The car is dead. Long live the car!

As sad as it was to see my old friend go... this is my new hotness. This is the 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS. Sure, it's not quite an Evo X, but you'd be forgiven if you mistook it for one. The 18" wheels are bigger than my old ones (or my wife's 2004 Lancer), the front air dams, side skirts, and rear wing are standard, and the 2.4L, 168hp engine is larger than the engine in the DE or LE trims. Inside we've got an automatic transmission with manual mode, cruise control, paddle shifters on the steering wheel, two 12v power adapters, six speakers, a CD player with mp3/wma decoder, steering wheel stereo controls, audio jacks for hooking up an iPod, and bluetooth hands-free calling. Power windows, power door locks, keyless entry, a color digital information panel, as well as a surprisingly roomy interior and an unbelievably quiet engine add to the car's overall comfort. Also, switching from a 2-door to a 4-door with seven airbags, antilock brakes, active stability control, and a LATCH system for hooking up a child's car seat mean that I made a practical choice instead of just buying a car for the sexy... and it is definitely a sexy car.

Farewell to a friend, 2002-2010

It's pretty crazy how people can get attached to inanimate objects. The car in the above photo (a 2002 Mitsubishi Mirage DE coupe), for example. That was my car... scratches, scuffs, bird shit and all. I bought it on June 11th, 2002, just three days after my wedding. It wasn't the first car I'd owned, but it was the first brand new car. I don't know how we managed it. We managed to get deferred payments as part of the financing options, which we needed since we had almost no money at the time. With an 11% interest rate, our payments were around $312/month when we started making them. We didn't have a lot of choices... we needed a car right away, and Mitsubishi was the only manufacturer that was deferring payments, and the Mirage was the only Mitsubishi we could afford. I liked the car when I bought it. After all, it was kind of sporty-looking. It was a bit later that I realized that having a 2-door is kind of a pain, and that it was lousy to drive in the snow. Still, it got us where we needed to go those crucial years when we only had one car. Even after, it got me from Greensburg to Cleveland for job interviews. And even after my wife got a newer car (a 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer LS) and we started driving that car as our main car, my Mirage still got me wherever I needed to go when I was flying solo, for just a few weeks shy of 8 years now.

Lately, though, she'd been giving me troubles. There were some spots that were rusting, and I spent a bit of money repairing most of the exhaust last year. Then the battery went. About two weeks ago, I was on my way to a friend's house when it got obnoxiously loud. This time, it was the flex pipe, and it was going to cost another $1100. It was quite likely that, if I wanted to invest in a bit of repair, that she would have kept running for years yet, but I was getting frustrated with the expensive repairs and the plummeting Blue Book value. And she just didn't seem reliable anymore. So after much deliberation and soul-searching, we decided to get rid of her today, May 15th. And what was surprising to me was how similar that felt to the decision to put down our 18 year-old cat. Maybe it was for the best, but I was still saying goodbye to a loyal friend. So there you have it... I'm getting emotional over a car.

Farewell, old friend... you were a loyal and trusty car, and you'll be missed.