Looking back on the past can be a tricky thing. Hindsight always has 20/20 vision, and it can be hard to know how decisions will work out without possessing a crystal ball or the ability to travel through time. But while regret often comes with negative connotations, it can be useful if a lesson can be learned from a specific mistake or error in judgement, even if said mistake is more perception than reality. Just don’t let it consume you.
My biggest regret? Selling my 1997 Mercury Sable. This car carried me all throughout my secondary and post-secondary educational experiences and beyond, and was proudly adorned with the parking stickers of each successive school. I learned the importance of having good tires when I almost rear-ended a pickup truck rushing to my first day of community college one rainy morning in the fall of 2005. It was a comfortable highway cruiser that shuttled me to various misadventures in New York and the Northeast with nary a complaint.
The cloth seats were amazingly comfortable. I found the column shifter oddly satisfying. The interior was always aesthetically pleasing to my senses. I was going to emulate Top Gear and make a couch out of the back seat when it had to go the junkyard.
Then the devil’s advocate kicks in, and I’m reminded why I don’t wholly qualify this as a regret. After all, it was a 16-year-old car that spent its entire life in the Rust Belt, and it was starting to show on the rocker panels. The passenger’s-side tweeter would buzz quite frequently, possibly because it was blown, and the seals around the driver’s-side door let in quite a bit of wind noise. Most importantly, I just didn’t want to sink more money into it after nine years of ownership.
So what do you lament, CC readers? A vehicle you should have kept? A car deal you passed up? A modification that didn’t work out as you had planned? A mechanical issue you failed to diagnose that backfired horribly? Let’s see your stories below.
I’ve had a couple of cars I regretted selling:
My ’74 Roadrunner, which I had modded to the point it was running 13.50’s or so at the strip. It was pretty much bulletproof after replacing the weak, out of a 6cyl rearend which died from a bent (so slightly you had to put a run out gauge on it to see it)driveshaft which killed the pinion bearing. I had an 8+3/4 rear put in it, and it was trouble free. I stupidly decided I wanted a 4×4 truck, so I traded it for the lemon of lemons, a ’77 Dodge Power Wagon, a total piece of crap.
My ’79 Trans Am, which was as quick as the Roadrunner was after major mods. I got the hots for an Iroc Camaro, and after buying the Iroc, I sold the T/A to some guy. One good thing, after several years in a garage, it’s back on the road, with super bad paint (It was never too good, a lot of factory flaws), but with the original engine, etc. The same guy still owns it, and it’s had the carpet and door panels replaced, both front quarters rehung, and paint is soon to follow by a local guy who does amazing work in his barn. Supposedly a custom “chicken” will be airbrushed onto the hood, something I was about to have some guy do for me back in 1986. I wish my Challenger had the throttle response the T/A did/does.
I have two:
NOT buying a rust-free Mayfair Maize ’65 Catalina Ventura for $3000 in 2000, and not buying a first-generation Riviera when they were still under $5000 for a decent one.
On the bright side, your two biggest regrets are cars that you wish you’d bought, not cars you wish you hadn’t sold or scrapped. 🙂
First, not buying the pristine low mile 70 Newport coupe for $800 in 1981.
Second, picking the worn out 61 T-Bird for $1200 instead of the beautiful 71 Mark lll for $3500 around 1988.
Third, selling my 29 Model A coupe after the second child was born.
Trading my perfectly kept, one owner 1968 VW Beetle for a lightly used ’75 VW Dasher. I was 25 and making fairly good money, and thought I should step up to something with a bit more, er, dash. I stepped in it, all right. The “Trasher”, as it was soon christened, was the car that put me off VW-Audi products forever. Yes, the Miami Blue paint was deep and beautiful, and the little 1471cc four sang like a Wagnerian tenor, but the rest of the car was rubbish. After two years, I gave up in disgust and sold it. My next transport was a 10 speed Raleigh Record. I still have that one.
My first car was a new 1969 GTO. If I were doing it over I would have at least looked at 1969 Chevrolet Impalas. Had I then bought 69 Impala, perhaps with A/C and the turbohydramatic, then all of the cars I had after that would almost certainly have changed.
When my wife and I got rid of her ’74 Spirit of America Nova. Her parents owned a dairy farm and we could’ve stored it away until a more opportune time to work on/drive it.
LOL ~ having lived & worked on a Rural Dairy Farm in the 1960’s , I well remember the dozens of clean old 1920’s through 1950’s classics sitting there covered in dust & cob webs .
You’d have done well to save that Nova .
-Nate
Should have bought the ’64 Volvo 122S that I learned to drive on, when my mom upgraded to a 245 in 1986. She offered it to me (not free) but it just seemed like an old car, though it was in very good condition. She sold it for what it cost new. A few cars that I actually owned, that I sometimes wish I had today: ’81 Trans Am, ’85 Vanagon Westfalia, ’93 FZJ80 Land Cruiser. And not exactly a CC (yet), but when our kids started driving I asked myself why I had sold our ’93 Corolla 5 speed wagon just two years earlier. The reason was that I had bought a 5 speed Turbo Forester (since sold). But I would have preferred them driving a 15 year old Corolla. Oh, one other regret: that my neighbor’s sister did not sell me her ’56 Chevy convertible for $200 (cosmetically and mechanically in fine shape) in 1972, instead giving it to her nephew who immediately traded it for a ’64 Impala that he turned into a budget low rider. But $200 was a huge amount of money for me then, and I probably hesitated too long.
