My Car History:

Two of my favorite toys growing up were Legos and my Matchbox Cars.  I had several hundred matchbox cars, and as for my legos, well, what I built most was cars.  From a young age, I just loved cars.  I had several models in my room as well.  Also, as with most young boys, I dreamed of owning a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or the Hot Wheels model with jet blasters for exhaust.  With this territory comes the memory of just about every car that my parents owned throughout my childhood, and later on, the cars that I got to drive as I learned to do so.  I’m going to go through that list with all of you, not because you need or want to hear it, but who knows… maybe by the end of the article, my favorites will surprise you!

 

My Earliest Memories:

To my dismay, my parents didn’t own a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or a car with jet exhaust.  They did however own a silver, 1989 Volkswagen Fox sedan and a grey Dodge Grand Caravan.  This made sense because almost three years after I was born, my sister came into the world, and we became a family of four.  Why wouldn’t my parents get a practical family vehicle to transport everyone in comfort?  I can’t really say very much about the Grand Caravan, and I suppose that kind of says something about how memorable it was for me.  The Fox was a different story.

 

I very young when we had the Fox… it was the early 1990’s.  I can clearly remember what the car looked like.  It was grey with black trim, and it had a manual transmission.  I distinctly remember that my mom loved that car dearly.  To this day she loves the car.  She was driving home one day and was rear-ended by a drunk driver.  She and my grandmother were both in the car, but both were ok.  The car was not.  I remember going to the yard where they towed the car and seeing it all smashed up.  To me, the car didn’t really have any sentimental value, and I don’t think it really had any sentimental value to my mom except for the fact that she just loved the car.  The value that she gave the Fox, gave me some kind of love for that car, however shallow that love was with me being so young.  What young boy wouldn’t want agree with his mom!  She will still talk about that car today if you ask her, but for me, her attachment for the Volkswagen Fox carries on until today.  I attribute my love for Volkswagen all the way back to that car.

 

What Came Next:

I’m pretty sure that I haven’t forgotten any car that my parents have owned throughout my childhood, but my parents will have to forgive me if I have.  The next two that I remember clearly couldn’t be any more different.  My parents sold the grey Dodge Grand Caravan and bought a green Plymouth Voyager.  If you have never heard of either of those, they are the same vehicle.  The difference was that the Voyager was a newer model.  Oh the Voyager… The best thing about that car was absolutely nothing.  It was always broken in some way.  My mom got so tired of it!  Finally after just a couple years and barely any miles, the transmission went out on the van.  It was the worst and best thing.

 

Along with the van, my dad had a 1996 Jeep Cherokee.  It was an olive green, basic, manual transmission, two-door Jeep.  He had always told me growing up that it would eventually be mine.  I didn’t really take any interest in it because it wasn’t a fast sports car.  Today, I wish that he would have tried to hold on to that car.  At any rate, we didn’t have that for very long, because it was small, bare-bones, and mom absolutely hated the thing.  It was just about the rawest SUV that money could buy.  That being sad, my dad loved it.

 

He was a bit heartbroken when he had to get rid of the Jeep, but soon, his next car made up for the apparent loss.  He got a Blue Ford Explorer.  It was a four-door SUV with grey trim.  It was also a higher trim level, so there were a lot of extra goodies on the Explorer than what the Jeep had.  It was a genuinely nice car.  Mom was a little more accepting of it, but it still wasn’t her favorite.  I do remember being able to briefly experience driving the Explorer.  If my memory is correct, it felt like what you would expect for a 2001 Ford Explore.  Eventually, that SUV also got sold, because of the horrendous gas mileage.

 

The Later Years:

The next set of cars, minus the Explorer brought me into the world of driving.  None were particularly momentous, but they didn’t have to be.  It was my first step into a world that I had dreamt about my entire life to that point.  I also naturally remember a bit more about all the cars from here on out because I got to experience them from a driving perspective rather than just a “passenger view”.

