Adventures in Car Buying - Backstory

I am addicted to cars. And trucks. And motorcycles. And occasionally bicycles, modern and vintage wrist watches, tablet computers, cell phone cameras, running shoes, dog breeds, airline tickets, jackets (rain, winter, and leather), hi-fi stereos, or anything else I happen to desperately need in that moment.

My addiction is fed, but indeed never sated, through endless searching; stating and restating requirements describing vague and fleeting moods with the goal of either identifying the perfect thing, or determining at what cost that thing should be bought.

Stimulation and pleasure are found in the hunt, and then in the kill, rather than from hanging a trophy on my wrist or parking it in the garage.

But I now find myself in the position, and oddly uncomfortably so, of needing to finally commit and transact on a car for Nura.

I say uncomfortable because for me the perfect car changes not on a yearly or monthly basis, but on a daily and occasionally hourly cadence. On Monday morning at 9:00, the most perfect car in the world; the quick and quiet, capable and reliable, sexy and understated machine that will literally bring about world peace is a clear and unconscionable error in judgement well before noon.

Normally I would simply defer to Nura to pick out the car. It will be her daily driver after all. But few things in this world register as less appealing for Nura than car shopping.

List of things Nura would rather do than shop for cars:

• Hang out at Wal-Mart
• Volunteer customer service
• Putting down pound puppies
• Talk to vegans

And so the task falls to me: Identify a car befitting of her current and potential future needs, is exciting for her, and fits the budget.

I'll try to talk about the process and the findings here until we finally buy.


List of potential cars for Nura:

Pontiac Aztek

Trix Donk

Nissan Juke

Toyota Prius