Space Coaster and Marvin the Eurovan

  Full admission.  I hate selling cars.  I feel I have to go out of my way to mention anything that is possibly wrong with a car that I am selling and concerned that I will leave something out.  After I sell a car, I have some irrational fear that some bad major failure is going to happen and that the purchaser will think I am pulling the wool over their eyes.  With some trepidation, I listed the SLK for sale.  I got the typical low ball offers texted to me without even a "hi" attached to them.  All told I had three people come and see it.  The first person said he would think about it but regardless he would contact me the next day to tell me his decision.  I never heard back.  Gee, I hope he's okay.  The second person was looking for his wife.  He seemed very interested in the car and told me he would bring his wife to take it for a drive on the next day.  Again, I never heard back.  The third person seemed even zanier.  He wanted to come look at the car if I had time. 

After passing on the Vanagon, my focus was getting myself and my family back to my old home stomping grounds of Central Florida.  I had decided to sell my trusty 1997 Wrangler and for a brief moment, I thought about using those funds and adding some to purchase a Vanagon.  In the end, I couldn't justify it as I knew that I would need a daily driver that was safe enough and trustworthy enough to carry me on long hauls.  I decided that I wanted to go with my other passion, a two seater convertible.  I had owned three Miatas previously and always enjoyed sporty convertible roadsters.  After much research I settled on a 2005 Mercedes SLK 350.  I have never been a big fan of Mercedes.  Something about them always failed to inspire me.  The SLK wasn't even in my initial search, I found myself vacillating between MK3 MR2s, the Porsche Boxster, the NC Miatas, the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky and the Audi TT.  The SLK came into the running late because it seemed to be a good combination

It's been a long road to get to be the owner of a Volkswagen Van.  I've had an affection for Volkswagens since I was a kid.  I was born literally in the final days of summer in the last year of the 1960s.  My first foggy memories were as a young kid in the 1970s.  The 1960s were giving way to the 1970s but in my first memories, you could still feel what the sixties must have been like.  I'm not unique in that a large part of the scenery of my youth was comprised of the ubiquitous Volkswagen bug.  My mother pushed my dad to buy her a Beetle and he did.  In 1973, my mother got her wish and became the owner of a bright yellow, brand new Super Beetle.  It was the car that she learned to drive stick on.  It was the car that took us from Florida to Alabama to Ontario Canada and back again.  I remember long drives where I would squeeze in the little hatch above the engine.  I remember being disappointed when I got a little bigger and couldn't quite squeeze out of the backseat