My biggest car-selling regret? On July 10, 1973, this:
My favorite retired school teacher childless aunt bought a new 1976 Camaro LT-firethorn red with rally wheels and every option available and refused to trade in her 1967 Midnight Blue with double white racing stripes Camaro SS. My father beggared her to sell it to him but she had promised it to another relative. If that wasn’t bad enough..once an adult and with one classic of my own my father & stepmother retired and sold her(owned from new) 1967 Firebird Convertible with 67k miles in 1998-I said really–you didn’t think of me?
Selling my 1964 Chevelle Malibu SS Convertible when I was in the Navy (circa 1975), I’d bought it out of boot camp, new blue paint job and a new top for $650 off a car lot in California.
Selling my 1963 Alfa Romeo 2600 Spyder, which I’d bought while in the Navy, engine blew, hauled it home when I was discharged, picked up a 2600 sedan for parts, then things happened, and sold the whole deal to ‘friend’ for $1500. A few years later, things changed again, I offered to buy it back, at a profit to him, he agreed, but when I went to pick it up, some Alfa fan painting his barn had seen it, and offered him $100 more than I had. He never called to let me match, or beat, the offer. We’re no longer friends.
Cars I wish I’d bought? A cherry, one owner, 1964 Bonneville convertible with a blown transmission for $150 shortly out of high school. It had been sitting in a barn since about 1967, when the trans went out. Car was Red/White, with Red interior, immaculate condition. Why didn’t I buy it? Because I stopped to look at it on the way to work, took too much time going “WOW”, and agreeing to buy it, so was late to work and got fired 🙁 hence no funds.
Well, there’ve been a lot of cars that I regretted selling, but if I hadn’t sold them I couldn’t have bought some of the subsequent cars I’ve had, so I guess that has to be regarded as a wash. 1962 Lincoln Continental convertible sedan, 1955 Packard 400 hardtop, 1960 Chrysler New Yorker 2-door hardtop, 1964 Mercedes-Benz 230SL, 1965 Chrysler 300L hardtop are a few….
Cars I wished I could have bought but missed out on for one reason or another: A 440 4-speed Road Runner for $2500 (didn’t want to sell the 300L hardtop to buy it), a 1970 Road Runner 383 4-speed convertible, no rust, driving and running and good looking for $1500 (I don’t know what I was thinking, I should have bought it on the spot and borrowed the money).
I regret selling my ’59 Edsel Ranger 4 door hardtop and my ’90 Mark VII LSC.
My biggest regret is killing my 1971 Olds wagon, a true COAL for me. I drove this beaut for 4 years, having rescued it from a junkyard where it was bound for the demo derby. It was always fun cruising between Seattle and Bellingham, and to the mountains. I took it with me to community college and WWU. Then, ran it bone dry out of oil on a trip to Grand Coulee. She burned a quart every 500 miles after that. Had to move across the state and in a weak moment, I sold it for next to nothing, deciding instead to keep my other car, which was 20 years newer and got better mileage. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Needless to say, I check my oil every 100 miles now, no matter how reliable a car has proven to be, just in case something starts leaking without warning.
73 Sport Bug. I have posted the story before. Hit 3 times in less than 2 years, parked once and stopped at red lights twice. Hit and run (and dragged halfway down the street) when parked. No insurance from at fault driver stopped at red light once. Steering pin engaged and locked while driving. And much more. A German “Cristina”. Even after sold it cost me more money. But another VW, my 86 Jetta has served me well for the last 24 years (and counting) and over 300k miles with original engine and trans. So that evens things out.
I regret driving the piss out of my first 3 real Curbside Classics, all bought or leased new: 1985 Corolla GT-S, bright red; traded in with 92000 miles in 2 years on a 1987 Corolla FX-16 GT-S, white and mean looking; with 83000 miles in 4 years; traded that in on a 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R, white also. Nice grouping of early Japanese rockets, wouldn’t you say? They were all I mint condition when I got rid of them, save worn out clutch on the 1985. Young and foolish.
You shouldn’t ~ you bought them specifically to hoon and enjoy then you did .
That you kept them looking nice means you’re _way_ above the average owner , be proud you did that .
-Nate
Regrets: Selling my ’67 Cougar XR7 because of the first arab oil embargo of the mid- ’70s. The second is not insisting that my brother keep his ’64 1/2 V-8 Mustang ragtop w/factory air before trading it in for $300. Depressing.
My Ford Fiesta MK1, was a former car from a driving school, but I loved that thing, it was my first car.
I am probably the only person who would like to have again a 92 Pontiac Sunbird. I traveled all the American west and I loved it.
Biggest regret is selling the ’03 Marauder. (We’ll call that one a future CC.) The reasons were compelling (put my girlfriend in a newer more reliable car, and gave me money for an engagement ring with which to propose) but I do still miss it.
Not really something I can regret, because it was a matter of timing that was out of my control. I guy showed up at Chryslers at Carlisle one year with the most beautiful 1964 Chrysler New Yorker Hardtop Wagon in champagne with a white top and every conceivable option, including reclining seatbacks and headrests. He wanted $9800 for it in the mid ’90s. 5 years later we decided to pass through the car coral first thing when we got there. The same Chrysler apparently showed up after we had been through. When we passed through the coral a second time, it was sitting there with a sold sign on it. $5500.