A shift in priority...

Back in 1995, I purchased my first brand new car, a shiny red Acura Integra GS-R. That car became my pride and joy. I washed it carefully, and often. I kept it clean. I drove it hard. I loved it, and even made a website which at the time was pretty popular, with well over 1000 hits a day. I've met many folks who said they got into Integras because of my website. My 15 minutes, I guess. :)

Even back then, though, I knew that I would be keeping the car for a good long time, and most likely running it until it fell apart. Unfortunately, I gave it some assistance in that in the form of several accidents, most of which (I'm not too proud to say) were my fault. (me and those damned deer)

So, now, going on 13 years down the road, that same car has over 208,000 miles, most of the "go-fast" parts I put on it have been removed, and with me taking the SEPTA train to work, it barely even gets driven anymore. That's probably good, too, since as I mentioned in a previous post, it recently failed inspection for some rust holes. Back in the day, I might have brought it to a body shop -- if I even let the rust happen in the first place -- but now, I used whatever materials I had on hand to slap together a repair so that it would pass inspection and that would be that.

In some ways, it's sad to see how my priorities have shifted away from the car which used to be such a valuable thing for me. In other ways, though, I've owned no car for longer, and considering how I treated this car, the fact that it has MADE it to over 200k miles and to an age where it could be the neglected beater car is very telling as to the car's durability and quality. Matter of fact, when it looked like it might be time to start looking for our next car, to replace this one, one of the first searches I did was for another Integra in the same year range. I'd lose the sunroof (tall guy needs his headroom) and wouldn't bother with the VTEC engine, but the Integra just works so well for us... our next car very likely could be another Integra.