1995 Honda Civic EX. That's not mine, but looks like what mine used to look like. Oh, and mine isn't black. It's teal.If you know me, you know I'm not so into stuff. I'm not into designer fashions; I like clothes, but don't care who made them. I don't have to have the latest techie gadget; my iPod is probably 6 years old and my cell phone doesn't have all the bells and whistles most of my friends' phones have.
And I have never cared that the car I drive is 15 years old. Actually, it's 16 years old, based on the fact that it hit the road in October 1994. I love my 1995 Honda Civic EX. I don't care that it looks like it's falling apart and hasn't aged gracefully. Many wonderful things in life age less gracefully than we'd want. If you look under the hood, you'll see that it's beautiful, runs like a dream and gets 30 mpg or more.
I've loved this car since the moment I bought it used in February 1997. It's a 5-speed and has been a blast to drive. Whether I was driving through the Shenandoah Valley outside Washington DC, the gridlock of Chicago, or M-22 in Northern Michigan, my Honda Civic hugged curves and had the power to easily traverse the hills and mountains. For the most part, my Honda has been pretty inexpensive to maintain. I figured out that between car payments and maintenance, the car has cost me about $1700 annually. Considering it's got 133,000 miles on it, I think that's pretty reasonable.
My Honda took me back and forth between DC and Chicago a few times. In fact, the 5-speed may be partly responsible for keeping me awake when I drove moved to Chicago in May 2000 while in the midst of having mono. We journeyed to Florida once, Watervale many times, and a gazillion trips around the DC Beltway and throughout the Chicago region. It's even still got my 2000 Alexandria City sticker in the center of the front windshield. I just couldn't ever take it off. Until today.
But now it's time to say good bye to my Honda. Tomorrow at 10am I'm getting a new car. I'm superstitious and won't give you any details about my new car yet. I'll just say that I'm very excited about it. Among other things today I'll take my Honda out for one more drive, clean it out and then send it with good energy to its new owner.
I feel your pain. We still have our 1985 Saab 900 with almost 250,000 miles on it because we didn't have the heart to sell it when we got our most recent vehicle. It has issues that would be expensive to fix. But the sentimental attachment is still strong. ;-) Enjoy your new car, you deserve it after all this time. Perhaps someone else will still enjoy your old one for awhile longer.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about your old car! I feel the same way about my old, tan Camry that I got used but in good condition, and also my silver Corolla I had at LFC - that Corolla got me everywhere, from Baltimore to California, to Arizona and Texas (I had 200,000+ miles on that thing, and never had a problem with it, thanks to routine, preventative maintenance).
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