Herd Thinning

Purging unneeded items has become a bit of the thing for Boo and me. When we moved from the house next door, our square footage dropped by over 20%. We have been steadily selling off, donating or otherwise dumping belongings ever since. On the inside and in the yards, things are approaching the uncluttered aesthetic we both like. But, the cars hadn't reached that point until now. In posts earlier this summer, I about lamented how many vehicles I had. Such a first-world problem I look back on with some embarrassment. Since then, I have thinned the number of cars down to something manageable. So, today, we'll walk through those cars which are no longer with us.

Jetta Wagon
My step son K bought a 2001 TDI Wagon with an auto-trans 3 years ago. It ran very well for the first year before the transmission started acting up to the point where it would not go into reverse unless it was warmed up. So, he was driving it, but reversing to park everywhere. Sometimes, that's not exactly easy. So, after a few months of that, he backed it into our driveway. Almost 18 months later, he has moved it again, this time to where he's living, but the transmission is still bad. The picture to the right here was after Boo spent a day cleaning it at the end of it's 18 month visit. K's wagon may be coming back for a transmission swap, but, hopefully not until next summer, if then.

Nemo - the A4

The A4 was T's replacement for the white Jeep Cherokee (Jaws) that he sold. There have been a few posts about getting this car back operational, but few pictures. This one here is as T left for school where Nemo is now (see Let's See). I think the radiator is getting replaced as I write this.

DonorZ
At the peak of the car-jam, I had 2 280ZX's. The DonorZ gave us a complete interior (except headliner), some replacement tail lights, and a few other odds and ends. It was sold to a 280ZX collector / restorer based out of Hillsboro.

Dude

Dude was a gold 2001 Saturn SC2 that Boo had owned for 17 years. We had initially freed it from our yard by lending it to a friend who needed a car. He used it to drive fellow elderly residents to appointments and the grocery store. Unfortunately, the frequency and severity of property crime in SouthEast Portland has only gotten worse since I lived there. Our beloved Dude, which you could start by putting a slotted screwdriver into the ignition, was stolen from outside the 55+ living facility where our friend lived. The genius who stole it destroyed the ignition cylinder and the entire steering column, only to leave the car and his tools in plain sight. The police found and impounded the car within 24 hours of it being stolen, tools and all. At the yard, it was clear that the ignition and steering could not easily be restored, so the car was classified as "totaled". We miss you, Dude.

FR-S

2 years ago, I broke down while driving Hapy to my old job (see Running on Empty). Boo and I had just been struggling with other cars and we found ourselves with one car and 2 people who needed auto-transpo just to get to work. We were at our wits end for broken cars so, enter the FR-S. I haven't really posted about that car. We bought it from a used lot down in Salem after we were bait-switched for a different one with fewer miles, and an automatic transmission. "You didn't really want that one," the scum-salesman said. Actually, we wanted an automatic for Boo to drive since she was spending a lot of time in stop-and-go traffic and the shifting was aggravating her shoulder. Anyway, we got the car and drove it a little here and a little there. Even back when Flash's clutch failed (See Oh Clutch), we really didn't drive him. Mostly, my job change shortly after purchasing it reduced our need: I take the train to work now. So, 2 years and less than 10k miles later (actually about 15k kilometers for everyone NOT in the US), we sold it off. Between the payments and the insurance, it is a car we didn't need and a luxury we no longer felt driven to pay for. Pardon the pun.

What's Left
So, with all of those cars no longer around, our driveway is uncharacteristically empty. We have Hapy, the bus which launched this blog, stored under the BusDepot bus-cover for the winter. We have Oliver, the MGB, in the garage waiting to get the interior done. We have the keeperZ (who still needs a name) in the other garage bay steadily getting closer to paint. And, of course, we have Flash, the TDI-powered Jetta that got me turned on to turbo-diesels in the first place.

Approaching Blog Silence
The work on the Zed is going to be long and not terribly post-worthy for a while. I have a few more areas to strip and then it's body-fill and sand time. I may take a break to do some things on Oliver's interior, but even that may pause in case we need to drive him now that we're down to one operational car. So, there could be a break in my regular posts since there won't be much to post about. In the event I suspend posts while I generate new content have a Hapy ThanksGiving, White Friday and seasonal Holidays.

Thanks for following along.