Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/116528
Bloody Knuckles By Peter D. DuPre CHANGING LANES Only Driven To Church On Sunday Ever since I became of driving age, I have been almost obsessed with getting the perfect used car. When I was a teen, the perfect used car was in one piece, had a V-8 that ran acceptably well, looked OK and was priced real cheap. Back then you could by a 10 year old domestic model with 50K on the odometer for about $75; sometimes less. Of course, in those days a car with fifty thousand on the clock was virtually worn out and required that a lot of hard-earned teen age bucks went into repairs to keep the wheels mobile for the big night at the local drive-in movie. As I got older and had more money to spend and my tastes changed. 6 bloody knuckles 0413 cl.indd 1 I still wanted a car that looked like it hadn't been attacked by a drunk with a sledge hammer, and ran well, but a V-8 wasn't required equipment and I found out that "real cheap" usually meant just that. Reliable transportation, I realized, usually came at a price. Used cars cost less than new one, but good ones still cost a significant pile of bills. As a man in my 20s, I was willing and able to pay up to a few hundred dollars for a reliable used car and I usually went shopping for low mileage specials being sold by senior citizens. My thinking was that older people probably drover their cars less and took better care of them. As it turns out the theory was mostly a good one. Mostly. april 2013 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM 3/5/13 2:26 PM