My stable is getting a little too full, and I will soon have reason to purchase another vehicle. I barely have anywhere to keep the ones I already own, so I need your help in deciding which one (ones?) need to go. I haven’t ever really gone actively car shopping, I just seem to have things fall into my lap and I agree to buy them. I buy stuff from fellow enthusiasts who don’t want to deal with Craigslist or Bring A Trailer. It’s a bad habit of mine that I’m trying to break, but have thus far been unsuccessful.
Even worse, I have a tendency to never sell things. I’ve sold three of my 944s, my old daily-driver Mazda3 and Saturn SL2, and we only kept our Nissan Figaro for a year. Pretty much every other car I’ve ever purchased has either been driven into the ground, or wrecked. I currently have nine automobiles and three motorcycles. Why? I have no idea.
So here’s the situation. Two cars and a bike are at my house in Nevada, three cars and two bikes live at my house in Ohio. Two additional vehicles are in storage in Ohio. One lives at my father’s house in Atlanta. We are trying to make preparations to move out of Ohio, so I need to either re-home or move five cars and two motorcycles before we move. We’re currently looking at getting a new daily driver that can tow some serious weight, because we’ll need that at our next destination. I won’t explain that further, but just know we will regularly be towing around 6,000 pounds.
I don’t currently have a financial need to offload cars, but it certainly never hurts. I’m paying $300 per month to store the two that don’t fit in my garage, which is annoying.
The Daily Driver – 2018 Buick Regal TourX
My wife and I bought this car new at the end of 2018. We got zero percent financing and an incredible discounted price, and we’ve been very happy with it all these years. It’s creeping up on 100,000 miles, and we still owe about $6,500 on it. It’ll still serve as an excellent daily driver in the future, and my wife loves driving it. It’s not in the best condition cosmetically, with a few bumps and bruises (and curbed wheels) but as a road tripper and daily appliance, it serves very well.
The Fun Car – 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo
I bought this 911 about a year ago from California, and have absolutely loved driving it. I’ve done a few projects to make this car mine, including a period-correct set of wheels, some carbon fiber trim, and a double-DIN stereo with Apple CarPlay. It’s great for road trips or bombing down back country roads. It’s very fast and reasonably comfortable. It’s going in for a color-change paint job this winter, and I think I’ll keep it long term.
The Classic – 1976 Porsche 912E
This is the car I have the most sentimental attachment to. I bought it as a non-running barn-find in 2017 and have probably racked up forty or fifty-thousand miles on it since I got it running. I’ve spent most of that time making the car mechanically brand new, with an engine rebuild in 2019, fresh suspension in 2020, and fully rebuilt steering and braking systems since then.
Despite being basically new under the skin, this car is rough as can be on the outside. The paint is rough, there’s poorly-repaired crash damage from the 1980s, the windshield is spiderwebbed, and the cowl rust is starting to show through the paint. It’s solid enough to drive without worrying, but it’s starting to look its age and mileage.
The Autocrosser – 1997 Dodge Neon ACR
The most recent addition to my stable is this Lapis Blue ACR. Allegedly it is one of just a handful sold in this color, and that’s part of what I love about it. A real Neon enthusiast built this thing to the hilt, using a 2.4-liter out of a PT Cruiser, and building a ripping 220-ish horsepower naturally-aspirated engine.
Unlike the 912 or the 911 Turbo, there are no cosmetic issues with this car, and it’s maybe the cleanest 1G Neon left. A full bare-metal respray with modern primer means this paint shouldn’t chip off in large hunks like it did from the factory. The underside is clean enough to eat off of, and there isn’t the slightest inkling of rust. It’s quick and rowdy in the way that all hot econoboxes should be.
It’s not fast or competitive, but it’s a fun vehicle for autocross or trackdays. I definitely haven’t done as many of those as I wanted to this year, however.
The Electric Fun – 2020 Harley-Davidson LiveWire
From the moment I went on the press launch of the Harley LiveWire back in 2019, I vowed that I’d own one. It’s still the best bike I’ve ever ridden, and I love it to bits. I’ve only put a couple thousand miles on it since buying it in early 2021, but I think it’ll always have a place in my garage. Some minor modifications include a tail tidy, newer plastics from a 2022 model year LiveWire One, and the full factory carbon fiber trim kit.
The Long Legged One – 1996 BMW R1100GS
Of everything I own, if there was something I would most enjoy taking on a cross-country trip, it’s the GS. This is the perfect bike for long days in the saddle, and it looks great doing it. There are so many period-correct modifications done to this bike, it feels like it came straight out of the nineties.
