Empty Garage
Few rites of passage get landmark status in a car fan's life. There's nothing in a car life like the birth of a first kid or the signing of a first mortgage--unless you have to do both just to get that "classic" Zimmer QuickSilver back on the road after Granddad left it to rot in a barn in New York City. Or so the family legend goes.
At my house, the landmark status now officially applies to getting the garage cleaned out. For whatever reason, since we moved to our present lurid digs over Christmas 2004, the garage almost always has been occupied by otherness. First, it was excess furniture of ours. Then it was excess furniture from a rental house. Then it was someone else's excess furniture. You see the meme developing? I didn't.
Finally, after a couple of redone rooms (thanks to Home Depot and mother nature), the garage is....clean. The old kitchen cabinets became new garage storage, the furniture left, the crap went to a greater container in the sky. When I broom-swept the last corner, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK came for the cast iron tub and its space-sucking friends, it nearly brought me to tears. I'd made it. I'd crossed over. I wouldn't be featured on Hoarders any time soon.
Now it's time to fill the garage, but with something a little more enjoyable than mismatched dinnerware and 1/3-full cans of paint. I've been drooling over a jet-black 1966 Lincoln Continental two-door to park in the two-car home above...but something about an 18.5-foot-long car and an 18-foot-deep enclosure doesn't add up. I've owned a Miata, and prefer not to repeat bad decisions (to sell it, that is). We've parked a Prius here over time, and there's a 2011 Nissan Leaf destined for a spot in here, but I'm planning on that being a sole tenant. Sorry Prius, you lose.
So here's where we need your help: High Gear Media wants to know what your empty-garage dream car would be. Forget the budget, forget the space constraints. It won't necessarily be the car I end up nesting in here, but we want a virtual snapshot of what collector-car dreams you're all harboring, for the day when you get a spare slot in your garage.
To get you started, here are some of the better and worse suggestions from my Facebook circle of friends. Tell us yours in a comment below:
- "Triumph TR6. Eff being practical."
- "Can never go wrong with a Miata....any year. Slap a roll bar in it, some stickies, and you have a daily drivable track toy that'll never break."
- "914-GT6, Crossfire SRT (c'mon, it is just a reskinned MB), Nissan Cube painted to look like SpongeBob."
- "Minivan."
- "Holden Ute SS V-Series Special Edition."
- "You finally have room for that baby blue new Beetle convertible. Screw the stereotype...go for it!"
- "I have a line on an amazing 911."
- "If you buy a 944 I promise you that I will sneak over and replace the badges with those from an Audi."
- "After hours club."
