I've Got a Fever

So I've had this Miata for two years, and yeah, it looks cool, if you can get past the body damage and the sun fade and the flaking clearcoat. But I've been seeing these commercials for Toyota's new Yaris, the 40 MPG Wundercar (mileage like a hybrid, but way cheaper to buy and maintain). So yesterday, I thought I'd go look at one. And on the way out there, I pass another lot, a BMW place with Z3's and Minis. So I stop and see this.

Pretty cool. I take down some information, and I head out to the Toyota place, and they're sold out of Yarises. So I blow that off and go home. But I just can't get that Mini out of my head, so I run some numbers, and I can just barely afford it, or maybe barely not afford it. So I go back at 8:00 p.m. and test drive it.

Oh, it's sweet.

And if you know anything about the cars I've bought in the past (the '68 Mustang, the Fiero, the Scoupe, the Miata), you know that I go for small, quirky, instantly recognizable cars. This is almost a perfect fit for me. But I'm really not sure I can afford it.

So I go online searching for an alternative, and find another dealer in Broken Arrow who's got an almost identical Mini for $2,000 less. I won't know what's wrong with that one till I run the Carfax, if I get that serious.

It's still a lot more than I want to pay every month, but if I stick with the Miata for another year, I'm looking at several hundred dollars in repairs, probably a new set of tires, plus another winter driving a noisy, leaky, finicky prima donna. I like riding with the top down, but I don't do it very often, because I've almost always got some sort of loose paper shuffling around in there. And The Wife would certainly be thrilled that I'm driving something with more than two seats (which is sort of a combined pro/con, there).

And all of this may be a moot point, because I may end up not qualifying for the loan at all, right? By Monday, maybe reality will sink in and I'll just forget the whole thing until I'm in a little better shape financially.

But seriously, just look at this thing. It just looks like it came right out of a sci-fi comic book, doesn't it? It was made for me. Or at least, it'll do until I can get my own Mini Cooper Robot. (The original site is now down, but trust me, it was hella cool, even if it was a hoax)