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.
1982 Toyota Pickup
For a while, we were content with our cars. Kristie and Kelly tooled around in the Accord, while I got to speed around (mostly to work) in the red Civic Si. Life was good. Except our money supply was not as good as it once was, Kristie had quit her job to be a full-time mommy and we had taken on the expense of the Accord when previously we had no car payment. I was also beginning to work extensively on our house and paying for loads from the lumberyard seemed extravagant as well as cramping my style. So we put our prized little Civic in the paper and sold it to some girl in college. We sold it for $6000, an amazing deal for a car that we had bought 5 years ago for $8500 and had only put tires on! She tried to haggle and I held firm...if she wanted a
car for a lower price, she should go somewhere else.
car for a lower price, she should go somewhere else.I took a grand from the sale of the car and set out to buy the best pickup I could for a thousand dollars. I settled on a beat-up old blue Toyota pickup. This little guy had obviously been somebody's work truck and had absolutely no options...not even a radio! The interior was pretty rough and somebody had glued beige shag carpet to the floor. The vinyl seats were a little worn and I'm certain that it was a test vehicle for Marlboro cigarettes...years later I could still smell the smoke. But it ran great and was exactly what we needed. I could drive it to work, and in fact drove it from Highlands Ranch to Boulder for a while (a round trip of about 80 miles...a dreadful commute). And it made many trips to the lumber yard. It was a great little truck really. I had a little work done on it...that was really the first time I had ever taken a car to the shop since I had the Pinto in college...a nice string of success! What did it in was that after Allie was born, I needed to be able to take the girls to their baby sitter and the truck only had 2 seat belts. So in the spring of 95 we sold it in a frenzy of bidding...for $1000!