I SOLD MY CAR!

Last month, I sold my 2014 Mercedes CLA250 to a nice woman from Stratford.  I’d advertised it on Kijiji and Autotrader to get the word out.  There followed a virtual flood of inquiries from an assortment of lowballers, scammers, and just plain dickheads, the likes of which I’d never encountered!

I’ve never been a ‘car guy’.  The nicest car I’d ever owned before the Mercedes was a 1969 Buick Skylark two-door hardtop, robin’s-egg blue with a white interior and a 350 four-barrel.  I bought it from the late Lowell Barlow in 1974 while I was still in university.  He always had the nicest car in Wellington, and she was a beauty.  And could she burn rubber!  This old photo hardly does her justice.

Elva and I dated in that car.  One Friday evening, we watched the sun set over Barlow’s Pond, minding our own business.  Along comes a cop car.  Oh, shit!  He strides over and asks me to roll the window down.  “Could I see your license and registration, please?”, he says, a big grin on his face.  “Sure, Officer,” I reply.  “They’re in the back seat, in my pants pocket.”

We got the last laugh though.  As we drove gingerly out the laneway, we passed by the cop car, stuck to the axles in a notorious Wellington mudhole.

After the Buick came a succession of practical cars: Volkswagen Rabbits, Nissan Sentras, Dodge Caravans, Mazda 3s.  All of them economical and rather bland.  Heck, I even drove my late mother’s old jalopy for eight years.  Until the driver’s side door fell off!

To throw in a little excitement, we owned a Harley-Davidson for a while, but I traded it in for a bicycle.

I saw cars as a necessity, not a luxury; nothing more than a depreciable asset.  One of the worst investments one could make, I thought.  Then came retirement, and the urge to buy a nice car hit me.  In Saint John one weekend, I drove into the Mercedes dealer and was smitten.  There she sat, the car of my dreams!  Un vrai coup de cœur!  Not normally given to impulse purchases, I was helpless.

I explained to friends that I’d changed my mind.  Yes, she was a depreciable asset.  No, it wasn’t a good investment.  I reasoned that I’d become the depreciable asset, and it was time for me to enjoy a little comfort in my dotage.

My Mercedes took me everywhere, from four-lane highways to dead-end dirt roads.  During fishing season, the trunk was a jumble of rods, chest waders, mosquito repellent, and trout flies.  But I took good care of her, and she always looked her best for the weekend.

Fate intervened however.  While away from home last February, we got an email telling us that Elva’s beloved convertible had been lost in a storage barn fire.  Long story short, she decided to buy something more practical: a Mazda 3 hatchback.

As the fishing season drew to a close, I got to thinking: “Why two cars?  Couldn’t we get along with just the one?  We walk almost everywhere anyway.”  I discussed it with Elva, and she agreed.  It was time to part with my beloved.

I’m not a salesman, and I’d never sold a car before.  I consulted with a car dealer acquaintance and did some research of my own before listing the car.  I had two prices in mind: the one I wanted, and the one I’d take rather than let the car sit for the winter, and depreciate even more.

My first call came from a company in Spruce Grove, Alberta.  The guy said they’d sell my car for $500 more than I was asking.  Great!  All I had to do was send them $500, up front, for their services.  “That’s $500 I’d never see again,” I thought.

Next, I got a call from a dealer in Rancho Cucamonga, California.  Swear to God!  The sales pitch?  Because the Canadian dollar was so low, they were buying high-end cars up here to ship to the US.  All I had to do was drive the car to Moncton, put it on a railcar, and they’d wire the money to my account.  My banker explained that a fool and his money are soon parted.  “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” she told me. 

Over the four weeks or so that my beloved was advertised, I must have gotten fifty emails, phone calls, and texts.  Guys from Montreal and Toronto, most of them with heavy accents, wondering where Charlottetown was, and if we had an airport.  Guys offering me $5,000-$10,000 less than the asking price, hoping I needed to sell the car for some quick cash.

But the one who took the cake was this young guy from Halifax, a Hong Kong student taking English courses before enrolling in university.  He just had to have the car.  Daddy would send him the money in two weeks, he told me. 

Then, the texts started.  At least five a day.  Did the car have navigation?  Did it have a back-up camera?  Were there any scratches or dents on it?  Could I send more photos?  Did it have leather seats?  Could I drop the price a bit?  On and on it went…

Then, out of the blue, he texts me that he doesn’t have a driver’s license and would have to wait a month before taking the test!  I wanted to tell him where to go, but he happened to be one of my best leads at the time.  Finally, late one evening, I got one last email from him.  “Your car too expensive,” it read.  “I can get better car for same money.”  “Good riddance,” I muttered to myself.

One day, while I enjoyed a coffee at Starbucks, the phone rang.  It was a local number.  The guy said he’d seen the ad on Kijiji.  Was the car still for sale?  We agreed to meet later that day.  He drove up in a nice car, and right away I had a good feeling.  Here, finally, was a ‘car guy’.  I gave him the keys.  “It’s for my  wife,” he said.  “I think she’ll like the car.”

Before the sun set that day, she and I shook hands, and the deal was done.

I told the story of my experience as a car salesman to a friend, telling her that, although I’d enjoyed the car, I had no regrets.  “Well,” she said.  “You’ll always be able to say you owned a Mercedes.  Lots of people wish they had, but were just too cheap!”

At the end of the day, my Mercedes didn’t make me any happier.  It may be a status symbol for some but, for me, it just didn’t feel that way.  Yes, it was nice to experience German engineering.  And, yes, buying on impulse felt good for a change.

But it was just a car.  The dictionary defines ‘vehicle’ as “a machine used to carry people or goods from one place to another.”  Clever advertising makes them appear to be something far more important, far more useful, and far more necessary.

The lesson learned for me is that experiences matter more than material things.  I now have two life lists: a bucket list, and a fucket list.  On the first are things I want to do before I kick the bucket.  On the second are those I won’t ever do.  Like being a car salesman…