Chasing Cars

CAUTION: This is an incredibly long post. It starts with a stupid whiny rant, but there are cool car pictures toward the end, so there's sort of a reward for reading it all. You have been warned.

The Monkeys go to the L.A. Auto Show every year. And why wouldn't we? We can walk to it!

This year our foray actually doubled as research. I will have to drive about 15 minutes to my new job, so I can no longer rely on my trusty feet to get me to work. As much as I love Big Red, I don't want to drive it every day because it only gets about 20 MPG. And then there's Purple Rain.

Oh, Purple Rain.

Purple Rain is our ghetto, scratched-up, super-dinged and dented, almost-10-year-old sedan. The windshield has a huge crack that spans at least 10 inches. Purple Rain is so jacked that, when homeless people go from car to car, asking for money at intersections, they just skip Purple Rain. I'm even too ashamed to post a picture of Purple Rain. And, yes, it is purple.

How did we end up with Purple Rain?

Several years ago, Mr. Monkey was in a five-car pileup on the 10 freeway. This dumb bitch "lost control of her car," swerved across four lanes, and caused dozens of cars to screech and turn to avoid her. Poor Mr. Monkey was Car #3, and our beautiful black Mercedes CLK 320 was no more.

[a moment of silence please]

[wiping away tear]

While waiting for the insurance money for our totaled car, we drove my ancient 1989 Mercedes 300E. This car may have been sweet when I drove it back in high school, but it was quite the clunker in the twenty-first century. Mind you, I am 30 now. I drove this car in high school. This crappy Mercedes leaked oil on a daily basis, had spotty air conditioning, and stalled...on the freeway.

Nevertheless, being the cheap mofos that we are, we kept driving the 300E, even after we got our hefty insurance check. (I now know Mr. Monkey used about a third of that check on the sparkly thing on my left ring finger.)

Then, one day, Mr. Monkey came home and said, "I bought a car." He just came home with hideous Purple Rain without consulting me. He sold my old Mercedes to his friend for just a few hundred dollars and bought Purple Rain from a co-worker for a couple thousand.

Huh?! I wasn't too jazzed about the lack of communication, but, scarily, even with all of its flaws, Purple Rain was a step up from my high school wheels, so I was mad for about a day, and then I agreed it was a good decision.

I must admit, however, to this day, I still hate that we have a fucking purple car.

It really is an embarrassment. I can't lie. I totally have car envy when I see the many luxury vehicles in our garage.

I also had car envy when I saw my former co-workers' cars. Perfecta has a brand new BMW X5. Both T-West and Bootcamper are Lexus owners. Lasagna Man drives an Infiniti. The Miz has a BMW 3-series convertible. Captain Amazing has a BMW 5-series. Ironman has a BMW 3-series convertible and a 5-series. And sweet little Curly Fries has a Volvo SUV, Porsche, and Mercedes.

Anyway, this is a ridiculously long (and somewhat irrelevant) intro to our auto show field trip. Long story short, I need a new car.

Mr. Monkey agrees that Purple Rain is an eyesore and that I should drive something shiny and fun. Depending on what we decide to get (some of my potential cars won't come out until 2008), we'll dispose of Purple Rain and welcome a new addition to our household at the end of this year or after we get back from South America next year. (Believe it or not, the same friend who bought my old Mercedes has actually requested that we sell him Purple Rain.)

On to the auto show! And, yes, we went to the auto show shortly after Thanksgiving. I haven't bought a car yet, so this post is still timely in my book. Nyah nyah nyah!

We headed straight to the super fancy schmancy cars first. Bentley, baby!

As we entered the Bentley area, we ran into Mr. Monkey's boss, who'd just come from that area. You may recall that he actually owns a Bentley. He said that he was checking out this year's new features. It made me chuckle that our unattainable cars were basically as common as Hondas to this guy.

Ferrari.

Lamborghini.

Aston Martin.

Lotus.

Rolls Royce.

After ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the unattainable, we went to the normal people cars. Like Mr. Monkey's boss and his Bentley, we checked out the new 2008 features on our Big Red.

Then we surveyed the contenders to replace Purple Rain. My goal is to get a cute small sedan or coupe that gets decent gas mileage, is no more than $35,000ish, and has some flair. I don't need much space because we already have Big Red, and style matters!

Candidate #1: Infiniti G35 Sedan or Coupe

Candidate #2: BMW 135i Coupe (Yes, there will be a ONE series in 2008!)

Candidate #3: BMW 328i Sedan

Candidate #4: Lexus IS 350

Candidate #5: Toyota Prius

Candidate #6: MINI Cooper

Candidate #7: MINI Cooper Convertible

Candidate #8: MINI Cooper Clubman

This is new for 2008! It's few inches longer than the regular MINI and has suicide doors! The extra few inches make the backseat more functional, but the car is still so cute and small! It reminds me a little of old "woodie" surf cars.

I'm heavily leaning toward a certain make, but I'm currently undecided about the model. I think it's pretty obvious what my fave make is. I've wanted one for years now, and I'm especially excited they're very reasonably priced!