My beloved 1994 Toyota Corolla wagon. Leaks oil, transmission slips. Dinged, dented, what's left of the rear struts rattles around like Harvey Fierstein with bronchitis ... but it still gets 30-34 mpg loaded up with junk.
It's on its last legs and I intend to drive it into the ground, but I just received word from my mechanic that the struts are completely gone and will cost $650 to replace, and probably will need an alignment. So I know I'm going to have to shop for a new car.
I'm hard on my cars on the inside but I try to maintain the motor. But the missing hubcaps (and recently I covered it with band-aid shaped bumper stickers) say I don't really care to be struttin' around in a Beemer.
So $650 to put it on hospice is overkill. I know it'll die soon so I'm going to slowly find a good used Toyota/Honda with under 100,000 miles. (wish SUVs didn't replace wagons in this country). Unfortunately, the other day, I ran over a nail. I patched the tire, but it inflated weird (it started to look like Jabba the Hut with a goiter) so I had to buy a new tire. The cheapest I could find was 60 bucks, gol ding it! I paid, since donuts aren't supposed to last more than 100 miles, then it's borrowed time, and the wife expressed concern that I was planning on borrowing that time. My mechanic corroborated, stating that the donut is made of a different type of rubber and is designed for getting you from the side of the road to the auto shop.
In any case, I painted this one up before all this came down. Just a tribute to an old friend and an acknowledgment that I know I'm not going to impress the ladies in this beloved pile of junk.
I want to revisit painting another car at some point ... I know I can do better, but it isn't a strength. I have been working on perspective, but that's one of those things you get in art school which I chose to run away from. Plus, I prefer organic shapes with fewer straight lines. Curse you Greek mathematicians with your straight lines and Platonic ideals!
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