I guess it was pretty likely, although Eugene isn’t all that small (over 200k including Springfield next door). Four years ago, when I bought my ’05 Xb, I decided I couldn’t be bothered trying to sell the old family bus, a ’92 Caravan we had bought new. The (fourth, but finally a good one) transmission had a small leak, and there were a few minor niggles, but otherwise it ran fine. So I donated it to Saint Vincent dePaul (natch), which does a fine job building low income housing, among other things. From the gas prices, you can tell my first encounter happened a while back, but it was heart-warming.
The new owner was absolutely thrilled with it, having paid $700 bucks from the Official Curbside Classic Sales Lot. A scrappy man of obvious limited means, the Caravan finally allowed him and his wife to take all five children on longer outings given its reasonable state or reliability and fuel economy compared to some hoary big old rig he previously drove. He lovingly described taking everyone camping and fishing up in the Cascades, just like the Caravan had regularly schlepped my family and canoe for memorable trips. That made my day.
That was three and a half years ago. Fairly recently, I was trolling a neighborhood of modest houses, when there it was again, in the driveway. The tell-tale A (Austria) sticker my son had put on after he came back from a visit there confirmed it the minute I saw it. Still soldiering away; that made my day, again.
i did once encounter a former car of mine, like yours a Grand Caravan (1995), but i didnt have the same warm feeling. It was traded in at the dealer on a new Honda Odyssey as a result of starting problems and early concerns about the transmission, and when i saw it and its distinctive silver pinstiping that I had put on when it was new, i genuinely felt sorry for whoever bought it. Of course the Odyssey subsequently went through three transmissions so who came out ahead in end?
I once had a 1958 Plymouth Belvedere 2-door hardtop with a weird paneled turquoise paint job. I saw it once after I’d sold it – yet another owner had it. It looked the same but had a cigarette burn in the driver’s seat.
I ran across the black on gold 1965 Barracuda I’d bought new and sold just before the 50,000-mile factory warranty ran out. The guy told me it had showed 29k when he bought it, and I don’t think he really believed that I’d put 49k on it.
Yup!
I had purchased an 89(maybe 90) Lumina from a friend of mine in 98.
Drove the wheels off of it, sold it to a friend of my dads, he put new wheels on it and drove it until the fuel regulator died, then I bought it back, fixed it, drove it for another year, then sold it to the step daughter of the guy I bought it back from… It moved to Florida with her where I thought it was going to retire. Here it is 2011 it’s back up here and still plugging along..
Paul,
I’ve not yet met my two former vehicles. The Dakota (sold last May) I would’ve expected to see around town, while I do live in about the same size community you do.
The eponymous 86 Chevy that I sold over 4 years ago; I have never seen this one either. I don’t really care about spotting the Dakota again but I’d sure like to see if that old Chev with its troublesome Quadrajet is still putting in an honest day’s work, with its robust 350 and Turbo 400.
I never have. And I’ve had a LOT of cars, over they years.
It’s odd, actually. I sell them and they drop off the face of the earth. Given how many I’ve sold, I’d have expected one or two to have popped up…but, never.
We were given a 1980 LeBaron 2 dr. by my wife’s great uncle. My kids referred to it as the “Batmobile” after the 1989 movie came out due to the bat sticker I put on the left side of the trunk lid. I sold that car to a guy who worked at the local Dodge dealer and saw it a few times after we moved to Ohio whenever we returned to Missouri in the old neighborhood! Up ’til recently, my neighbor across the street had our 1997 Cavalier that my daughter drove when in school. I believe a friend still has my 1996 Ranger for his business and he bought our 1999 Stratus for his daughter and saw it for years until she got married. Funny, but the only car I truly miss is the 1964 Chevy I sold almost 38 years ago.
While about 23 years old I spotted the first new car I purchased, a 1980 Toyota Corolla, at the local swimming hole where the new owner, a college student, worked as a life guard. I remember being somewhat surprised the car would continue on without me, as irrational as that sounds. I bought it new, took great care of it and it still looked new 5 years later. The new owner cut a sunroof into it though.
No matter, at the time I was enjoying my new Celica GTS. I think the ’80’s was Toyota’s heyday…with well built economical cars and sporty Celica’s, Supra’s, MR2’s.
