It is a vehicle that was created to excite every sense. Its unique
design and premium-quality craftsmanship will fascinate you. Its brilliant handling and splendid performance will exhilarate you.
To some of you, the previous paragraph may not mean anything. For those of you, it is the way that BMW describes their most recent luxury vehicle. Some of you, on the other hand, may own this or another equally luxurious car.
I am happy for you, happy that your parents deemed you worthy of a $40,000-$80,000 car at such a young age.
My parents, however, knew what they were doing when they gave me a 1990 Honda Accord. Oh, you better believe I kicked and screamed that all my friends
received brand new VW Bugs or Jeep Cherokees and, here I was, crossing my fingers everyday after school that my car would start.
But think of all the character I built every time my car grunted
stubbornly at my efforts to kick it into gear.
I must say, even taking into account all those years of embarrassment caused by faulty wiring or dead batteries due to my car?s age, I don’t regret being the driver of such an antique vehicle.
I have even come to have a certain pride for my little Accord.
Pride in what, you ask?
Pride that my car has been around almost as long as I have and is stillkicking. If that is not something to be proud of, I don’t know what is.
At the risk of sounding cliché, my car is not only a reliable hunk of machinery from Japan-it is a character builder.
Years of begging my parents for a better car and being denied have shown me? Well, I am sure they have taught me some lasting life lesson. Oh, how about that one about how you can’t always get what you want? Yeah, that one.
In addition to learning valuable life lessons, old cars are good for other things.
Picture this:You are pulling out of the Tigerland parking lot at 2:15 a.m. The questionably sober driver in front of you slams on their brakes for no reason. You rear-end their car but do not damage it. However, your car has a dent and a scratch.
If your car is the BMW Z4 you have to call daddy, take it to a mechanic, and fork over hundreds of dollars to get it back to perfect.
If your car is, however, say a 1990 Honda Accord, you just shrug yourshoulders and head over to Jack In The Box without a second thought.
I encourage all of you to investigate for yourself the joys of owning a really old car. Go ahead, swallow your pride, and learn what I have come to find out: in the words of Mick Jagger, you can’t always get what youwant, but sometimes you just might find you get what you need.