 

The first was my mom’s Toyota Sienna minivan.  I can’t really say anything bad about this car, except that it seemed to always get flat tires.  It was beige with tan trim, so it definitely wasn’t the most attractive car.  However it was the XLE, which meant that it had leather seats, sunroof, and a few more “luxury” features.  The van rode and drove very smoothly.  It actually was very much like driving a luxury sedan, and it didn’t feel like a van.  It was the first car that I really learned to drive in.  I actually took my driver’s test in the Sienna.  Besides the flat tires, there was never really any major repairs that had to be done though Mom and Dad didn’t sell it until it reached more than 100,000 miles on the odometer.

 

My mom again had a car that she could say she genuinely loved.  To this day, she will say that she and Dad should have never gotten rid of the Sienna when they did.  Such is life though, and that van was the start of their “import” years, as I would call them.  You will see what I mean shortly.

 

After the Sienna, another minivan came into the family in the form of a 2004 Honda Odyssey.  It was big, had a six cylinder engine, and it kind of changed my perception of what a minivan could be to that point.  The Honda drove a little more like a truck than a minivan, a departure from the Sienna.  This is probably the reason Dad really took a liking to it.  I actually liked it too!  It was no sports car, but for me, it was pretty good!  I felt like I controlled the road every time I got into the driver’s seat, and the van was plenty powerful as well.

 

A New Era:

Change was on the horizon.  Mom and Dad decided that there weren’t going to be anymore minivans in the garage, but being from rural Pennsylvania, they still needed an all-wheel-drive vehicle to combat the winter weather.  At this point, my sister was learning how to drive.  A third car was added to the arsenal.  It was a 2008 Subaru Outback.

 

There was another car in between the minivans and the Subaru, but I’m going to come back to that.  The Subaru, in my opinion was terrible in almost every conceivable way.  It was slow, the transmission was horrible, and the ride comfort was atrocious.  Thankfully, I didn’t have to drive it very much because it was more for my sister than for me.  She loved it, and that was fine with me.

 

After the Subaru, came a Toyota Highlander, Honda Pilot, and a Honda CR-V.  All three were bought mostly while I was in college and after I moved out.  I have driven all three, and for me, all of them were pretty forgettable.  I’m not saying they were bad cars, but nothing about any of them really stood out too much.  The Highlander was my favorite, just because it seemed a bit more comfortable for me.  The Honda Pilot was a bit of an unpleasant surprise.  Again, it isn’t a bad car, but everything feels heavy and cumbersome.  I would rather take the Odyssey than any of the three SUVs.

 

I mentioned that I skipped a car in between the minivans and the Subaru Outback.  That car was a 2004 Volkswagen Passat.  The reason I skipped it, is because this car was special to me.  It was the car that bridged the gap between me driving my parents’ cars and owning my own personal ones.  Dad bought the car for mom as it reminded her of her old Volkswagen Fox.  For her, having that new car with the old memory, it was like a dream come true.

 

My parents both kept the Passat immaculate.  It was probably the nicest car that they have ever owned, and it has been my favorite by far.  The Passat was a 5-speed manual with a 1.8 liter turbocharged four-cylinder with 170 horsepower.  The car was practical, as it was a four door sedan.  It had leatherette seats, a sunroof, and a monsoon sound system.  All of these things didn’t add up to outstanding luxury, but for mom, it was more than enough.  As the car started the transition from my parents’ hands to mine – I just started driving it more and more, and on top of that, I learned how to drive a manual transmission in this car – the Passat became more than just a car to me.  It became part of the reason that I love cars as much as I do today.

 

So that is a brief history of the cars that I experienced growing up until the time came for me to get out on my own.  Even though these cars weren’t mine, they all played some role in my life, and I have memories about each one, even if there aren’t too many associated with every single car.  It all goes back to my belief that ever car has a story associated with it.  With those stories come feelings, preconceived notions, and some bias, but hey… Everyone else is in the same boat.

–SWF