Sunday, August 1, 2021

Car for sale

 

     I keep reading about how there's a shortage of cars, both new and used, because of supply-chain issues, a certain microchip that is hard to find.
     Frankly, I don't believe it. When I drive around, I pass dealership after dealership jammed with cars. Plus all the car that anybody could ever want is sitting a few doors down from my house, just waiting to be snapped up by some lucky person.
     It's hard to miss this candy apple red 1966 Mustang convertible, which my neighbors, Ray and Terry Garcia, are offering for sale, well, because the time seems right.
     The car has about 99,000 miles, and has been garaged for so long I only learned of its existence a few years ago, when they pulled it out and took it for a spin. I was gob-smacked. How could someone own such a thing and the neighbors not know? But that's the Garcias: they are people of parts, as Shakespeare said, and I'm always finding new aspects to them. They travel and have a wonderful green thumb. Terry zips around the neighborhood on an electric bike. Ray was a Marine and worked for the Post Office and a master gardener and, frankly, if I heard he had been an astronaut and gone to space, well, I'd be surprised, but not really that surprised.
     Honestly, I'll be sad to see the Mustang go. I've enjoyed passing it as I walk Kitty over the last few days. Though I couldn't help but notice that their method of advertising—parking it at the end of their driveway with a sign—is not the most tech savvy in our interconnected world. So I volunteered use of my blog, where hundreds can be expected to notice it. First, because I'm a nice guy. And second, I need to repay them for having the coolest yard on the block, with its gorgeous, perfectly maintained beds of prairie plants and wildflowers, not to overlook their folk art display of found objects any one of which is a delight just to look at, plus all the cup plant seedlings they've passed along to me. It's a debt I can never repay. 
     They aren't asking a fortune—$19,000, which is less than what you'd pay for some anonymous piece of garbage that nobody would look at twice. And unlike most used cars, this can be counted on to keep its value.
    That's it. I would buy it myself, only for the lack of a spare $19,000—okay, that isn't true, but there are taxes and a new bathroom to install and pay for, and, maybe trips to take, so zipping around town in this sharp little baby is out of the question. For me.
     But maybe you made a wiser career choice, and have a more glamorous life, and can pick it up as easy as snapping your fingers. If that is the case, email them at tgarcia45@gmail.com and see what you can work out. But don't hesitate; it won't last long. 

7 comments:

  1. I hope you will update us when the car is sold. Are they the sole owners of the car? How does a car that old only have 99,000 miles on it? Some how that has to be the oldest car with the least amount of miles on it.

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    1. Nah...I knew a guy in Florida who bought an '86 Olds Cutlass from a neighbor, after Detroit stopped making them. It had just 8,000 miles on it. I was driving one just like it, with a lot of body cancer, but he wouldn't sell it to me, even after my wife totaled mine.

      Years later, after he died, his daughter sold it, just before her mother also passed away. I was crazy to own one of those Oldsmoboats. It was too big to fit in my garage, so the Midwest's harsh climate ate it for lunch.

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  2. Fifteen years ago, we got rid of our cars when we moved back to Chicago. Living on the near north side we don't need cars. It's a huge saving and fun to rent 'em on vacations.

    After seeing this, I'd consider moving out of the city to a suburb where the car would be safe just so I could have it. What a beauty!

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  3. Oh, my. I would buy it if I could, and trailer it to Ohio, but I'm too poor, and I have a one-car garage. That car is too valuable to drive on Cleveland streets. Too many speeders and distracted a-holes. Already lost a PT Cruiser to some clown on his phone.

    The price is right. I've seen '66 Mustangs selling online for anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000...and 99,000 miles on a classic car of that vintage makes me think that it was driven regularly, before it was parked in a garage nearly all the time. Most owners of vintage and classic cars don't drive their expensive toys on the streets very often. Too risky. They only travel to car shows, and drive in good weather, and keep their pride and joy in heated storage all winter. Rust and corrosion are the enemies of auto bodies, and they never sleep.

    I actually owned a '66 Mustang, for less than a year. Mine was not a convertible. It was a darker shade of red...more of a fire-engine red...with a black top. Solid black interior, with shiny black seats. The hood had padlocks on it. The motor was chromed, and the engine compartment was spotless. The kid who owned it and drove it kept it pristine. He sold his car to me when he joined the Navy. I took a few road trips, including my first-ever visit to Florida. Pushed it uphill, after running out of gas in Beloit. I named the car "Stang"--for Mustang, and for the comic actor, Arnold Stang.

    As I was living in Rogers Park, I had to park Stang on the street all winter, after which it was not so pristine. Sold my car in the spring, to a teen-ager, for peanuts. Sold it so I could hit the road with my girlfriend, and two other couples, on a hippie bus...a 1947 Ford school bus with six bunk beds. I stayed on board for a month. I got off the bus in Boulder. But that expedition, and my Colorado days, are other stories for other times.

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  4. I got spoiled in Austin where these cars pepper the streets nearly year round. This one is so shiny and red I sure wish I had the 20k & a garage to put her in.

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