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Finally sold the E24 a few weeks ago. I’d been on the fence about selling it for a while, and gone back and forth more than enough times to make Diane uncomfortable about the stability of my intentions with respect to the car, but finally, firmly decided to sell it.

Why? For the reasons enumerated here, along with a few extras:

• Diane’s always hated the car’s color (white), and even I would concede it didn’t flatter the car’s lines,
• Something with four doors is vastly easier to get the kids into (the 6er had two),
• The E24 would have been very difficult to teach Diane how to drive, being a particularly finicky manual,
• I was absolutely paranoid all winter every time I had to drive the car through the salty slush–the BMW rustproofing of that era was notoriously bad, and
• It required too much cash to be brought up to a level where I felt like it looked acceptable visually. It was the kind of car that was so good-looking that you were doubly motivated to spend money to get it “all the way there,” so to speak. Less attractive cars can “stop” in a less demanding visual state.

I was all set to trade it for an Audi 200, but the would-be seller lost interest. After a few weeks of poking around, the net result of the car wrangling is detailed here. It’s a perfect car for us–stickshift and RWD to satisfy my “needs” as an enthusiast, much better rustproofing, four doors, less tempting to “improve” mechanically and cosmetically, and Diane loves the color and the shape. It worked out really well, and I’m grateful to my parents for setting us up with the opportunity to get it.

However, my enthusiasm for the car is tempered by the fact that it’s not quite as classic, not quite as “interesting” as the E24. I think this is a good thing–my time spent thinking about the older car was approaching excessive levels in those last few months. I’ve been a car buff for years and years; I know how my emotions respond to these things, and I should have known better–I should have known how wrapped up I would get in the car and staved things off from the beginning by getting a different car or, heaven forbid, keeping the one we had at the time. I made a bad decision, and I own that. Doesn’t lessen my gratitude for how well things turned out. I certainly didn’t deserve for them to.

A side effect of all this, combined with my “rediscovery” of my journal and rereading past entries, is that my emotional desire to pursue a specific interest has been blown wide open again. During the past nine months (the span of ownership of the E24), my emotional focus was “dialed in” to the car and my attention to other spheres of interest faded proportionally. But now I’m all over the map again as far as my feelings as concerned. The funny thing is, I don’t feel unstable or unpredictable. The insecurity I used to feel when I thought about how strongly I felt about so many interests that often seemed to pull me in mutually-exclusive directions is gone. I just feel liberated. I feel like my life has been greatly simplified, and if you know me at all you know that I love the scope of my life in any given moment to be simple–even though it rarely is.

Where to go from here? The Lord knows. We’ve got a plan to purchase a house early next year, send the kids to school and invest in our church and community. What happens in the periphery only time will tell.

I feel a weird sense of similarity between my emotions about our family’s financial state and my impression of the current political landscape.

The car purchase referenced a few posts down fell through—not because of any reluctance on the part of the seller; rather, what little sense I had in the whole affair prevailed upon me to get a local 6er enthusiast to do a pre-purchase inspection before committing to buy the car and flying out to Texas (yes, that Texas) to pick it up and drive it home. The car was a wreck. The paint job looked good in pictures but in person was terrible, the engine bay was a mess, the seats were okay but the rest of the interior was slipshod, the rims were trashed and the rear valence was missing from the bumper conversion. Needless to say, I passed. However, we’d already been approved for the loan and the money was just sitting in our account—something that can be a recipe for disaster if not checked.

My natural propensity toward researching and investigating potential car purchases has run wild for the past couple of days, but now I’m finally coming around. The loan money will be repaid and car projects relegated to a future time. It felt profoundly irresponsible of me to be consider burdening our family with more debt, considering:

1. Our first priority, financially, is a house purchase. We need to save all the money we can, and work on our credit. Extra debt may not derail those efforts, but it’ll make them more challenging.
2. I can’t afford to get distracted any farther from my family by a car. By the grace of God, with the E24 purchase a good balance has been struck between car hobby time and family time, and the process of another car purchase would threaten to upset that balance, if not do it outright.
3. It’s Christmas and birthday season. Car purchases always involve incidentals here and there, money we’ll need to help out in an already tight season.
4. And maybe the biggest reason: There’s an unrestored 1972 Datsun 240Z sitting in my parents’ garage. It’s mine; my dad bought it new in 1972 and gave me the keys when I graduated from college. I can’t sell it; it’s been in the family for almost 40 years. It needs restoration, and I can’t devote all my attention to some new car and let the Z languish. Just can’t happen. That project takes precedence. So while my daily driver can be fun and interesting, I have to look at the big picture.

The connection with my impression of the political scene is tenuous, I’ll admit. Congress and the administration, among many, many other faults and wrong ideas, have completely lost sight of the big picture with the health care nonsense. They’re making very foolish decisions with our money in a time when the financial position of the country is incredibly precarious. Our family financial situation isn’t bad, but it’s never the wrong time to make wise money choices, and at the moment, taking risks isn’t one of them.

Things are moving forward with a potential new car. It’s a couple of states over, but there’s a local enthusiast who’s promised to scope it out for me tomorrow, so that should give me a pretty solid idea of what I’d be getting into. It’s not like I’ve never bought a car sight unseen—I’ve actually done it twice before, once with the first RX-7 (a.k.a. The Great Pennsylvania Adventure Part I) and the second time with the Supra (the purchase of which was followed by a great drive from Atlanta back down to St. Augustine). We’ll see what happens. I’m excited but tempering my expectations about it all. One thing at a time and if it doesn’t happen, I won’t lose sleep over it.

