ford dealer, test-drive, get $2500 for trade-in, and put 1/2 down on Mustang.
Step 9: After the sales manager gets done dealing with a family of 12 in his office having insurance problems and every other possible problem ever in the history of purchasing a car, I go in and knock out a loan contract in about 10 minutes.
Step 10: Move all my junk to the new car, sit in seat, inhale new car smell, rev engine, STEREO ON. Inner peace.
Step 11: (I'm still on this step, check back in like 2009)
Step 1: Out of thin air decide "My '98 Monte Carlo is getting old. I need a replacement."
Step 2: Hit the web, look for V6 cars in the 20-30k range. "Hmm.. the new Mustangs look good, have positive reviews, and are in my price range."
Step 3: Visit Ford website, Build-a-Mustang, find one with specs I like listed at a nearby dealer
Step 4: Drive to Ford dealer, ask about car I saw online. "Oh, that car uh.. we don't have it uh.. we don't know where it is. Maybe we haven't gotten it yet. We'll call you when it's here."
Step 5: Dealer does not call after four days. I give up.
Step 6: Take Monte to Chevy dealer to get new problem repaired while looking at Chevys. New Monte is too big, Malibu looks good but WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CHROME BAR IN THE FRONT AND WHY CAN'T I GET BLACK LEATHER INTERIOR?! (they are kinda cool otherwise)
Step 7: After dealer quotes me $400 and 5 hours to replace some spark plugs and an oil change (love dealerships) my cell phone rings. Ford dealer has the Mustang.
Step 8: Get Monte repaired, drive to Ford dealer, test-drive, get $2500 for trade-in, and put 1/2 down on Mustang.
Step 9: After the sales manager gets done dealing with a family of 12 in his office having insurance problems and every other possible problem ever in the history of purchasing a car, I go in and knock out a loan contract in about 10 minutes.
Step 10: Move all my junk to the new car, sit in seat, inhale new car smell, rev engine, STEREO ON. Inner peace.
Step 11: (I'm still on this step, check back in like 2009)
08-23-2005, 12:29 PM
#6
3rd Gear Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Milledgeville, GA
Posts: 869
RE: The Long Answer
Perhaps someday I will tell my story. 17 years old and already have had an 03 GT.
I read this in computer class at school. It's hard to keep reading when you're laughing out loud and the teacher is getting suspicious. Great story man, grats on the car.
I read this in computer class at school. It's hard to keep reading when you're laughing out loud and the teacher is getting suspicious. Great story man, grats on the car.
08-23-2005, 01:56 PM
#7
2nd Gear Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: NYC
Posts: 343
RE: The Long Answer
Great story bro ... As I write ... On a Planet not far from You (I-95)... A similar Tale is taking place ... Jedi Master Ksinti said to me : "Hidalgo? ... An '06' Mustang GT ... It is Your Destiny" ... Hope to see ya soon on the streets of NYC ... Enjoy Your Road Trip ...
08-23-2005, 06:23 PM
#9
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location:
Posts: 50
RE: The Long Answer
Damn, if you're not a writer, you should be. I can't believe I read the whole thing but it rocked. Nice tale. I think I'll make my own CD of bag pipe MP3's--perfect for driving through the hood. Or maybe some nice Bluegrass....
08-24-2005, 12:55 AM
#10
3rd Gear Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location:
Posts: 864
RE: The Long Answer
That was the best read I've seen in a liong, long time! I think I'm just as passionate about my Mustang but not nearly as good a writer.
I sure do understand the effect this car has on people though. I would like to share the following experience:
The other day I was working on my Stang, installing my new triple gauge pod and Autometer gauges when a couple of kids came riding along in the alley on thier bikes.
They both stopped and the following conversation took place:
Man that's a cool car!
Yeah but did you see what it is?
That's not just a nice car. It's a MUSTANG!!!
You're right and look! It's even a GT!!
Hey mister! That's a really cool car!
I said thanks alot and they rode off.
I sure do understand the effect this car has on people though. I would like to share the following experience:
The other day I was working on my Stang, installing my new triple gauge pod and Autometer gauges when a couple of kids came riding along in the alley on thier bikes.
They both stopped and the following conversation took place:
Man that's a cool car!
Yeah but did you see what it is?
That's not just a nice car. It's a MUSTANG!!!
You're right and look! It's even a GT!!
Hey mister! That's a really cool car!
I said thanks alot and they rode off.