Too darned many vehicles.
This has been on my mind quite a bit lately as I'm feeling more and more motivated to simplify my life and spend my limited daily hours more productively. Professionally, it's an ongoing struggle. I've always had more to do than I have time in which to do it, and there's only so much I can do about that professionally.
In my off-hours, though, I can do that. Or should be able to. The problem is that I have lots of hobbies as well as things I need to do and/or want to do.
Among them are:
1. Instructing at and participating in Driving Schools and Open Track events. It's a grueling and expensive hobby and there will be one or more posts about it.
2. Playing around on my land (40 interesting acres), mostly with overgrown Tonka Toys for various reasons. Aesthetics, necessity, and for purposes of a couple of my other hobbies, which will be the next two listed.
3. Alternative energy. My workshop is 7200 square feet and just the lighting in it takes 4400 watts, and even that isn't giving me enough light despite the fact I'm using Metal Halide, which gives the most candlepower per watt. I'd really like to get it off the grid and even sell power back to the power company. The Alternative Energy aspect of this will be a separate post.
4. Water gardens and ponds. I don't know if it's because I'm a Pisces or what, but I'm really fascinated with bodies of water from small koi ponds to the really big one I'm building to produce hydroelectric power for the workshop. I spend a lot of time (well, a lot of what little free time I have) building and improving my ponds. I'm down to 4 now, having removed the informal water garden/koi pond I had in the front yard that I built without thinking it through enough and couldn't keep it maintained correctly.
5. Work. I bounce back and forth between hating and loving my job, often within the same hour. But overall I consider myself one of those lucky people who gets to make a living doing what he loves doing.
6. Music. I'm a decent player of many instruments, as is my daughter, and though I don't spend a lot of time listening to music, I do spend time playing it and would love to have more time to do it more.
7. Collecting and restoring cars and motorcycles.
This will be the subject of this message. See? Aready a lot of words and I'm only now ready to hit the main topic.
Of all the hobbies I have (and I'm sure there are others I haven't listed), this one is one I feel is adding more complexity to my life than is worthwhile, and I'm just not as into it as I once was. This includes motorcycling. After my first year of motorcycle ownership when I was 16, I've rarely owned fewering than 2 bikes, and now my son reports I'm up to 17 of them.
And I haven't counted, but estimate I've got about 20 cars.
It really has gotten ridiculous. I see a car or bike that interests me, and I just buy it. And now I've got too many "favorites" to really enjoy using and tinkering with any one of them to the extent I enjoy.
Friday when I was on my way to work, I walked outside just as my daughter was getting ready to leave for work and she said "Dad, you really do have too many cars" and I had to agree, as the reason I was standing still long enough for her to tell me that is that I was trying to decide what to ride or drive to work that day.
Looking out my living room window right now, I see 6 vehicles that're strictly mine:
1. 08 Subaru STi
2. 07 Subaru STi
3. 07 Toyota Camry Hybrid
4. 06 BMW K1200 LT motorcycle
5. 94 BMW 530i
6. 1974 (?) Datsun 2000 Roadster (aka "Fairlady")
And that's just what's up by the house. There are many others in and near the workshop. If I count everything that has an engine and moves (or would if it weren't broken or in need of restoration), I'm sure the count is right around 50.
As an aside, a project I managed to actually start and finish in one day yesterday (such a rarity to be able to finish anything) was to put together a rectangle of railroad ties in the front yard where the small koi pond used to be, fill it with pea gravel, and park my 44 Ford 2N tractor in it as a lawn ornament. It runs but is in need of a rebuild and I'm not going to bother, as it's not big or powerful enough for my needs and wouldn't be even if I freshened up the engine. And lacks such niceties as a diesel engine, power steering, live PTO, and brakes that actually work.
It really looks cool parked there and one of the cool aspects is that it looks awful because it's never been restored, yet it does run. Will take a picture and post it here sometime.
Bottom line, though, is I've gone a bit nuts with the cars and bikes and with the hassle of constantly getting them inspected and registered, and the cost of insuring all of them, and it taking huge quantities of my time servicing them (I'm very uptight about mechanical upkeep), this is a hobby that needs to go. When I look at some of the cars and bikes, I think not only about the cost of ownership and how I wouldn't mind putting that money into the retirement stash, but the fact that I often see some of the vehicles themselves as assets whose value I'd be happier having in cash.