The advantages of it over my current car are several. The most significant is that it’s an automatic—bummer for me (at least until I have the time and space to swap in a 5-speed, an easy enough task), but Diane will be able to drive the car from the get-go, so either it or the van will be able to be fully functional as our primary car should something happen to the other. Beyond that, it looks exactly like my eventual goal for my current car, and I do mean exactly. Right color, right bumpers, right rims, right spoiler, right everything (except lowering—again, easy to accomplish). Not to mention the fact that the interior is in much better shape than mine: The dash is only cracked in one or two places and the seats and headliner are in excellent shape. So no cash outlay there either. From what I can tell, assuming I maintain the exterior and interior in as good condition as they appear to be, the only potential issues would be mechanical ones, which I am much less intimidated by than cosmetic ones. So in the long run, it has the potential to save us a lot of money. It’s really the working out of what most car enthusiasts of any stripe will tell you: The best way to modify your car is to buy one that’s already been modified. We never (read: NEVER) get all our invested money back when we sell these cars.

Unbelievably gorgeous. Was there ever a car made with more appealing proportions? One day, mine will be there…

Bartering services is a tricky thing, I’m finding out. I do Web and graphic design and tutoring on the side to supplement my day job’s income, and recently connected (through my car community) with a pair of guys who run a car restoration outfit and car care products retailer. I e-mailed them asking if they needed help with their websites, since the ones they had up looked pretty bare-bones. I do “cold e-mailing” from time to time and don’t usually get a response, so I was pleased when they wrote back, interested in working out a deal.

They’re relatively cashless, and my car needs a little work here and there, so we’re in the process of working out a deal whereby I provide them Web design services and they tackle a few projects my car’s been needing… But good gravy, it’s hard to come to an agreement.

First of all there needs to be agreement on the value of the services provided. When dealing in cash the process just ends there, since everybody wants money; that’s the advantage of it. But to barter services we both have to be in agreement about the nature of the services provided as compensation, too… And there’s the rub. There’s one thing I want for my car, quite badly: the bumper conversion mentioned a few posts down. And they’re unwilling to tackle it, for a number of reasons. So I’m disappointed about that, and conflicted as well, since I really do want to design their websites—it would give me a chance to “make a name for myself,” as it were, in the car community I frequent, among other things. But I don’t want to sell myself short. I’ve done Web design for quite a while now and know how these things can balloon and spiral out of control.

So we’ll see what happens. The ball’s in their court at the moment. I sent them at e-mail last night relenting from my dogged pursuit of the bumper swap, or at least of having them do it. I hope we can work something out.

Replaced the 6er’s water pump and thermostat over the weekend. It was a fairly straightforward job. Other than the fan nut—a 32mm nut securing the radiator fan to the water pump pulley, reverse-threaded—there was nothing unconventional about the setup at all. This differs greatly from other water pump jobs I’ve done: The Audi’s was driven by the timing belt, requiring a re-time after reinstalling the crank pulley (ugh), and the Volvo’s had to be installed dry (no silicone) and leveraged into position against the cylinder head. The 6er’s water pump was blessedly ordinary in comparison. Got everything buttoned up late last night and drove it to work this morning; everything’s nominal. The car doesn’t leak a drop any more and cools very well—too well, almost, since I got a cooler thermostat. But it runs great, which is a nice feeling.

The big news on the upgrade front this weekend is progress finding Euro bumpers. My car came with massive US-spec “diving board” crash bumpers. They protect the car; it’s true, but mar its appearance in ways unacceptable to me, as a designer. Aftermarket replacements are nonexistent, so for those interesting in making their 6er look like it was supposed to, there are three solutions:

1. 1982-1987 E28-chassis “wraparound”-style Euro bumpers
2. 1976-1981 E12-chassis Euro bumpers
3. 1988-1989 “world” bumpers

I wrote this on a 6er-related forum:

Can’t stand ’em. Especially on a white car… The contrast of the white paint and the black moldings just makes them stand out all the more. It’s just a tragedy of function over form. On an E28, E23 or E30 they’re more palatable, but on our 6ers, which we buy (let’s be honest) for their looks more than anything else–not that other factors aren’t important–the bumpers are just a sin.

I completely appreciate the added protection they provide. Totally get that. But at the end of the day, using that argument as the primary one to placate myself into being okay with them is like justifying the purchase of one sports car over another based solely on trunk size. When it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a minor reason—at best.

I have got to get different bumpers on it. Euros transform the way these cars look. They actually improve the already gorgeous lines of the car. World bumpers are neutral, and US-spec bumpers detract from the lines.

Something’s just gotta be done to my 6er in this regard. I want to do it before I do any other appearance-related mods (rims, lowering, spoiler, etc). I know the hassle involved–especially with Euro bumpers–but I’m one motivated individual.

As mentioned above, the big news this weekend on the bumper front was progress: I found a gentleman willing to part with his E12-chassis Euro bumpers and deliver them for $350. We’ll see if anything ultimately comes of that. Here’s hoping…