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.
1989 Toyota Landcruiser
With the Windstar out of our hair, we set out to buy another Landcruiser. It was just that simple. We still had the Acura (we went through a lot of cars during this little window of time). I was hoping that we could just trade the dumb thing in, but no such luck and we ended up selling it.
We saw an ad for the an '89 with very low miles. I was practically sold even without seeing it. We drove out to the dealership and saw it...it was perfect. It only had 39K miles, an amazing amount for a 6+ year old vehicle. It was in great shape, about the only knock was that it had been smoked in, but we could make it work. It was a grueling purchase...we had the girls w
ith us and it was one of those long and drawn out car deals. But we got it done and drove home our 2nd Landcruiser.
Our car buying and selling had become a bit of a joke to our friends and family. What made this one worse is that we bought a car that looked EXACTLY like our old one. Kristie and I knew that the old one was an '88 and this one was an '89, but truthfully, they were identical. Down to the color. And this became the car that we would be known by. It was the car that we had for 10 years. We drove it on a bunch of family vacations: Dinosaur National Monument, LaVeta, Sand Dunes and our biggest "vacation"...we drove it out to Maine.
We saw an ad for the an '89 with very low miles. I was practically sold even without seeing it. We drove out to the dealership and saw it...it was perfect. It only had 39K miles, an amazing amount for a 6+ year old vehicle. It was in great shape, about the only knock was that it had been smoked in, but we could make it work. It was a grueling purchase...we had the girls w
ith us and it was one of those long and drawn out car deals. But we got it done and drove home our 2nd Landcruiser.Our car buying and selling had become a bit of a joke to our friends and family. What made this one worse is that we bought a car that looked EXACTLY like our old one. Kristie and I knew that the old one was an '88 and this one was an '89, but truthfully, they were identical. Down to the color. And this became the car that we would be known by. It was the car that we had for 10 years. We drove it on a bunch of family vacations: Dinosaur National Monument, LaVeta, Sand Dunes and our biggest "vacation"...we drove it out to Maine.
In 2000 we decided to sell everything we owned (almost everything really) and move from Colorado to Maine. We did keep the Cruiser. And we packed it up and loaded our two little girls, our 2 cats and 1 dog and Kristie drove it out to Maine, while I followed in a UHaul truck. And we really felt like we fit in out there... in the Cruiser. Maine has a hardy reputation of "make do with what you can" and this car typified that. And this car was reliable...never failed to start even when there was 5 feet of snow in the middle of the winter.
When it was time to move back to Colorado, we loaded the cats back in the Cruiser (the girls and the dog got to ride in a plane) and Kristie drove it back to Colorado, where it remained our primary car for a number of years. We took it camping and light off-roading...but mostly it lived it's life as a big station wagon.
Sometime in '03 or so, it was beginning to show signs of age and we knew it was time to sell it. Surprisingly, the girls were very attached to the old car. My stories of how this was going to be their car stuck with them and for a while, they resented our efforts. We first planned to use it as our 3rd car, but quickly realized how oppulent that really was. It got a temporary reprieve and Kristie and the girls used it to get to and from school and that was it. But finally, it was time. I was looking on Craigslist to see what the market was for a cherry '89 FJ-62 when I spotted a "wanted" ad...for an '88 or '89 Landcruiser. Turned out the guy worked right across the street from me and really knew his Cruisers. But what impressed him most was how much I knew about them in general, and how much I knew about ours in specific. He was going to use it as his vacation vehicle, keeping it parked at his cabin down in the southern Colorado desert, where it would be dry and warm, and probably keep running for another 100,000 miles or so.