Hi I'm Thalassa's dad, I'm a gearhead, always have been and likely always will be. This is the story of her mom and I buying her first car.
Not so strangely I'm attracted to; ugly, unloved, incredibly complicated or out of fashion vehicles. The buy in price is always low and the dollar to fun/entertainment ratio is usually very high.
Air Cooled VW(s), Citroen, Hudson, FIAT, Ferrari, Dodge Dart(s), Lotus, Jaguar, International Harvester,Triumph, These were/are some of my favorite past/current rides. Always 20+ years old when I get them and normally a millstone around the current owners neck.
I love(d) them all. Sometimes it was as simple as one compound curve on a fender or a really beautiful door handle latch assembly, regardless something about them always commanded my slavish devotion.
Now I'm married with a little girl on the way, she's due on Oct. 31st, and her impending arrival means it's time to assess the fleet. I (we, I'm married now, gotta keep that straight) currently have five vehicles in the "car" category. None of them except a 1971 VW camper have more than two doors and there just isn't a baby friendly one in the bunch.
Please enjoy this pictorial journey of our vehicle search. Some were un-realistic for my socio-economic level and some were just plain ridiculous but if they are on this page they were contenders (in my mind anyway) to be Thalassa's first ride.
My first thought was an LM200. How hard could it be to find one of these? They are now so common some US army guys blew up Uday Husseins for fun.
Well that search lasted about 10 Minutes. Seems people still like Lamborghini's, who knew?
I decided to get more realistic, American Steel, Thats what we need. No fancy pants Euro sled for our baby.
Ahhh an early model H1 turbo diesel, holy crap what a piece of work. I spent a full day crawling all over these at local car lots. It's like a transformer mated with an Alvis Stalwart. This should be a good baby mobile right? Well apparently I am slightly disconnected with reality when it comes to cars, money, public perception and other things important to the wife. Just for the record I think it's ruggedly handsome and worth the price of a small house, so there.
At this point I asked the wife what she wanted, normally vehicles are my department but I'm 0-2 and wanted some parameters.
What the hell is this? I thought looking at a picture of "it", my ego raged and my self image crumbled into a pile of beige colored dust. What has this child she's carrying done to my wife? She who rode a Vespa for 10 years, She who commuted on a 250cc dirtbike rain or shine, She who gave me the thumbs up on countless absurd schemes, projects and vehicles of every stripe wanted this? I kind of shut down emotionally and looked at our future. A future filled with; car payments, service departments, decreasing value, and Japanese reliability. "Never" I shouted quietly to myself when she was not around, there has got to be a compromise.
She nearly went for the low mileage XJ6 Vanden Plas. Glorious white, sassy wooden interior, those handy folding tables in the rear for when the child is running a business and being driven to Ladybug soccer, the classic reliable Six cyl engine, bags of charm, so what's the problem you ask? I think any Six month pregnant woman could tell you, ingress and egress. I forgot about that. I had an XJS previously and watching passengers crawl from the passenger seat to the curb while humorous does not make for a long term family car. Next!
So close to perfect, the MB E320 wagon. Oh man this is a kid car I can live with. So where is the compromise? She loves it, I love it, perfect right? Well sort of. My wife, God bless her blind faith in my mechanical abilities made one condition very clear. We live in the high desert, the A/C and heat must always work, without exception and if/when it fails I will be sleeping in the car until it is repaired. Thats fair, she gave me very few restrictions and climate control seems pretty important as little babies are apparently pretty vonurable to the elements. So a quick search followed by a comedic double take, $500 for a blower motor, Yikes! I called a friend who loves his MB(s) and he assured me the blower motors never go out, Whew...but the "climate Control Switch" does at a staggering parts cost of nearly $500 and that I should also budget money to replace the frequently leaky aluminum Evaporator that lives way, way, way deep under the dashboard at a mere $750 for parts and apx. 20 hours to R&R it.
Can you hear my heart breaking? Can you feel my dreams slipping away? What the hell am I going to get? A new car with a fat loan is so far from my reality I just can't accept that scenario, yet finding a car I can afford to maintain to the standard necessary for domestic bliss is damn elusive. I began trolling used car lots late at night to avoid salesmen, I would come home when my flashlight died, covered in dirt from crawling around under cars with a fresh list of models to research. Weeks pass, I now belong to every car manufacture user group I can find. I have become the ultimate car research machine. I read posts dating back 10 years and work my way up to the present. I know everything that could fail on every model that catches my eye. I'm in a time vortex where all my potential vehicle choices have been discussed Ad nauseam by people who likely sold the cars years ago.
