lol-- my vehicle is definitely my accessory. I grew up hearing stories about my mother and her best friend's escapades in a similar old bug (they would plow snow with it and the weirdest close-to-being-arrested story I have ever heard happened in it). So, of course, I was totally in love with the old bugs in my teens. My mother was a bit spoiled in her youth as she drove a '68 mustang for 10 years before she decided it was too hard to put 2 carseats in-- it was her high school graduation present. I remember that car--- sigh . . .
Anyway, my first car was a '83 Bronco II that had an electronic carburetor that was pretty much a failure from the beginning and they no longer repair. If you let it idle, it would die as soon as you put you foot on the gas--- so, stop at a stop sign and you would kill it in the middle of an intersection. The only solution was to drive with both feet and constantly rev the engine while holding the break-- cops weren't a fan of that. Other than that, the windshield leaked onto the drivers seat and floorboard (and I lived in CO) and it had no cigarette lighter or tape deck, just a radio. I was the kid the ran around town with the windows down, revving the engine and blasting oldies country and metal on the radio. We lived in a pretty wealthy community where many of the kids drove Hummers and mustangs to school, so I was pretty much the only student with a beater car that didn't do a lot of drugs. I loved that car, but unfortunately there was no way I could travel back and forth from college the 800 miles on the Interstate in it-- especially since the care went about 55 mph tops--- got 33 mpg though!
Then I had a series of small SUVs that were slightly newer, but were cursed-- I ended up with a blown engine and a bad tranny due to being bought secondhand and other people's dishonesty.
My current vehicle is a 2003 Chevy Silverado 1500 extended cab 4x4 pickup in a deep red. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I like to sit up high with no blind spots, enjoy having a big engine, and had previously missed the freedom that the truck bed provides. I also feel much safer in a big vehicle--- we have a ton of deer kills on the roads locally and the truck sets high enough to keep the deer out of the windshield in case of an accident. I have been in two car accidents where other vehicles have hit me and both times my previous small SUVs have crumpled to the point of being totaled although I was impacted at low rates of speed.
The current truck was made possible because when my grandfather passed away he left me money, specifically to buy a nice vehicle. Years before he had given my brother his own very nice truck, and he wanted to do the same for me. When he was young he had been endlessly teased because he didn't have a car, and later because the car her purchased wasn't very nice. It was very important to him that his kids and grandkids had a vehicle they could enjoy while they were still young--- to him it was a right of passage. So, when I was in a position to replace my vehicle I combined the money I got out of it (I had bought it outright originally) with his gift. Every day when I am in my truck I think of him. Not only because it was a gift from him, but because it reminds me of the many years I spent with him at the lake and his home in the high mountains. That cab is my sanctuary at times. I totally get how men have relationships with their cars. In my family my brother eventually names them--- mine is nameless yet, but the poor kid has come up with everything from "the grey ghost" to "casper" to one that was named after a cow and my personal favorite for embarrassing him "Blue Bronco lily"!