It's tough picking which ones to let go of, though. Not only am I a packrat, I genuinely do enjoy a lot of these vehicles. But I'd like to get down to just a handful of bikes, a couple for riding, and the rest as investments.
It's a no-brainer that if I can get enough money for it, the BMW K1200LT will be outta here. I've never really much liked that bike. It's just not "me". It's a really good bike that does nearly everything very well, but it's not my style at all.
It gets a bit more difficult with the cars. Take the Subarus, for example. They're strictly track cars, though I ordered the 08 with nearly every available option in the hopes it'd be a tolerable stret car. It isn't. But it's likely I'll keep it and get rid of the 07. Not an easy decision as the 07 is the last of that generation of them and the 08 is only just now starting to look good to me, though it irks me that not only is it tough to distinguish it from so many other cars (I saw a Kia a few nights ago I thought from a distance was an STi), there's realy very little about it visually that says "Fast car" unless you really scrutinize it for a long time.
Still, the 07 is low miles, as meticulously maintained as the rest of my cars, and should fetch a decent price. And is just a miserable thing to drive on the road. The 08 is only less miserable because of its softer springs (a performance-robbing improvement that'll be changed), decent sound system, Navigation system, and the fact that with only 700 miles on it, it still feels new. Though the newness thing is also true of the 07, which only has 4,117 miles, but has an awful stereo and no Nav.
Then there's the Datsun Roadster. No way I'm getting rid of that one. Ever. What a cool car!!!
The BMW is nice and is my most frequent daily driver. It has nearly 180k miles and still needs some repairs, but it's slowly getting there. Problem with that one is that if I decided to sell it, I'd have no comfortable daily driver other than the Camry, and the BMW also wouldn't fetch much money.
Which brings me to the Toyota. My wife has a new Subaru Tribeca and she mentioned yesterday that with the cost of fuel, she'd like to move back to the Camry most of the time, since she's doing well to get 17 mpg out of the Tribeca, but can consistently get upper 30's out of the Camry (I'm pretty consistently in the upper 40's to mid 50's) but she'd also dearly love to see me reduce the car count and though fuel isn't cheap and she has a long commute, we're not going to miss meals because of her fuel cost.
I'm very fascinated with the Camry and though it's not as "posh" or good-looking at the 530i, it's nearly so. Driving that car, to me, is like playing a video game where the MPG and state of battery charge is like going for a high score.
But it has two things that irk me no end:
1. A petrol engine. If you're trying to be fuel efficient with a sophisticated fuel/electric drivetrain, why on earth not a diesel?!?
2. No plug-in capability and it costs nearly the value of the car to add that capability along with extra battery capacity.
So it's gonna go. And should fetch a decent price with fuel costing what it does and these cars still being in short supply, at least in the midwest.
So, of the 6 in my line of sight, 2 of them are going up for sale shortly. The BMW motorcycle and the Camry Hybrid. And for track cars (I always like having two), the jury hasn't even convened on that one yet. Could keep both the 07 and 08, though that doesn't make a lot of sense since I like having two track cars simply because my track cars (before my dad money-shifted the 91 Mustang, it was one, and is very developed and fast) have been very different cars. Initially it was one (the Mustang) for dry weather and for my major speed fix (until I went from a WRX to STi's and found the STi's even faster than the Mustang) and one for wet weather or when I wanted a change of pace, so to speak.
STi's are really fun and capable track cars. And comparatively reliable. And darned fast on road courses. Depending on the club and track conditions, I can range from being in the top 20% to being the fastest thing out there. Rainy day with a Porsche club and everyone else is a "Scooby Snack". And it's so close to the M3 in performance that it's slower than one being driven at 100%, but passes ones being driven at more like 95%. And comparatively inexpensive. Nearly all of the cars that can trounce it cost a lot more. I can count on one hand the less expensive cars that consistently beat me, one being a supercharged BMW 318ti driven by one of my best track buds. Another being a 318ti with an M3 drivetrain, though he might have as much money in that as I have in the Scoob.
Though I occasionally do consider getting rid of both and getting a used M5 or a new M3 for the track. Either of those would be a wonderful daily driver and could be driven to the track, flogged, and driven back home. I rarely drive a Subaru to the track because they're just so uncomfortable and unloveable as street cars.