While I’ve had many cars over the years, strangely enough the one I miss most was a 2003 Maxima. It wasn’t much to look at, but that smooth, torquey powertrain and ideal driving position fit me like a glove…I should have kept it. (03 was the last year the Max was Japan built.) I now have a ’10 Xterra which is great around town and surprisingly nimble, but I need another car for freeway cruising.
Not likely. In my family, a car is typically stripped for parts and goes to the scrapyard when we’re done with it, and that doesn’t happen very often.
The exception would be my wife’s Civic. It was sold to a friend, who later decided that driving a stick was not for him, so he resold it. If I ever saw that car again I’d never know it. The roads are awash in nondescript silver Honda Civics.
Quite a few times actually:
I’ve come across a few actually. My very first vehicle was a 1980 Dodge Maxivan who I sold to an older guy in a blues band. He traveled across Canada with it for many years. I know where he lived so I checked one day and sure enough it was still there but had developed some body cancer.
Much later the rhd Toyota Hilux SURF (4Runner) I sold was immediately back up for sale at a much higher price. Saw it around town a times with a for sale sign. I think the buyer thought he could flip it but I don’t think it worked out that easy for him. Oh and he lied on his ad which I thought was amusing since my honest ad was up a few days earlier.
I did see my old Taurus wagon around town a couple times – had some very distinctive body damage on it (not by my hand) so easy to spot.
I saw my old VW Beetle in photos from a car show a few months after I sold it. Owner had done the radical lowering thing to it. Not my taste but his car now of course.
My old Reliant Scimitar GTE ended up in front of a British repair shop for a few months. I think the buyer sold the windshield off for profit (fits a Lotus Elan +2) and then got rid of the rest. I heard from a guy who bought it later and was restoring it. Big project so hopefully he can pull it off.
In 1991 a friend’s brother sold me a 1975 HJ model Holden Kingswood sedan with a 202 cubic inch straight six, 3 speed column shift, bench seat, and metallic brown paint with a beige interior, factory-issued AM/FM push button radio, wind-up windows and a heater (but no air conditioning). For 6 years I drove that car up and down the east coast of Australia from Cairns in the north to Melbourne in the south, and many places in between. It was a part of fond memories of that time, including a fishing trip to the crocodile infested Daintree River (where our boat broke down), blowing up a motor doing 80 miles per hour on a road trip between Sydney and Melbourne, and many trips with friends to the beach and other locations.
With marriage and pending fatherhood, I sold it to a graduate student and his wife from the island of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea who were attending college in the city where I lived. As a child in Rabaul, this man admired and wanted one of the Holden Kingswoods driven by the Australian colonial administrators of New Guinea. Now he was in Australia, he was going to have one, and he chose mine. After the sale was completed he said that after he graduated he was going to take his Holden back to Rabaul and drive it up and down Rabaul’s only sealed road to show it off to his family and friends. I left the husband and wife from Papua New Guinea seeing their beaming smiles. I never expected to see them or the car again.
Four years later while driving around our city of 300,000 people, I saw my old Holden again. I recognized it from certain unique features, such as the dent on the trunk lid where the owner previous to me had reversed it into a tree, the long deep scrape on the front right hand quarter panel courtesy of my slide into a barbed wire fence while doing donuts on a friend’s farm, the raised rear caused by heavy duty suspension springs installed by the owner previous to me for towing water skiing boats, and the ugly mag wheels. It was good to see the car again, but it was not being driven by the man and wife from Papua New Guinea, but by a blond woman.
I still wonder what happened to that happy couple from Rabaul: did he graduate? Did they every go back to Rabaul? If they did, why didn’t he take my old Holden with them?
The only car Ive seen once I sold it was a 1984 Cavalier Convertible in Triple brown… it was 1998, and I had traded it in for $500 on a 1993 Mazda MX-6… It was parked about 2 blocks from where I had bought the Mazda. I was very surprised it hadn’t simply been junked. I figured it was fixed up by one of their mechanics, and parked there while he was at work. But who knows… It still had the SS Stickers I had Stuck somewhat sarcastically under the 2.0FI applique. In 10 years of driving that Manual somewhat miserable car, I had only seen one other Sable or $h!+ Brown one. An odd choice for a convertible, but no doubt WHY I had been able to afford it in 1989, when all I cared was that it was a long dreamed of convertible. It was one of those cars that kept needing just one more 2-500 repair to make it right. Ever Had a tilt steering wheel drop into your lap when you are turning right in rush hour traffic? Think FAST! … that was seriously scary. I figured it was about 1 of 7 so equipped which was the only consolation for someone like me. I should have traded up much sooner.
