First I noticed the bronze sculpture was missing.
It always sat on the front porch of a single-story house near Lake Huron where an old sailor once lived. I met him walking along the beach years ago. When I noticed the disappearance of the sculpture — a little girl on her tummy reading a book — I knew something was wrong.
I waited for the home for sale sign. Then I noticed an estate sale sign.
I arrived early on that Saturday. I came for the little girl statue.
In the driveway next to the house sat a bluish gray BMW. The estate salespeople didn’t know if it was a 2003 or 2004. Potential buyers were allowed to turn on the vehicle, back it up in the driveway and drive forward. Nothing more than a few feet. I sat in that dirty BMW and looked at a backseat covered with shoes and random clothes and stuff that makes backseats messy, and thought about the old man.
The two-door vehicle sat low to the ground, really low. Crumbs littered the soft leather seats. I looked around and realized I hadn’t really spent much time in a car since I sold my beloved Mercedes-Benz E-350 sedan just before leaving California in 2017. It seemed awkward to drive my German car while reporting on the Detroit Three and the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union that built Ford, Jeep and Chevrolet vehicles.
My husband said quietly when we first met, “I’m not going to ask you to drive a union-made car but I am going to ask that you remember those Detroit-built cars support friends and families that live all around us.”
When we took our vows, I promised to love, honor and drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Two Jeeps sit in our driveway now.
While SUVs absorb the brutal potholes on Michigan roads, I missed driving a car or something that didn’t feel enormous. But that wasn’t all, really. I wanted to escape the electronics and technology and flashing dashboard lights and images that bombarded me as a writer who drives new vehicles to learn more about them.
I longed for simplicity.
Technology in cars gives me anxiety.
When I took my Mercedes into the shop back in the day, they gave me a loaner with what looked like an Apple laptop on the dashboard. I asked for something else, and they told me tech was the future. I groaned.
Every day, I cover the increasing push into high-tech vehicles that help drivers stay in their lane, avoid obstacles, show alternate travel routes, display camera images of ground clearance. Car seats that massage your body. The list goes on and on.
And being an auto reporter now means writing about batteries and cobalt and lithium and the thousands of microchips needed to make a car go. There are touchscreens for the driver and the front seat passenger, not to mention screens in the backseat for children. (I read books and slept as a kid. It worked out fine.)
Sitting alone in this old car, I held the key in my hand and just looked at it.
No press button to start the thing. I slid the key into the ignition.
I looked at the radio with its knobs.
There was no touch screen on the dashboard.
And I felt comfortable in the squishy seats.
This 2004 convertible BMW 330ci with 157,000 miles is considered primitive by today’s standards, and the price tag was $3,000.
I climbed up cracking cement steps, went in through the side door and offered $2,500. A young guy with his hands in his jeans stood there and looked down. The estate woman asked, “What’s your offer?” And he confessed to having only $2,000.
When I brought the car home, my husband called relatives to say that we now had a foreign car and he wanted to apologize in advance. Our family has worked for Chrysler, Ford, Buick and Cadillac. Papa was a loyal Ford man.
Thing is, my new car isn’t without problems, ranging from a sagging front bumper and loose passenger side mirror that was held on by duct tape to leaking coolant and non-working lights. It’s insured now. It has plates. It hides in our one-car garage, leaving the Jeeps in the driveway for neighbors and passersby to see.
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I can’t drive the cloth convertible car in snow or ice, which means it’ll be mothballed for months in Michigan.
And UAW members frown on foreign cars being parked in union hall parking lots. You may notice Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota or Subaru vehicles parked a block or two away.
Still, after four weeks, I haven’t even driven my BMW around the block yet.
Hopefully my husband, a master electrician who often reminds me that he has a Ph.D. from Man School, will get everything repaired by May so that we can drive with the top down. For the record, I have friends and colleagues who can rip apart and rebuild a car. I mean, this is Detroit. Sadly, I am not one of those people.
The idea of wind blowing my long hair into an epic mess makes me smile. Aunt Poppy says a convertible is too dangerous. But I imagine Mom will make summer runs with me for Sanders hot fudge sundaes.
I wonder sometimes if we make weird choices now because of the pandemic, because we’ve seen life change in so many strange and confusing ways. That we give in to irrational impulses, like buying an old BMW sitting in a driveway of a house that just sold.
All I know is that little girl reading the book, who once sat on the porch of a house on Conger Street, now sits on my front porch. She’ll watch that familiar BMW pulling in and out of the garage on sunny days.
Along with the old owner’s manuals, I found a letter written to the owner of the BMW by his wife, a poet, before she died a year ago. Her words on lined paper said she wanted to thank him for being a good man and giving her a beautiful life.
This is what I think about when I sit in my old BMW, not really even caring if it works.
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Ford reporter Phoebe Wall Howard periodically writes experiential reviews that focus on day-to-day life with a vehicle. Contact her at313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Sign up for our autos newsletter at no cost.