Obviously

When we last left our heroes, the 3000GT was mostly working, with a few minor faults and a ticking time bomb of a transmission. Well, time’s up and the 3000GT is in Oregon, getting a full transmission rebuild. And sway bars. And a big brake kit. And some other stuff. So we’re not here to talk about the 3000GT. 

  

The 1991 3000GT was the first Japanese car to earn the infamous "Dead Sexy" award, given to those automobiles whose styling is particularly suited to being displayed on the back of a tow truck. The category had previously been dominated by Alfa Romeo and Jaguar, both of which companies redoubled their efforts. The Japanese, having tasted glory once, adopted a "spray and pray" approach by partnering with Takata.  Unfortunately, this led to a lot of "dead" and precious little "sexy" in the Japanese markets.

We’re here to talk about a 2001 BMW 540i. My 2001 BMW 540i. 

This is one of those decisions that, when fully surrounded by context and hours of explanation, is obviously correct. I’ll get into all that in a later post. The context-free version is that my dad bought a 540i in Pennsylvania, and now I’m sitting on a flight to Philly so we can drive the car back to California, where I’ll sell it, probably for a loss, to someone who is rightly suspicious of any car coming from the part of the country that solves all its winter problems with road salt. 

Our first planned stop is in Canton, Ohio to visit the boyfriend’s family, and already the car is making itself useful. The boyfriend, originally scheduled to fly to Canton last night and arrive this morning, fell victim to the vagaries of Delta’s poor data center management. So now he is also flying to Philadelphia, and he’ll drive with us tomorrow. Again, a decision that makes no sense normally, but perfect sense when you’ve been awake for 30 hours, wandering around the Oakland airport for the last 8, and Delta tells you that you may or may not still have a scheduled flight but they don’t know when, and they don’t know when they’ll know, and all the available flight information is, by Delta’s own admission, most likely incorrect. Obviously at that point, the only reasonable course of action is to book a flight on a different airline to a city 400 miles away from where you meant to go so you can sit in a car for 8 hours with your girlfriend and her parents. Obviously.

But I am assured by my parents that the back seat is comfortable for adults, which already puts it head and shoulders above any car I’ve owned in the last decade.

So, I’m resurrecting this blog for the purposes of documenting what promises to be an eventful cross country road trip full of questionable decisions and lengthy post hoc justifications that all reduce, eventually, to the unassailable “it seemed like a good idea at the time” argument. We’re off to a strong start. Obviously.