New summer toy

I've been reminded again (maybe the hard way) that I should stay off of Facebook Marketplace and that I'm completely irresponsible. Max likes cars and I was telling him about the BMW Z3. It was a car that I always liked and very nearly purchased back in the late 90's back when Amy and I were engaged and still had single people money. She needed a new car at the time and we both loved the looks of it but eventually decided it was not practical and moved on to a four door sedan that was cheaper and would be better suited to car seats one day. The car stuck with me however and was the background on my desktop for a year or so after making the responsible decision.

Well after showing him the car he quickly started looking at them on Market Place. He found a bunch of them all relatively cheap. I explained that I liked the color of the one from the James Bond movie Golden Eye that the car had been introduced in and that when I had test driven them back in the day I would only consider the 2.8 6 cylinder engine or maybe the M version of the car. Sure enough he found one nearby for sale. I guess he hit me in a weak moment as next thing I knew we were driving out to look at it. When we got there the car was rust free, appeared to have very few of the known issues we had read about online (on the way over to see it), and the owner was telling us all the right things. After a quick test drive it seemed I had purchased a brand new to me 28 year old car. Like any old car it needs some attention. The seats need to be recovered, the stereo system needs to be replaced (I think all the speakers are blown out), and I'm sure all the plastic bits for the cooling system will fail at the most in opportune time. But the body is clean, the top works, and the engine and suspension seem to be in good working order.

It will be interesting to see what this thing ends up costing in the long run. The previous owner seems to have keep up with the maintenance for the most part but I've never owned a classic car before so I'm not really sure what I'm getting into. Can it be worse than an old boat? I guess time will tell. For now I can assure you that for the last three weeks it's been a fun car to enjoy the warm summer days in. I have not owned a vehicle with a manual transmission in about 30 years. Other than the occasional rental car in Europe, Asia, or South Africa I probably have not driven one in about 15 years so it's taking a bit to get proficient with again. The upside is that Max was excited to learn to drive a stick shift and after three lessons is now fairly proficient driving it. The downside is he seems to want to drive my toy around everywhere to show off to his friends.