Fun With Fords

I've been looking at the new Ford Mustang a lot lately. If I weren't doing this whole school thing I'd be all over one of those. Not that I'm deprived in the car department or anything. I love my car. It's a wonderful toy and getting to and from Kentucky a lot harder without it.

I got my first car in 1998. I'd just changed jobs, was making $10,000 more a year and the one and only time I'd taken transit there (for the interview) it had taken six hours. Clearly I needed a car.

I decided that I wanted to buy the car in Orillia instead of Toronto. I'd need my parents to co-sign my car loan, so this would be more convenient. Also, I trusted the Orillia dealers a little more than the ones in Toronto.

The first dealer I visited was a Pontiac dealer. I liked the look of Sunfires and wanted to have a look and test drive one. However, the salesman I met wasn't really interested in showing me a new Sunfire. He was more than happy to show me the used ones, though, and was really pushing a white one with a gaudy red interior.

Ummm... No.

Next stop was the Ford dealership. The car that both caught my attention and was within my price range was the ZX2. It looked great, it had nice sporty performance and it was relatively cheap.

The next step was a test drive, but that wasn't going to be as easy as you'd think. You see, I really wanted a car with a standard transmission but didn't know how to drive one. I just knew the advantages and knew it would be more fun to drive... The salesperson took it in stride, though. She said it would be no problem to teach me how. My first time out wasn't bad at all. I think I stalled once or twice, but I didn't grind the gears. (that would come later).

I did a number a test drives before finally deciding to get my car. It mostly went pretty smoothly. I did have a few problems and almost gave up a couple of times. My most notable issue was that I had a huge problem turning left for some reason. I stalled almost every time. I sat through stop lights, I cursed, I pounded the steering wheel but the car wouldn't move. I'm not entirely sure what the problem was. Possibly the fact that I had to drive across the oncoming lane, get the car moving and turn the wheel all at the same time.

That wasn't the only challenge. I started my new job several days before the car would be ready. I had a week to learn to drive in a big city on a rented automatic before being thrown into the fray in my new standard. If was enough to figure out my commute and the neighbourhood around work but not much more.

It went a fair bit better than I expected. I normally stalled it about once a day, but it was pretty smooth. Somehow I never got stuck trying to turn left in a major intersection... I think I avoided doing it, frankly.

My little red ZX2 served me well for a couple of years, it really was a great little car, but in 2000 I moved on to something a little bigger and got my current car.

More on that tomorrow..