What Car Should a Gheorghie Drive: zEdition

 I like cars.  Always have.  Some of my earliest memories revolve around my father's 1969 Butternut Yellow Chevrolet Impala convertible which as much a member of the family as any human being ever was.  I do not take poetic license I say "earliest memories"--I remember driving along the West Side Highway with the top down (it was always down) and an American flag flying from the antenna to celebrate the Bicentennial.  That car was more than a car, it was the first big purchase my father made after he graduated college and got a job, and for a young man who came here in the 1950s (as a refugee, really) it allowed him to tell the world that he made it.  As a result I've always had a fondness for big American V8s and convertibles.  If you think you don't like convertibles you're wrong.  You've just been driving them in the sun too much.  Convertibles peak at night.

On my 48th birthday I realized that this ride called life is about halfway over and that bothered me.  I'm also bothered by the way things are changing.  Our political system is a mess and our democracy might implode in a few years.  Liner notes don't exist.  Our economy appears to be on the brink of collapse.  Former pro athletes who are younger than me have sons who are now pro athletes.  Terrible viruses pop up out of nowhere.  My kids have no concept of live TV.  

I have automotive anxieties too.  I will never be able to afford an air-cooled 911.  New cars don't have buttons anymore, it's all touch screens.  In ten years all new cars will be massive lozenge-shaped electronic transportation pods that drive themselves without your involvement so that you and six other people can stream movies to your phones or tablets while the pod delivers you to your destination.  Don't even get me started on the dearth of cool car colors.

Or the dearth of cars!  Everything is an SUV now and I have no idea why.  I'm sure all of you have one but you shouldn't.  The trunks are not bigger than a wagon's and the center of gravity is too high.  They are a study in bad proportion.  Who looks at this and says "Yes!  Take my $100,000 now!"  Someday we will look back at these massively stretched front grills and laugh at them like tailfins from the 1950s.

And there are no sports cars!  In 1995, Nissan sold the 300ZX, 240SX, 200SX, and the Sentra SE-R.  Honda had the Civic Si, Civic Del Sol, and Prelude.  Toyota had the Celica, Supra, and a go-fast version of the Corolla.  Even frickin' Mazda had the MX-3, MX-6, Miata, and RX-7.  Today?  Nissan has the Z, Honda has the Civic Si, Toyota has the Supra, and Mazda has the Miata.  And no one buys any of them.

All of this makes me feel sad and old.  So I yearn for an analog car to take me back to simpler days when my future was big and bright and exciting.

But I also hate to let people down.  Part of this translates into saving, rather than spending, to assure that I will never come up short if my family needs something.  I currently drive a VW Golf Alltrack that costs me $323 a month (financed at 0%) and has a 6 year/60k mile warranty, a trunk bigger than your SUV, and storms through snow with aplomb.  It pulls 0.84 g on the skidpad, which is pretty crazy considering that a Ferrari Testarossa pulls 0.87 g.  You can't find a better deal--you probably pay more each month on your cable/internet bill, or your cell phone family plan.  So I can't justify spending a lot of money on a toy car.

My financial advisor likes cars too, we met in the parking garage of our building when he pulled in with his 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible.  In our last meeting I joked about buying a toy car but he replied seriously with something like "You know cars.  Go get something you will enjoy and that will hold value.  It's a durable good!  Think of it as a way to diversify your portfolio."  He gave me a price range to work with and I started thinking and perusing BringaTrailer.com. 

The first car I ever remember seeing and saying "Whoa!  This changes everything!" was the 1984 Corvette.  This was the fourth generation of the model so it's referred to as the C4.  It looked like Chevy took a paring knife to a C3 to whittle away all the excess geegaws and indulgences of the 1970s and wound up with a land-going missile.  There are no fender flares, no flying buttresses, no ducktails.  There is zero chrome.  When viewed in profile its pointed nose and notched back make it look like an arrow shot from Artemis's bow, especially the convertible. 

Car & Driver previewed the gonzo ZR-1 version of the C4 in their October 1988 issue.

This issue also featured the only letter I've ever written that anyone ever published.

I can explain in the comments why that's funny if anyone cares.  The ZR-1 captivated me.  It had an engine made by Mercury Marine churning out 375 horsepower and Lotus helped design the whole thing using their Formula 1 experience.  It was faster than just about anything from German or Italy but it didn't stand out.  Aside from the square tail lights it looked just like a regular C4, and after a year or two all C4s had the square tail lights.  Stealth speed!

In high school I wrote my AP English term paper on the history of the Corvette.  It held my interest any my teacher's--she gave me an A and wrote me a letter of recommendation that helped me get into W&M.

All this is to say I've been a C4 ZR-1 fan for a long time.  It seems like I should drive a 1994 Corvette ZR-1 in Polo Green over beige.  And I almost did. 

But I waffled.  This is the right ZR-1.  It's crispy as hell but with 48k miles you can actually drive it without incurring serious depreciation.  These used to sell for $20k to $25k but the vintage car market is up and so are ZR-1 prices.  This one hammered at $32k and for me that's just too much for a 28-year-old car that has a lot of rare (only about 6900 were made) fussy parts that you probably can't get at your local Chevy dealer.  This one won an award or two so the owner is really more of a caretaker than a driver.  I absolutely would love to drive this, but it isn't my WCSAGD.

My real weakness is small, light roadsters like the Lotus Elan which inspired the Mazda Miata.  Owning an Elan is like owning a sailboat, you're constantly throwing money at it, and I already had a Miata.  I want something relatively reliable with readily available parts and that service stations know how to repair.  I also want something interesting--I love cars with five cylinders, French cars, three-wheelers, anything that involves a different engineering take on the automotive experience.  In a perfect world I would have a Porsche 959 in my garage but that isn't in the cards.

I should drive a 2004 Porsche Boxster S in Lago green over Savannah Beige with a black top and basket wheels.

And now I do.

2004 was the last year of the first generation Boxster, the 986.  The S version has a 3.2 liter flat-6 good for 258 horsepower.  That isn't a ton of oomph these days, but it only has to push around 2,911 pounds of car.  Flat, or horizontally-opposed, engines are cool.  They make it easier to fit more cylinders in a tight space like a V, but because they're flat they allow for a lower center of gravity.

I've owned a flat-4 and a straight-6 but never a flat-6, until now.  

Even cooler: the Boxster is mid-engined.  This means that the engine sits between the driver's back and the rear axle, exactly where God and Isaac Newton intended.  Putting the engine there puts most of the car's weight there, which means it handles really well.

A mid-engined, flat-6, rear-wheel-drive, two-seater convertible?  Sounds like a different automotive take to me.

I still have to figure out OBX Dave's car, but the rest of you have already been given your assignments.  Go out there and get your WCSAGD.