Like Big Old Chryslers, when we’re usually finished with a vehicle…it’s finished. Parted out and scrapped.
25 years ago I owned a brand new S-10 pickup, back when GM was learning how to use watercolor paint and a glossy shiny finish wasn’t always guaranteed. I polished the light blue paint job ’til the shine actually did come out, it was about three shades deeper than stock. Then I ditched the aluminum trim around the wheel openings and put baby moons on it. When I traded it in, it ended up back in the neighborhood…you couldn’t mistake it for anything else…and it looked good for a couple more years then they put what I like to call a “vomit stripe” down both sides. I think it was some multi-color pattern or something but it still looked to me like someone puked down both sides of it.
My last vehicle was parked out front at the dealer I traded it at for a couple weeks. I was kinda sad once I saw it was gone. I’ve been on the lookout for it ever since (4×4 4Runners are scarce here in the south, and it had a telltale bug deflector and aftermarket two tone leather interior). At the same time, I’m kind afraid to see it…down here there’s a good chance it’s either been lifted and fitted with swampers or its rollin’ on 22″s. I had just replaced those tires a year earlier, too…
My grandma owned a 1984 Chrysler New Yorker. After she died, it was used at some point by almost every member of my extended family. Numerous cousins learned to drive on it. After eight or nine years doing the rounds, the car was finally sold to a junkyard by my aunt and uncle. Then, lo and behold, it was seen on the streets again several months later. For all I know, it’s still out there.
We sold the ’57 Chevy in the summer of ’65, probably for roughly $600 in today’s dollars, just before we went to France for the year. It had just over 100k, and on steep hills, bad smelling exhaust would come into the passenger compartment.
Half a year after we got back, one day I saw the thing in front of a nursing home that was being built. I got out, found the bad repainting I’d done several years earlier on a rust spot, and knew for certain this was our old Chevy. It had 106k. I would see it parked there for a month or two, and then never saw it again.
Years later, after my last parent died, I began dreaming that car would mysteriously reappear in my life after all these years.
I got my first (kiddie) car from St. Vincent de Paul when I was about 3.
Ah, former loves, of which I have had several…
My first car was a 1985 Buick Skylark Custom (last of the X-Cars) that my parents bought new on Halloween, 1984. When we moved to Florida from Michigan several years later, the car went with us, and when I turned 16 they gave it to me. Despite it’s um, quirks, I loved that car. My dad made me sell it a few months before I graduated high school because it was needing some work. That was in 1993. Fast forward to 1998, I am in a junk yard at the opposite corner of our county, looking for a part for my 1987 Cutlass, and what do I see sitting in the exact center of that yard??? Why yes, it is indeed my old Buick! It broke my heart to find it there, banged up and the interior trashed (I kept it immaculate). I went back the next week with my camera and snapped some shots of it, and took some emblems off it and found my dad’s set of keys still with it. About a month later I was back there and asked where the Buick had disappeared to. They said the crusher was there a couple of weeks ago. I was heartbroken…
Speaking of my 1987 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham (from whence my name here comes), that was another car I kept in perfect, showroom condition, till I had to sell it after coming back to Michigan from Florida and had no where to store it. About five years after selling it to a distant cousin, I saw someone else driving it, acting all thuggish and and it was sitting on those stupid 20 inch rims. I was livid, and the guy was lucky I was on my way to church, or else I think I would have turned around and chased him down and let him have it for molesting my car!!!
Moving on…After coming back from FL, my parents bought a new 2000 Taurus SEL that I picked out for them. Mom and I used to carpool to the city we both worked in, so I got to put a few miles on it. They traded it for a used Ranger almost six years ago because my dad was whining that he needed a truck and he never got what he wanted (whatever) so mom said fine, trade the car if it will make you happy! It had all of 62000 on it, and dad was certain it was ready to die. I met the current owner of it last year, it looks kinda rough, but he said it has yet to give him any problems…
My last Olds, an ’04 Alero that I traded for my HHR was used by the dealer in Saginaw as a Body Shop loaner for a while, but I haven’t seen it for a while.
