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| 1984 Chrysler LeBaron Town and Country Convertible |
A Brief History
Welcome to my blog. My name's Alex and I'm a pastor. While I consider myself a Jesus guy first, "car guy" is probably a close second. I bought my first car (a 1978 Olds Ninety-Eight Regency) when I was fifteen years old in anticipation of my sixteenth birthday. Since then, I've owned at least fourteen different cars. It's been awhile since I've recounted them all (I smell a future post here), but you get the point. What you see here is my latest acquisition a 1984 LeBaron Town and Country Mark Cross edition. Believe it or not, this is a car that I've wanted since I was a little kid. While Chrysler's K cars might not be the most exciting on the planet, I've got fond memories of my parents' 1984 Plymouth Reliant wagon which was a great, reliable, efficient car that soldiered on even after a friend of mine (who bought it from us) ran it into a tree. |
| 1964 Buick Electra 225, mine from 2002-2010 |
I sold my last "fun" car, a 1964 Buick Electra 225 sedan, soon after the birth of my son in 2009. The car was nice, but a major gas hog, had no rear seat belts or air conditioning, was due for some relatively major maintenance, and I had owned it for seven years, so it was time to sell.
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| 1994 Honda del Sol Si, destroyed by soccer mom in 2005 |
I was really starting to miss having a convertible; there's just nothing like them except motorcycles, and, well, I'm a family man now and don't trust other drivers enough to go around on two wheels. My last top-down car was a 1994 Honda del Sol Si in samba green and I totally loved that car until it was totally totaled by a soccer mom who blew a stop sign in her Volvo station wagon. It was probably my favorite of all of my cars. My wife and I had just graduated from seminary and used the insurance money to buy furniture, which we needed more than a third car at the time. I started looking around in 2012 for a four seat convertible that had some style, wasn't too expensive (I am a small church pastor, after all), and was in good shape. After searching Craigslist posts from around the country, I found the LeBaron that I'd eventually bring home in Des Moines, Iowa. She had 23,500 original miles, a perfect interior, a couple of bumps on the outside, but nothing major, and the right price. While my wife wasn't convinced, she also indicated that she probably wouldn't divorce me for buying it. So I brought it home in October 2012 with an uneventful six hour drive from Des Moines to the Chicago suburbs. In a couple of weeks, I'll be driving her the entire length of Route 66 to our General Synod meeting in Long Beach at the end of June. It's been a lifelong dream of mine to travel "The Mother Road" and I'll be sharing the story of my trip here.
