cars that i've owned (part 1)...

As I stare at my new baby, I can't help but reminisce on all the past cars that I've owned and the adventures that I've had with them. All in all I have had 5 cars total (which includes the new baby) whereby 3 of them were owned while studying in US. I even named all of them except the first car and the recent one (due to it being new, need to run it in and find its character first). I still miss those days in US as cars were relatively cheap and I could sell one off and get another without even having to look for extra money. Over here we would need to beg, borrow or steal just to get another car.

It all started with a dull red 1988 Toyota Corolla. Stick shift of course with. Bought it real cheap at around US$1k to get around town and travel whenever possible. It used to be the only car within our circle of friends and boy did it get thrashed. The AC rarely worked and that was solved by just having the windows wound down most of the time. Thankfully the heater always worked although the insulation was poor, so it would take ages for the car to warm up during winter. Surprisingly for its age and condition, it never did break down. Only problem I ever faced was the muffler rusting away and dropped off. LOL. Still remember that day while driving down Broadway Street when I suddenly heard a scraping metal sound plus my exhaust became noisy as hell. As I looked through my rear view mirror I saw the sparks the muffler was creating scraping on the road and before I could even stop to inspect, it just fell off. Thankfully no one was behind me at that time. I didn't really change much of the Corolla then as I didn't have the money but the car did run up alot of miles. We travelled to and fro from Columbia to Kansas City (3 hours) and also from Columbia to St. Louis (2 hours) almost every weekend. Almost always to grab some nice chinese food or cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. Sigh. It was actually the only period where I didn't worry much about my car. I could take it out and not be bothered if someone hits it or scratches it. I could park it anywhere and be sure it'll still be there when I get back. Sometimes I feel its good to just get a older cheaper car. You tend to worry less.

Thats all for now. Attached on the side is a pic of the car I managed to find.