I'm leaning toward keeping the 08 and getting rid of the 07, and when the 09 model is out, deciding whether to trade the 08 in on it or modify the 08 to be more track-centric than it already is.
So let's call it 2 1/2 of the 6 vehicles in my line of sight I'll be getting rid of.
Remember, I've got around 50 "vehicles". Have an awful lot of them in the workshop and I know 5 cars and maybe 5 motorcycles off the top of my head I'd gladly part with, though most of them wouldn't fetch what it'd cost me to put them in what I consider sellable condition. May just part them out on eBay, but then that's another time-consuming endeavor.
For a while, I was really fascinated with Taurus SHO's and have four of them. Two running ones and two parts cars. And one of the parts car has a perfectly-running engine with relatively low miles on it. One of the driveable ones (94 automatic that was my daughter's first car) is in need of major suspension parts replacement before I'd feel right about selling it. The parts car with the low-mileage engine (95 automatic) has all the suspension pieces I need, in good shape, but it's a lot of work to move those to the 94 and give the 94 the other TLC it needs (a door was repainted without clearcoat and there's a lot of interior work to do), to end up with a car that might sell for $4k if I'm lucky.
Taurus SHO's are pretty inexpensive still and probably always will be because despite the wonderful V6 Yamaha engine, it's still a Taurus, with all the defects and failings that they have when they get old. I'd surely get a lot more money out of them parting them out on eBay and locally, but doing things like removing an engine and/or tranny and crating and shipping it takes quite a bit of time. I may just put them all up as a package deal since they might get $6k as a package and $12k as parts, but the extra $6k would eat up most of my off-work hours.
I also have an old SCCA racecar down there based on an 85 Mustang. Needs body TLC (lots of small areas to be fixed) but is mechanically very solid. On one hand, I despise the car and would sell it cheaply just to be rid of it, but on the other hand, the reasons I despise it (seat doesn't fit me and as a carb'd car without chokes, it's a real bear to start) are easily enough fixed and when I fix the 91 Mustang, I'm considering completely restoring it and not using it as a track car anymore. Only 47k miles on that one and it's one-owner, so someday it should be worth a decent amount. And if I could make the SCCA car tolerable (I think reliability is finally covered), there's a lot to be said for having a 305-hp Subaru (or more if I get it tuned) and its trailermate being a 380-hp Mustang.
Then comes the decision of whether to have just one track car like "normal" people do. I really do enjoy changing cars during the weekend and it helps my driving skills because at the 100% level, you simply don't drive a Mustang and a Subaru the same way.
If I insist on the two-car route or even one car and having lots of parts, tools, and amenities at the track, that represents a lot of money I need to either spend or not turn existing equipment into. Specifically, the 48-foot enclosed gooseneck trailer. I've been toying with the idea of getting a semi to haul it because it's really too much for most one-ton trucks to haul, but if I backed off to one car, even if it's the 08 Subaru, there's a lot of money to be made or saved by selling the big trailer and getting a smaller one, then buying any diesel-powered pickup (and I do need a truck and it's really sucked not having one for nearly a year) and a one-car trailer vs keeping this trailer and buying a semi or even a used 7.3l Powerstroke Ford, which can haul the trailer and get decent economy doing it, but still really gets slowed down by the hills.
The 05 Chevy, despite tweaks, could only do 6.5 mpg hauling the trailer to Omaha and back and would slow down to 50 mph at full throttle on some hills. My 99 Ford got about 11 mpg hauling the same trailer on the same run and didn't get slowed down quite as much on the hills.
I could switch to a one-car trailer and have amenities galore by using the motorhome to haul it to the track, but it gets the same fuel economy and hill slow-down issues as the Chevy did, and I don't care to get it dirtied up at the track, and the motorhome is very high on the list of things I'm considering getting rid of since it's so rarely used. Thinking about selling it (would take a big but not huge hit on it) or putting it into a rental fleet (don't have all the details, but looks like that could represent some decent extra income and still be able to use it when I want to). If I sold it, that'd be a pretty big chunk to put into the retirement stash.
Well, enough rambling on that topic for now. Bottom line is that I want to simplify my life, have fewer hobbies, and have more time I could devote to those fewer hobbies. And reducing car/bike count is the first priority.
Someday soon I'll try to come up with a list of vehicles/machines and a total cylinder count. I don't doubt that my cylinder count has topped 200 by now. |