And lastly, though in a different way, there is my Mystique. It’s a car that was bought new by my aunt in 1994 and has been passed around the family over the years. I remember getting to drive it back in 1995, and being floored at how fast and sure footed it felt compared to anything I had driven prior to then! Fast forward fifteen years, and several owners in the family, the car is now mine, and it’s still a blast, made more so because I just got it back from the shop, with a re-done suspension. Look out world, my Mercury is on the move!
I once reintroduced a former owner to one of his cars, specifically the 1966 Chrysler that is my signature pic. I bought the car in early 2000. I researched and found the name of the original owner, who had it til about 1988. Sure enough, he was still in the phonebook, so I called and it was him.
The town he lived in was about 45 minutes drive from me. That summer I attended a classic car show there, so I dropped-in on my way home. He was pretty happy to see it. It had been his wife’s car. He told me a bunch of stuff that had happened to the car while he owned it, and details like the furthest trip they ever took it on, and I took him for a drive around the block. It was pretty cool.
He said he still had the original license plates from it somewhere in his garage. He rummaged around for awhile but couldn’t find them. That would have been great, as I could have applied to have them re-registered to the car. Oh well.
Yes, in 1982 I bought a 1973 Mercury Capri at a towing yard auction for the princely sum of $342.00. There had been a fire under the hood, and I knew the cause of said fire. I already owned a multitude of Capris, and had enough parts to repair/replace all the burnt bits. A nice, cheap, and when fixed, anvil reliable daily driver. The only thing I didn’t do was paint it. I drove that car for a couple years before I got married, when it became the sixth vehicle in out fleet. Being in primer didn’t endear it to SWMBO, so it was sold to a nice young man for $1500.00. I never expected to see it again.
Fate has a way of kicking your ass… Driving through a small Pacific Northwest town, there it is in a used car lot with $600.00 written on the windshield, SWMBO says, Hey, that’s your old Capri, STOP, lets look at it… We stop and SWMBO cuts the salesman off with “I know more about this car than you do, get the keys so we can test drive it”.
Dumbassed salesman hands me the keys, I hand them to SWMBO, telling him she is making the call on this one. She took him for a hell ride, came back with comments on the rack bushings need replaced, needs a decent set of brake pads, and she thinks the steering coupler needs replacing too. SWMBO offers the salesman $450.00 for it. He hims and haws a bit and I tell him to call NAPA and price out the parts. The only thing NAPA can get are the brake pads, the rack bushing are import only items, as it the steering coupler.
Sold for $450.00… Here is a Pic of the Capri taken at the All Ford Picnic at Bellevue Community College in 2008…
http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr265/Bates_K/Capri/295.jpg
Once when I was cleaning the interior on my 1965 Chrysler 300L hardtop I found a church bulletin that had been mailed to an address not too far down the road. I found it a couple of Sunday afternoons later and sure enough, he remembered the car. He had traded it on a 1974 Satellite. He said he’d bought it at the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in Auburn in 1966. Went to the dealer and surprisingly found a crusty old salesman who as soon as he saw it said “Yeah, I sold it to $name who was the son of the Schwinn distributor in Tacoma, and he traded it back to us after a year.” So that church bulletin gave me the whole history of the car, and I’ll add the rest: I sold it to Harold LeMay, and it’s still in his museum.
I still see my mother’s pale yellow 1986 240DL wagon and navy blue 1990 740GL wagon around town. The 740 looks good, the 240 does not. I saw my first car, a black 1991 940SE (same car as my icon above) at an auction last fall held by one of the local youth organizations. My dad bought it new and I started driving it in 1997. The guy I sold it to in 2004 had donated it, and had been having problems with it. It still looked decent, especially the paint, but the leather was worn out and the stereo was gone, and it needed rear shocks. I thought about buying it back, but was between jobs at the time, plus it was going to need at least 1500 put into it to get it nice. I was sad to see the shape it was in, as it was still very nice when I sold it. It sold for $750, and a few weeks later I saw it on a used car lot. It finally disappeared from the lot a month ago. I’m glad to know it hasn’t been crushed and is still with us!