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I drove a 1976 MG midget, first car ever bought (when I was in the Navy). It blew my mind, I had to scrimp, save, and borrow enough money to buy the car, and when I went to arrange insurance, they told me it was going to cost me $1200 a year to ensure the car! This was in 1978 dollars… I nearly fell on the floor because the car only cost me $3800.

Of course, I know that many people out there who read that last paragraph are probably snickering saying to themselves “That poor sucker… I’ll Bet he found out it was going to cost a lot more than that!” Well, that much is true, but I will say, and drove it through New England snowstorms, and had a lot of fun with it to boot.

But, the worst car that I EVER owned, was a 1984 Ford Escort. Bar none. I would buy a Ford now, no hesitation… I almost bought one last time I was looking to buy. That car was such an incredible piece of rolling crap that is nearly beyond comprehension. I was desperate for a car, because I couldn’t afford to repair the MG midget anymore.

I really screwed the pooch on that one, because I allowed myself to get into a situation where I had to get some kind of car. In the newspaper, they had an ad from one of the big, huge Ford dealerships in the state advertising you can get a car for $99 down, and $99 a month. (Insert hugely funny financing deal, where you pay on the car for the next five years…)

The salesman who sold me the car was wearing a large cowboy hat and had a huge belt buckle. And note that this was not in New Mexico or Texas, but Massachusetts. Being older and wiser, now I see the signposts, but I was oblivious at that time and desperate to find a way to work.

I had a AAA membership, and I got towed so many times that AAA made it impossible for me to keep the account. The last time I called, they made me wait five hours for a tow. The brakes went completely south on me, and I had to buy new tires the same time. That was a lot of money, and I didn’t really have much at the time. Then the radiator went. Then the battery went. Then the starter went. Then the water pump went. And finally, during rush hour, in the middle of the Callahan Tunnel in Boston while going to pick up my fiancée at Logan Airport, the timing belt went.

I take some responsibility… because every time I would see traffic backed up for miles, and Miles, all because some guy overheated in the tunnel… I swore that would never be me. Never.

Needless to say, there are was. Driving through the Callahan Tunnel during rush hour, with white smoke billowing from under the hood. I made it into Logan Airport, and the car was toast. At the time, I think they said that it would’ve cost me $1500 to repair the engine. Basically, I had to get a new engine. I had already put close to $1500 in repairs into the car already, and I still owed $1800 on the loan.

But the most humiliating kick in the crotch came when I finally spent $200 to get a real beater, I could finally get rid of that damned Ford Escort. I put it up for sale in the Want Advertiser, for something like $500 as is, because the body was still in pretty good shape, and the cheesy mold plastic interior didn’t have any overt defects visible. I left it for several months, and didn’t get a single call on it. Finally, I needed to get rid of it because it was taking up valuable driveway space (I was living my brother, and it was his driveway I was hogging with that bloody powder blue Escort carcass) So I called a junkyard, because they offered $50 in cash to take your car in “as is” condition.

The guy said to me “We don’t pay any money for those cars, because they aren’t worth anything to us. We won’t even pick them up for free, we call them “Throwaway Cars”. However, if you want to pay $100, we’ll come get it…”

For years, the sight of a Ford logo was enough to force out a couple strings of curses, and seeing an actual Ford Escort was enough to make me nearly run off the road.

From that point on, I swore that once I had a job that paid me enough, I was not only going to buy a new car of the most reliable model I could find, I was not going to do any more car maintenance myself unless I was backed into a corner and had no choice in the matter. I owned a series of new Toyotas, Saturns and now Subarus. It’s been blissful…(knocks on wood)