Not all car people want the same things. And any of them may not be easily categorized.

From the start, I’ve preferred smaller cars and have never sought powerful engines or tried to beef them up once I got them. The closest I ever came was when I bought a tuner chip in anticipation of getting my father’s fishing truck, but that was to tune it for fuel economy. The chip has never left the box because the humongous turbo diesel gets better mileage than my wee little 88″ Series Land Rover.

The short list for my first car included four: Chevy Nova, also called Chevy II; Ford Falcon; Rambler American; and Dodge dart. I’d have been happy with any of them. Were I starting over and knew then what I know now, I’d  have gone for a Volkswagon Squareback or a Combi Van. The Combi would have paid off my house. All of those in the short list were six cylinder vehicles with adequate power for American roads.

After the first car, which came from that short list, I tried some foreign vehicles starting with a Triumph hatchback. Then an MGB hatch back. Then an MG sedan. I got a Fiat that had a 49 cubic inch motor which is about 1/9th the size of the one in my truck today.

I’m not against power. I just don’t think I’d enjoy it enough to pay big money to get it and if I really want a boost in that direction I could probably do it on the cheap by installing a Toyota 4AGE motor in one of the Europa cars. Electronic engine management would be a nice bonus that would come with it.

Yes, I like little nice handling sports cars and don’t need them to have powerful motors but I also enjoy my Series Land Rover which is known to be highly capable off road despite being technologically primitive. It’s running strong and happily there are parts for it with repair costs substantially less than you’d expect for something so rare.

But I also like the big Ford F250. It’s comfortable, capable, and powerful. I expect it to last a very long time.

Between you and I, I’m also a station wagon guy. If the Maxima still came in wagon form I’d probably have just stuck with that. But Minivans and SUV’s altered that market so that if you wanted a wagon you had Mercedes, VW, Audi, and BMW. The Germans apparently still get it.

Volvo builds them too, but they lost me when they came up with a body style that looks like the side panels are one big dent. What a hideous design. At about the time Volvo was ruining their wagons, BMW hired a guy to ruin the lines on some of their cars too. Ford must have hired a relative of his to destroy their Taurus.

Pity, I don’t have photos of most of the cars I’ve owned. In the 90’s I had a slew of American sedans and some wagons. The individual whose name appeared on our mutual marriage certificate kept mooching them off her dad. Most were good cars, but all seemed to need late night time with me and some wrenches. One of them lasted less than a week but it wasn’t even a bad car. I flew to Spokane and drove it back. It was a gift. I liked it. Ford Fairmont wagon. Next morning it would not start. On a hunch I moved all the distributor leads one position forward and that solved the problem. But the wife despised it and wanted it gone so it was sold for a replacement.

Most of the cars from that period were good but uninspiring. I only remember a few. The Chevette was very interesting in that it was small but still felt like a mid sized American car. I liked it very much.

The 1978 Jeep Wagoneer was very impressive in appearance and driveability. The big AMC wagon was quite nice until a woman smashed it to oblivion not long before my 4th child was born. She was in the car in the womb. No one got hurt. The driver of the other car was the substandard variety who milks opportunities like a traffic incident. She had a friend of hers prescribe her a nice assortment of goodies to help with her pain and back problems that she suddenly claimed to have. Things like a hot tub and a sauna. She was pretty shameless.

It is possible that the transmission for that car, fully functional and intact, may be buried under the back yard at the house where we lived at the time.

I absolutely loved the Minivans we had. One was an original Chrysler Caravan. Another was a Plymouth Voyager. What great designs! I got beat up pretty bad on the Caravan because it was a scam sale from a dealer who took it in and discovered a major defect in the motor so he had a friend of his claim to be coming out of a divorce and selling the thing as a result. That’s why she couldn’t answer any questions about it.

I read a comment tonight from a Europa owner in Oz, suggesting ways I could hop up my Type 54. I’m not interested in hopping it up. If it breaks catastrophically, I’ll likely install a Toyota motor though. I have the adapter plate and headers. Power and reliability for cheap.