Enter the Iron Nanny. First I want to preface the introduction with a little more background on myself and the wife. I have never before felt the need to justify any vehicle of mine (well maybe the Ferrari) but the Iron Nanny came from left field and I'm still a little shocked. We are California city folk and rocked San Francisco like marauders for 15 years. Motorcycles, Scooters, Mopeds, Bicycles, anything to avoid being another sucker looking for parking. At the height of my vehicle madness I had 25 bikes packed into a three car garage. Ducati, Norton, BSA, Cagiva, Lambretta, Vespa, Puch, Suzuki, Honda, Moto Guzzi, etc. The list went on and on, and they all ran, I was in 20 something heaven. Fast forward to my 30th B-day, I wanted to buy a house thinking it would prove to my sweetie who is now my wife what a solid bet I am, 20 bikes = one down payment. Now 10 years and three houses later, we live in a great town in Nevada populated by; cowboys, cowgirls, ranchers and solid blue collar folks. We still have a dozen motorcycles and scooters but; lane splitting is illegal here, there isn't a decent set of twisties for 20 miles, It snows in the winter, is over 100 deg. in the summer and there is plenty of parking. Quickly our cars became the vehicles of choice. My truck that always seemed so damn big in the city now felt like a toy, everyone here goes big when it comes to vehicles and no way was I going to put my family in something akin to a speed bump so with great excitement I present The Iron Nanny (and my lovely pregnant wife).
I'm in no way saying this thing is perfect, what machine is? But after performing all the factory recommended maintenance and following the advice I gleaned from user forums I'm impressed.
My first V8*, a 350 Chevy small block and the first year for the Vortec engine. Are you ready for this? It has a molded nylon (read plastic) intake manifold, valve covers and distributor. There are two lights that come on to illuminate the engine when you open the hood and a transmission that shifts automatically! American cars where have you been all my life, This thing is a freak show. I had to read up on driving an automatic transmission, what a concept, it's so civilized.
*I don't really count my International Harvester Scout II, It does have a 345 V8 but it's more like driving farm equipment than a car.
We got it from the original owner who purchased it new at the 1996 car show in San Diego for 40K cash. I won't say what I paid but it depreciated $3,400 per year since new, Yikes. The mileage shown is pretty close, we are currently getting 15 MPG. (5 more than the Scout, 5 less than the Danger Ranger) This thing is loaded, I feel like a Pasha driving it around.
How is this for covering my butt, dual air conditioners and heaters! Even if they both fail this thing is bigger than rooms I've had, sleeping in it will be plush. The blower motor and fan were making a tic tic sound so I bought a new AC Delco one for $19.00. 15 Min. work and the sound was gone. Sweeet.
It needed new shoes and what other choice is there for a 4X4 assembled in Mexico than BFG?
Ready for the Baja 1000
Mmmm leather
Thanks for looking and please drive a hybrid so I can suck up the gas you save.
Addendum:
The Iron Nanny survived it's first serious shake down run with flying colors. 300 miles, 50% dirt four passengers, A/C blasting. One two hour section was a 75MPH washboard road with deep sand corners, another was slow 4Xlow crawling up and down soft hills and finally a 90MPH blast across a dry lake bed culminating with a coffee break in the middle of nowhere. Our family visiting from Germany were thrilled, they had never been off road before and had a ball.
Excellent dust seals, zero dust inside the cabin, Great tracking on loose gravel, No wheel spin in 4Xlow, The 'Burb wins very high marks all around with the exception of 8MPG when driving in "Sport Mode"
Addendum to the Addendum:
We had our first system failure. My lovely and patient wife was driving across the California central valley where the mid-day heat can be a killer and the front fan stopped working. She called me for help (read above regarding her blind faith) and we managed to trouble shoot the problem over the phone, we determined the rear A/C was still working. So bless her sweaty heart she finished her trip and I had a chance to develop a list of causes. In a post from 1997 I found the same issue discussed, 20 minutes after she arrived home I had the dash cover off and the problem exposed.
A loose fitting ground wire on the back of the fan switch can cause overheating of the plug. A call to the dealer confirmed what the user group had unanimously decided the best fix was, add a second ground circuit. A little cutting and crimping, voila, back in business and not a single night spent in the 'Burb.
Not pretty under the dash fascia but very easy access to the components. I was not the first person to get this deep, I think the PO (previous Owner) had the same Fan issue, every thing I removed had been removed before. The mechanic who made the prior "repair" however skipped installing a second ground circuit and simply tightened the stock connection, it worked for a while but he must have known it was going to overheat and fail again. In summation it took 45minutes to repair at a cost of $0. No damage to our respect for the Iron Nanny or our bank account, now thats a happy ending.
If anything else interesting happens I'll add Addendum 3.0
More a footnote than an addendum, the beast makes a great greenhouse when the weather turns cold. Eight baby Christmas trees a Yucca plant and room to spare.
