Buying a car, the end is in sight

In some ways, having a searchable history can be quite bothersome. It can make it far too easy to find things like buying a new car (from late April of 2004). I guess there should be little wonder that my kids now think I'll buy a new car at around approximately never. Sadly, I've been at this for nearly a year and half and yet, the end is now at hand, I've ordered my car.

My problem was really quite simple. Cars are boring. They're all more or less the same thing everywhere you go.

After many months of looking around I was sick of the dealers and bored out of my mind by the cars I might reasonably afford. I drove a lot of cars, checked out many more online and found nothing that would make me part with money for any of them. I'd rather buy a dump truck. So I gave it up and continued driving my mind numbing old Civic.

This past summer, I started getting interested in convertibles. I'd always wanted one, but had never gone that way (still remembering a bad experience my mom had when I was just a lad). I did know they were all driving pigs (poor cousins to their hard headed progeny) but figured I'd look anyway. While doing research on convertibles, I started reading some pretty amazing things about the '05 Mustang.

What I remembered was how Ford had gutted the Mustang and turned it into a little more than a Pinto+ (a long time ago), and then they'd screwed up the way it looked and finally morphed it into a kiddie car. A safe car for an adventurous daughter perhaps (if you couldn't afford the T-Bird) but nothing I'd ever be interested in.

Still, my Mustang loving friends had been telling me for years that it was getting better, even if I wasn't seeing it.

2005 was the year of the big transition and a lot people noticed (last I heard they sold 80,000 more units last year). What really captured peoples attention? Ford ditched the old Fox platform and started anew there. They also reshaped the car to make it look like a lot more like a classic Mustang. In the end, it was reviews like this from Road and Track (along with this collection at Edmunds and even this award) that really piqued my interest. The highlights:

• A whole new platform, both wider and longer
• A retro look, outside and in
• Short throw stick

And then I drove a few in various places. Once I got to drive the V8, it got even better.

Along the way, I accidently fell in love all over again with a car I'd written off thirty years ago. And love is precisely the wrong place to be if trying to negotiate a sale according to my informed car buying friends. With them, it's all about the negotiation, buying off the lot and making the dealer make concessions. Their car might as well be a toaster for all the joy they get out of it. What's the point of that?

I'll admit that I was out of luck when it came to a deal of any kind because I had to custom order a car that dealers can hardly keep on their lots anyway. This is fiscally backwards when you consider the dealer perks, a guaranteed sale still comes with factory financed 'lot time' even though the car is in and out pronto (the buyer has to guarantee via some sort of deposit). At the same time, Ford is generating demand for the GT to back up by sending out all these GT's with automatic transmissions (good grief, what's the point of a V8 automatic?) and limiting deliveries. I can't say I disagree. The Mustang is in demand and controlling inventory to keep that demand high is a reasonable thing.

What won me over?

The look, from the body styles to the gauges certainly brings back memories. The changes in the basic platform are more important including nearly 6" more width and 5" more length, making for a more road worthy vehicle. The short throw stick on the manual transmission was a big driving win (in my limited experience, it's an easy stick). The most important thing they've done was to build a great convertible and attach a top (making it better) rather than the other way around.

The big deal in my purchase? My insistence that I would not take a car with a rear spoiler. I could have had many cars that nearly fit my request, but I just couldn't. The spoiler just breaks up the look and really detracts from the view from behind; it's the only really idiotic feature on the car.

It's all history at this point. There's a bare frame in Michigan that has my name on it now.

Posted by Dave at October 14, 2005 10:55 PM