Car Talk

My Hyundai lease is nearing its end, and I've begun thinking about my next car. I think I'm coming full circle... My first car was one my Dad bought for me: a 1978 carmine red Firebird. It was the coolest car anyone in my high school had, and reflected that Dad was doing great financially, and I was a model son. Dad spoiled me in ways he wished he was spoiled, and the car was the epitome of that. Of course, when I got to the U the next year, and saw all the kids with Porsches and Mercedes and Corvettes, I immediately learned that being spoiled, like all else in life, was relative. Still, that car got me all through college and most of law school, although, in retrospect, it was mechanically a piece of crap. It would stall all the time, and represented the worst of GM in the late 70s... After the Firebird was wrecked by a lawyer's daughter in North Miami running a red light, I sold it and took Mom's old Buick Century. She got a new car, and I took over hers. The low point in owning that ugly 80s box was when our friend Elizabeth came for a visit, and assumed it was a car my law firm had given me to drive -- she didn't think people under 30 actually drove Buicks... Next up was a great and practical Mazda 626. We bought it for Wifey, but then I took it over when D1 was born, and Wifey quit working. We so loved Mazdas, we bought her a Mazda 323, which we replaced when D2 came along with a Mazda van. Ah, the days of mommy vehicles. I then leased my first near luxury car -- a Mitsubishi Diamante. It cost $299 per month, nothing down, and had leather seats and a cd player. That car was great, and I had it when Paul and I started the firm. Paul convinced me that our image required luxury cars, and so I gave the Diamante to Paul's son Alex to drive (he was still in high school) and I leased a '94 Jaguar. Years before, when the Firebird was in the shop, I was driving a Dodge Omni, the cheapest of economy cars. I held forth about how no one really needed any more expensive car than that -- it had a great AC and stereo. I drove Dr. Eric, always more into cars than I was, and shared my philosophy. When I picked him up in the Jaguar, he looked at me and said "Wow --this is quite a Dodge Omni." He was right, of course, I was full of it. During the next years, I drove a second Jaguar, a Cadillac DTS (getting in touch with my inner Tony Soprano), a total of 3 big Lexuses, and a BMW 740 IL. The last was by far the most expensive, and my old boss Ed had a 740, so in some subtle one upmanship, I got the bigger and more expensive IL... Well now I am considering the unthinkable, at least according to my lawyer friends and D1: I may lease the most pedestrian of all cars: a Toyota Camry. I'll get a hybrid, so maybe that will mean some green cred, but I drove one yesterday, and it was terrific. Plus, all the reviews say it's a great car, and I look forward to nearly 40 mpg... My friend Joel came by yesterday, in his navy blue or black (I can never tell) Porsche 911. He's a young criminal defense lawyer on the make, and has to drive the image car, as I did when the firm was up and coming. He told me getting a Camry would be the ultimate F-U -- that it was a message to my peers that I truly didn't care about my image... We'll see. I went to Kendall Toyota yesterday, and endured some of the awful psychology. The salesman, barely conversant in English, showed me a car and then happily said I could have it for about $600 per month -- "sign and drive." Ha. I asked where the BMW 5 Series was -- that's what one of those costs. The Camry Hybrid should be about $350 per month. So the next car will be much cheaper and gas efficient -- either a Sonata Hybrid or the car of the people -- the Camry. I have a feeling that chicks will still dig me, whatever I drive...