1972 BMW 2002
I took it for a ride and found that despite it's advanced age, there were absolutely no buzzes or rattles anywhere throughout the vehicle (a quality I must confess to have been lacking in all the Renaults I'd ever driven). Although this car was effectively rust-free, I knew that the model had a propensity to rust out badly. At the time I did not consider that this was in direct contradiction to the reputation for longevity.
At this point in my life and emotional maturity, I was still letting my enthusiasm get the better of me. A BMW 2002 would have been an okay choice for a collectible car, but it was clearly a very poor choice for what I needed. Despite this fact, I was seduced by the thought of something new and different. I was essentially powerless not to buy it. They wanted $3500 for it, which was not terribly high, but it did require refinancing my current car loan to include the purchase price of the 2002 and the remaining balance on the Alliance. This marked the first time that I had two cars on the road at the same time.
From virtually the first day I bought the car I regretted it. I had to get a number of things taken care of in the first few weeks I owned it. And since the dealership was an hour west of Syracuse, I couldn't just take it back to them. I tried to get them to reimburse me, and they did so at what would have been their cost, which was a fraction of what I had spent.
It soon became evident that the 2002's reputation for longevity did not translate into trouble-free driving. Although the engine and drive train were strong, the car required constant attention in myriad other areas. It got to the point that I was driving it less than the Alliance for fear that more things would continue to go wrong. This completely defeated the purpose of acquiring the car in the first place.
My strategy towards the car soon changed. I decided that rather than use it as my work horse I would baby it as best I could and try to sell it for as close to the original price as possible. But at this point Winter was approaching and it appeared that I would be moving to Ithaca. I decided to sit tight for the time being.
I did, in fact, wind up relocating to Ithaca, and I moved both the Alliance and the BMW with me. Fortunately I found an apartment that had a garage, and I was able to store the 2002 safely away for the winter. But I quickly got tired of having to scapre ice off the Alliance every damn morning, so I put the BMW outside. This was a poor decision. The paint started to fade, and the rest of the car began to deteriorate along with it. Water was leaking in the corners of the windshield, which soaked the floor boards. There were times that there was an inch of water on the floor of the car for days and weeks at a time. But I was basically past the point of caring. I wasn't driving the car at all anymore.
Eventually I moved out of the apartment, and brought the BMW to my new place. There I had no garage at all, so it was still outside all the time. It was quickly getting worse and worse and worse. I wanted to sell it, but it was impossible to keep all the little problems fixed at any one time. I knew it would be hard to sell at all, and certainly impossible if it had any kind of problem. The car was a curse. It was an albatross around my neck. I wanted it to be over with.
By the second Summer in the new place, I decided I had to be rid of this once and for all. I put all my energies into it, and was able to get all the problems fixed. Before anything else could go wrong, I put it up for sale. I was within a stones throw of the Cornell campus at the time, and I put the car on a busy street with a "for sale" sign in it. I was lucky enough that some blonde co-ed saw it and thought it was cute. She gave me some low-ball offer, and I took it eagerly. I knew it was basically worthless. I should have cared that I stuck her with it. I should have cared that this was very bad karma for me. But I didn't care. I was so glad to be rid of it that nothing else mattered.
The only upshot of all this was that I finally learned my lesson. I still had a dangerous sense of romanticism around cars, but I knew better what I would be getting myself into if I ever went down this path again.