It’s a lot harder to get off road living in Ohio, and I hardly ride it here in the Midwest. Maybe it’ll find some more use when we move back out west in the near future, but for now it’s mostly sitting idle. I recently did a bunch of maintenance and upgrades, but it seems every time I go to ride it the battery is dead, or the tires are low.
In my mind, I’m going to take this bike to Baja one year. I’m currently strength and endurance training to be able to run the race on a bike, and I’d like it to be this one.
The American Cruiser – 1991 Cadillac Allanté
I’ve loved the Pininfarina design of GM’s most ill-advised car since I was a youngster. When one came up for sale from a friend in nice shape for a decent price, I jumped on it. After flying in and driving it home, some of the allure had already faded. It started running rough when I pulled in the driveway, and I’ve never been able to diagnose it. That was about 18 months ago, and it’s largely been sitting since.
The last time I drove it a rock cracked the windshield and I gave up on the project for a while, parking it in the storage unit a couple months ago. I haven’t looked at it since. It currently gets about 4 miles per gallon from an undiagnosed issue, with hard-shifting and rough-running symptoms. The air conditioning and stereo are also currently inoperative.
I need to stop dragging my feet on this project and just take it to someone to get it fixed, whether I decide to keep it or not.
The Safari – 1995 Audi S6
This quarter-million mile Audi S6 was my daily driver for a long damn time, and it was an exceptional one. When someone bumped into the front of the car and cracked the bumper, I decided it was time to change it up. It was too good as a sports sedan, so I was determined to make it worse. I did that by lifting it 11 inches.
The car’s dynamics are all wrong now, but it looks so cool. And I haven’t driven it in a couple of years as a result. This car is currently in Nevada sitting outside getting sun baked, and it makes me sad. I’d really like to un-do the safari-ing, and slam this car on the ground with a wide set of period-correct three-piece wheels and a DTM-style widebody. Or maybe sell it. You tell me.
The Project – 1997 Porsche Boxster
I’ve had this first-year 2.5-liter 5-speed Boxster for years, and I absolutely adored it when it was still complete. Some jackwagon in a dually tore the front end off the car while it was parked in a parking lot, and the insurance company gave me more cash than I paid for the car. That cash is long gone, but the car stayed, and I set about making it a track monster.
Right before I moved from Nevada to Ohio, I tore the thing apart to get it prepped for a cage and chassis stitch welding. It’s currently sitting in my garage out west as an empty shell. I need to go about getting the cage installed so I can re-assemble it and get it to the track.
The short-term goal is to install a hopped up Nissan Leaf motor in the front trunk to power the front wheels, netting around 400 all-wheel horsepower. I have all the parts to do it, I just need to get off my ass and make it happen.
Or scrap the whole thing.
The Tow Pig – 2008 Ford E350 Super Duty Ambulance
I bought this van to use for a business I no longer own. The back is mostly empty, and it seats two up front in, um, comfort… It has the much-maligned 6-liter diesel engine, and I’ve spent a lot of money getting it to a reliable state. I haven’t pushed real hard, but I’m having a hard time finding an insurer who will give me a policy on this as a personal vehicle, and insuring it under my LLC is ridiculously expensive. Like more than a car payment expensive. So for now, it sits.
The First Bike – 1982 Honda MB5
I don’t have any photos of it, because it’s in a shed out in Nevada. It’s a little 50cc two stroker, so it takes nothing to get it running. It’s small and slow, and I look ridiculous riding it, but I still love the thing. I bought this bike for $900 when I was living in Atlanta, Georgia and rode it every day for a year.
I don’t think this bike will ever be worth enough for me to sell it. I just have too many memories with it, and I’ve moved it across the country twice. The long-term goal is to do a period-correct speed build. I’d like this bike to be able to ton up at Bonneville. Maybe it’ll happen some day.
The Unseen Project – 1986 Toyota Supra
I haven’t seen my Supra in years. It’s sitting at my father’s house outside of Atlanta. It’s little more than a shell right now, but I have a pile of parts sitting in his barn. Maybe it’s a pipe dream, but I do have a dream of making this a sub-3000 pound street-legal drift rat with a BEAMS 3SGE motor and a big turbo. Maybe I’ll never get to it. Or maybe I’ll sell some of this other stuff and make this a priority.
So there you have it. That’s my whole stable. What stays and what goes? What do you say?