And So It Begins (Part II)

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 of what I liked about the other vehicles - it was fast, it was reliable, and it looked great. I found a beautiful SLK 350 about an hour away.  It was the third one I had driven.  After some haggling, I plunked down my cash and returned to the world of small convertibles.

It wasn't long before I found myself focusing on a Vanagon as a third vehicle again.  Slowly, I started building up a small fund from socking money away and moving money from things that I sold to a protected account to prevent me from spending the proceeds.  

During this time, the world was hit by the Covid-19 Pandemic.  My driving went down considerably at that point.  Early on, I wasn't even sure I should feel comfortable driving with the top down.  The few times that I did drive in the SLK with the top down, I found myself unsatisfied by the experience.  It wasn't necessarily anything wrong with the SLK but my pragmatic approach to why I bought it was catching up with me.  I never felt a visceral connection to the SLK.  It was the best car for me on paper but on paper isn't thrilling.  Pragmatic approaches to purchases are good for some things but for a car enthusiast, it's a bad way to go about things.  I wouldn't choose my spouse based on pragmatism and I shouldn't have chosen a car that way either.  I decided that it was time to sell the SLK.

Initially, by making the choice to sell the SLK, I was back to the same decision as I had been when I sold my TJ Wrangler.  Buy a daily driver, this time something I really wanted, and then save for a backup vehicle.  However, as I was looking at cars to buy to replace the SLK, I kept thinking, what I really want is my Volkswagen.  Being fifty-one, I kept thinking, how much longer am I going to wait?  Haven't I waited enough?  Somehow, I started looking at Eurovans.  The Eurovan was the third major version of the original Volkswagen Bus and there was a lot to connect it to my original Volkswagen Bus passion.  As I grew to look at more and more Eurovans, I found that they were growing on me in the same way the Vanagon had grown on me and somehow I found myself actively looking at Eurovans.