The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here.
1984 Ford EXP
I had gotten the bug to get a better car sometime at the end of the school year. The Pinto was okay, but I got bit to do it, to have a "real" car, including a car payment, and now because I had a job (nights & weekends at good old Standard Brands Paint), I felt I could do it.
Even back then, I was uncharacteristically practical. For a brief second I looked at a sweet '63 Vette...needed some work but it was a VETTE ... but I decided that wasn't going to work. I then decided it needed to be new. You know, that new car smell. My dad had just bought a new Honda Accord and that was cool, so I needed a new car too. So for some unknown reason, I started looking at Ford Escorts, of all cars. Not the worst car ever, but hardly exciting. Both Kristie and I looked at them...this was afterall, going to be "our" car. I even looked at Escort wagons...I was convinced we'd need it to move out of state when she graduated and having a wagon was oh, so practical. But I needed a few options that when I added it up, I just couldn't afford...so the old Escort was a no go.
Luckily I was dealing with a saavy car salesman who sniffed a deal going away and he turned a pointed out the lovely Ford EXP...which had all those "gotta haves" standard, and it was ch
eaper to boot! Such a deal. OK, so it didn't have a back seat...it's a sports coupe after all. As I looked at it, I saw a cavernous cargo area, wagon-esque in it's capacity. It had the "nice" seats and all the other little things I wanted. Folks...we had a car deal. So I signed my life away, traded in the little blue Pinto and drove my snazzy new car down to Kristie's. I made another mistake in this deal in that I decided to lease this thing. But for $112.73 a month, I was driving a brand new, reasonably cool car. And that's all that mattered for a few years.
Since it was a 5 speed (naturally for cheap skate me...) I had to teach Kristie to drive a stick. It was a bonding moment. This was the car that I drove back and forth from my parent's house to CSU for a summer when it was "cheaper" to live at home in Broomfield, but still work and go to school in Ft. Collins. This was also the car that I packed up and drove out to California, all by myself to go to my first real job. It was also the car that a week later, I packed back up and drove back to Colorado when my "real" job was a victim of corporate down-sizing. Sometime in 1987, I had tired of owning a Ford and I transferred the ownership of the EXP to my dad, who gave it to my sister.
1984 Ford EXP
I had gotten the bug to get a better car sometime at the end of the school year. The Pinto was okay, but I got bit to do it, to have a "real" car, including a car payment, and now because I had a job (nights & weekends at good old Standard Brands Paint), I felt I could do it.
Even back then, I was uncharacteristically practical. For a brief second I looked at a sweet '63 Vette...needed some work but it was a VETTE ... but I decided that wasn't going to work. I then decided it needed to be new. You know, that new car smell. My dad had just bought a new Honda Accord and that was cool, so I needed a new car too. So for some unknown reason, I started looking at Ford Escorts, of all cars. Not the worst car ever, but hardly exciting. Both Kristie and I looked at them...this was afterall, going to be "our" car. I even looked at Escort wagons...I was convinced we'd need it to move out of state when she graduated and having a wagon was oh, so practical. But I needed a few options that when I added it up, I just couldn't afford...so the old Escort was a no go.
Luckily I was dealing with a saavy car salesman who sniffed a deal going away and he turned a pointed out the lovely Ford EXP...which had all those "gotta haves" standard, and it was ch
eaper to boot! Such a deal. OK, so it didn't have a back seat...it's a sports coupe after all. As I looked at it, I saw a cavernous cargo area, wagon-esque in it's capacity. It had the "nice" seats and all the other little things I wanted. Folks...we had a car deal. So I signed my life away, traded in the little blue Pinto and drove my snazzy new car down to Kristie's. I made another mistake in this deal in that I decided to lease this thing. But for $112.73 a month, I was driving a brand new, reasonably cool car. And that's all that mattered for a few years.Since it was a 5 speed (naturally for cheap skate me...) I had to teach Kristie to drive a stick. It was a bonding moment. This was the car that I drove back and forth from my parent's house to CSU for a summer when it was "cheaper" to live at home in Broomfield, but still work and go to school in Ft. Collins. This was also the car that I packed up and drove out to California, all by myself to go to my first real job. It was also the car that a week later, I packed back up and drove back to Colorado when my "real" job was a victim of corporate down-sizing. Sometime in 1987, I had tired of owning a Ford and I transferred the ownership of the EXP to my dad, who gave it to my sister.