Car shopping for a crossed-out generation

I've discovered a certain kind of crisis comes about when it comes to buying a car at middle age. I remember thoroughly ridiculing my elders in the 1980s as balding, rotund men went about buying either 1960s era Mustangs they never owned or the modern Corvettes they shouldn't own. "Act your age and get a Buick!" I'd say. I swore to myself while listening to Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" that this would never, ever happen to me. I would be a very practical adult, so said I, with a primary focus on efficient transportation and minimal bling. Like my grandfather.

Ha! Boy was I wrong. About everything.

While Grandpa did own a 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup (with the 3 gear steering column controlled transmission) and a small, practical 1970s-era Datsun (which he referred to by a nasty insult for the Japanese he fought in the War), he also had his own way of being very impractical. For in his garage he had a large gas-guzzling V8 sedan from GM. A car for family road trips. A Sunday service car. A deacon's car. A union boss' car. For grandpa's generation, a huge Detroit luxury car was as much a vanity as my father's strange love of Burt Reynold's Firebird Trans-Am.

Car shopping is bringing about conflicting emotions and complex decision trees. My values are up against my passions. My pragmatism is up against memories of things left undone. Now that I've test driven a few vehicles, I know for certain that the auto manufacturers know this. They are after me. They are after all of us. They are going to win.

Follow me below the fold.