The pics aren’t necessarily of my vehicles.

1976 Datsun Pickup: 4-speed manual, piss-yellow, no options at all save a radio. I learned to drive a stickshift in this thing and the clutch survived. This was actually my dad’s truck, leased to his business a year before he died in 1977.

1978 Datsun Pickup: 5-speed manual, kinda sporty back then, long bed, AC. Lease replacement for the ’76 to the business. I got into a bad crash with it (not my fault, really!), not enough to total it but the repairs were sloppy and it drove badly afterwards because the frame got bent and wasn’t un-bent.

1979 Toyota Pickup, SR5, 5-speed, long bed. This replaced the Datsun; the Toy had a much stronger engine, the indestructible 20R 4-cylinder. I beat the shit out of this truck and it never complained. I like that this pic is of a right-hand drive model from Australia, with the long bed (you can tell because there’s five cargo hooks on the side instead of four). Mine was blue with cheesy gold tape stripes that I peeled off and replaced with striping from a later model that looked better. All the upgrades and bling were a total waste because it all went back to the leasing company. You’d think that would have taught me something, but no.

1983 Honda Civic GL 5-speed AC, the first actual car I had in my name, not leased to the shop which was up for sale. I loved this car, it was peppy, got good mileage and with upgraded rims and tires handled pretty well. As soon as it was paid off, I traded it like an idiot for the next car.

1984 BMW 318i 5-speed. Because I was young and stupid I felt the Honda was... below my station, even though I was hardly making any money in Reagan’s economy, I’d been conditioned to accept higher/better/faster/more debt as a goal, and as soon as I bought this piece of shit it started to fall apart. I only had it for about six months.

1985 Honda Accord LX 3-door hatch 5-speed. This car was leased and also because I was young, stupid, and gullible, I was talked into trading my BMW and rolling the huge depreciation into a lease. This was an OK car, I guess, but I only had it for three months because I swapped it for a weekend with a high-school friend who had a pickup because I was moving shit, and he t-boned a drunk, uninsured driver who ran a red light, and it was totaled. Because the drunk had no insurance my so-called friend and his evil scheming bitch of a mother tried to sue my insurance company for bogus injuries (you were traumatically injured but managed to go water skiing a week later? No) but they lost.

1985 Honda Civic S 5-speed, last year of the carbureted Hondas and possibly the worst car I ever had except for the Audi 5000. This lemon was in and out of the shop constantly with fuel system problems and often died in the middle of an intersection for the hell of it. This soured me forever on the alleged invincibility of Honda cars. This was also before the California lemon law, so I ended up selling it to some kid after I bought the next car.

1987 VW Cabriolet, 5-speed, white on white, the gayest car I’ve ever had, and while it was fun with the top down, it was a floppy, slow, obvious car and I grew to hate it.

1987 Audi 5000S, aka Hanzi. I saw this thing in the repo lot at my credit union and fell for it, even though it was used, an automatic (my first), and the 60 Minutes hit piece had just come out, so it was cheap. Fortunately it was also still under warranty because it started falling apart within a few days, eventually requiring two new transmissions, new wheel bearings, an entire new AC system, about a half-dozen fuel pumps and other maladies. When the warranty expired and the third transmission began to grind itself up I let the credit union repossess it. When everything worked, which was rare, it was a fine road car, not especially powerful, but a strong, silent high-speed cruiser.

1964 Rambler Ambassador 990H, aka Claire. Quite a jump from an Audi to this, but it was only $500 and with my credit ruined from the Audi repo, it was all I could afford. I didn’t know that the engine was shot, but it had a wacky “Twin Stick” 3-speed manual + overdrive so that’s what sold me. Unfortunately the overdrive never worked and the engine needed a complete rebuild, which I did once my finances settled down. I drove it for a few years then sold it to a friend, who later sold it to someone who finished the restoration on this rare car. Last I heard it was still running around Long Beach, CA.

1961 Rambler Classic Deluxe, 6-cyl, 3-on-the-tree manual, aka Petunia. This car was hilarious. I bought it cheap as a backup to the other Rambler. It was bright yellow, new paint job, but the rest of the car was pretty rough and it only ran on 5 1/2 cylinders, but it always started and never let me down. I sold it to a guy from the east coast for twice what I paid because it had a good rust-free body.

1985 Toyota Camry LE automatic, aka Patsy. This was my mom’s car. I got it when she decided to upgrade to a 1993 Camry. I drove the piss out of it but the front end wore out well before its time, at around 75K miles, so I traded it in and got a decent price.

1997 Saturn SL2 5-speed, aka The Osterizer. First new car for me since 1987. I bought it in LA, decided to go to grad school in Rochester NY and drove it there, then back to pack up my shit, then back to Rochester. It was a pretty good car, a little agricultural, but once in the salt belt the exhaust and door frames rusted out almost instantly, but I managed to keep it going through grad school and then some until the rear engine seal blew oil all over the clutch. The photo below is my actual car, parked in front of my groove-tastic room at the fabulous Gobbler Motel in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin, circa May 2000, on my road trip from Rochester to Minneapolis after taking a job there. Sadly, the motel closed and was burned to the ground not long after.

2003 VW Passat GLS 5-speed 1.8T, aka Frau Farbissina. I was so excited to get this car. It was black with a tan interior and looked and drove like it was machined out of a steel billet. I traded the rusted-out Saturn and got maybe $100 for it. This was a lease, once again the car lust overrode fiscal prudence and I ended up renting this thing for 42 months. I almost bought it off the lease when it ended, because I still loved the car, but realized that owning a VW out of warranty would be a bad idea. The photo is of the rare and mournful W8 model, which I test-drove and almost bought instead, but I’m glad I didn’t what with the horrific engine problems those things had. I also drove a 2.8 V6 model, 5-speed, but it didn’t feel any more powerful than the turbo 1.8 four, felt lumpy and rough, and got about half the mileage, so I ended up with the four-pot engine. Again. I guess I’ll probably never have another V8 again unless I decide to rip the red-block four out of my 240 and stuff a Ford 302 in there.

2007 Audi A4 2.0T Quattro 6-speed, aka Hasenpfeffer. Well, moving on up I see! Yes, sadly, this was another lease, a 24-month special. The thing about leasing is you can get far more car based on the monthly payment than you can with a buy, but at the end of a buy you have a car in your driveway and at the end of a lease you have maybe an oil spot in your driveway, so I finally realized that lease rhymes with fleece and decided never to do it again. It turned out that I moved more or less across the street from my then job, so I hardly ever drove the thing anyway the last six months I had it, despite being probably the most sporty and entertaining car I’ve ever had, and it was a genuine treat to drive. This is my car after a February 2008 snow dump in Boston.

1991 Volvo 240 5-speed, aka Mrs Velma Klankenborg. Quite another jump from what I had, once I realized I didn’t really need a car at all what with walking to work; I only needed something to drive once or twice a week for shopping and visiting friends, so having had a soft spot for Volvo 240s since forever I found this one on craigslist and bought it. I’ve been driving it ever since, and likely will for some time. Since I bought her, I’ve changed jobs and now have about a five-mile commute, so while I do need a car, I don’t need a new one, and I’m OK with spending whatever it takes to keep Mrs Klankenborg happy; most recently, new front brakes, new fuel level sender and pre-pump, and assorted whatnots. I got her with 134,000 miles; now she’s at 146,000 and I’m expecting to get at least 250,000 out of this cranky old Swedish bitch.