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.
1999 Ford Expedition XLT
We had made it out to Maine with only the Landcruiser and we had planned all along to pick up another car once we got out there. We didn't really have a "plan" as to what we were going to get, but we kind of agreed that the Cruiser would become mine and we'd get something for Kristie to haul the girls around in. I guess I was thinking minivan, since the Cruiser was the SUV and it seemed logical. For some reason, I was back on the Ford Windstar. Kristie had other plans.
We really wanted a third row of seats, our thinking was that we would need it to haul people around when they visited us up in in Maine. So I asked Kristie what she wanted and she was pretty clear: an Expedition. Ford had introduced this big guy a couple of years ago, so the used market was satisfactory for a cheapo like me. So we headed down to the Ford dealership and test drove both the Windstar and the Expedition. I liked them both. Kristie really liked the Expedition. I mean, really, really liked it. Unfortunately, it was more money than the Windstar. We could've bought the van for about $10K and the Expedition was about $20K. At the time, we still had our windfall from the sale of the house and we could've paid cash for the van and had no car payment.
Or we could have a car payment for 3 years...which is what we decided. It basically came down to a conversation where I said "let's do what ever makes you happy" and Kristie said "if we have to have a minivan, I'll live with it". So we compromised and got what Kristie wanted ;-)
It was a great truck really. Huge on the inside, actually smaller than I thought it would be externally. It was a couple of years old, but in great shape. It had the smaller V8, which was still very powerful. It had a nice cloth interior, dual A/C, a 6 disk changer (now both cars had one) and the keyless door locks..a feature that we ended up loving. We could drive to the beac
h, lock the keys in the car and walk away. And the third row was very comfortable, if not a quite a lug to pull out of there. When Greg and David visited, we drove them all around the state...it was exactly as we planned. About the only negative was the fact that it wouldn't fit into our little garage! But other than that, it was perfect.
h, lock the keys in the car and walk away. And the third row was very comfortable, if not a quite a lug to pull out of there. When Greg and David visited, we drove them all around the state...it was exactly as we planned. About the only negative was the fact that it wouldn't fit into our little garage! But other than that, it was perfect.Except for one thing: the payment. As we got settled into our new life, we began to realize our expenses...and the payment was beginning to feel oppressive. So we put the car in the paper and ended up selling it...getting back about half of our cash that we had put down. We had now decided that I'd get a little car and Kristie and the girls would have the trusty old Cruiser. Little did we know just how little of a car I'd end up buying!