Back in July, I announced that I’m selling off a handful of vehicles, starting off with the projects that I just knew that I wasn’t going to finish. I’ve let go of a lot of vehicles I thought I’d keep for a long time and I’m finding their departure less disturbing than I’d have originally assumed. Instead, reducing my 27-vehicle-strong fleet has been refreshing. Now, I’m going to let even more cars go, and one reason why is making me excited.
For years, I’ve been known in various spaces as a serial collector. It used to be that I collected Matchbox cars. Then I started collecting obscure smartphones and later, custom-built computers and old iPods. In more recent years, I’ve pivoted to vehicles, buying and selling all sorts of cars and motorcycles. I mean, I’m the lady who loves Smart so much that I own six Fortwos and plan on collecting more!
Sometimes I let my collecting get out of hand and I think I reached that point. By the spring of this year, I had a total of 27 vehicles, 17 of which were cars, 9 were motorcycles, and one bus (plus a camper). Recently, I wrote an article about the cool cars you can import in 2025 and one of them, the Audi A2, is a car I want to import as soon as I find one that’s old enough. My excitement dimmed at the thought of adding even more cars to my fleet. Then I thought about it. Why do I own some of the cars I have? Why not just have nothing but my dream fleet?
That made something in my head click. One of the blessings and curses of working for a car website is that I don’t have a real commute. I wake up, I get showered, I get dressed, and I get my blood flowing before I sit down at a computer in my apartment. I could go weeks before I need to drive a car for a practical reason. So, if nothing needs to be a daily driver, there’s nothing stopping me from just owning nothing but the cars I dream about.
This has brought me to one conclusion: Everything that isn’t a dream car needs to go right now.
Now, I want to be clear that what counts as a dream car to me isn’t what most picture when that term is uttered. I have six Smart Fortwos because those are the cars I love so dearly. They’re also dirt cheap to maintain when you know how to work on them yourself. I could keep a Smart alive with my eyes closed. So, those aren’t going anywhere. I’m also not getting rid of the Saturn Sky Red Line or my Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI. Those are the cars I dreamed about owning when I was a kid and I finally have them. I’m so excited I get to say that! I also adore my Honda Beat and my Suzuki Every Kei cars.
Then I got to the rest of my list. I had two Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDIs, a very well-used Volkswagen Phaeton V8, a BMW 530xi wagon, a Volkswagen Passat TDI, a Buell Blast I wasn’t riding, a Genuine Stella scooter that doesn’t even run, and a Volkswagen Touareg VR6 that required far more in repairs than it was even worth.
I’ve been going through my head over and over with these vehicles, asking myself a few questions. Why did I buy these vehicles? What practical value do these vehicles add? How much does it cost to keep them around? And perhaps most important to me, someone who doesn’t actually need a daily driver: What do these cars do for my feelings?
The answer is that all of the cars on the above list don’t actually do much for me. I bought the 2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI because I was searching for the holy grail of Volkswagen diesel wagons. That was also the same reason I bought the 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI and the 2005 Volkswagen Passat TDI wagon. Until recently, these cars lived side-by-side!
How did I buy three diesel wagons in the search for the grail? The 2012 white Jetta has a DSG, and that didn’t do it for me, so I bought the black 2010, which has a six-speed manual. That was better, but once the honeymoon wore off it sort of just became a car to me. It defaulted to being the closest I had to a daily driver. I then picked up the Passat TDI because it had a manual swap and I thought finally, that car would be the grail.
I’ve come to the confusing realization that either these cars are not the grails I’ve been searching for, or maybe I’ve just fallen out of love with Volkswagen diesel wagons. Either way, I lost the feelings I had for these cars and they aren’t dream cars, so it’s time to get rid of them. I sold the Passat TDI earlier this year and in typical Volkswagen fashion, it fell apart on the owner on the way home.
A few weeks or so ago I sold my 2010 Jetta SportWagen TDI to a diesel fan. I haven’t heard much from the buyer since, so I assume things are going pretty okay. I sure hope so. Now, it’s time to let go of the 2012 SportWagen and its impressive 355,000 miles. There was a time I thought I was going to take that car to a million miles, now I don’t care.
I also sold my beloved U-Haul CT13 earlier this year. I met up with the owner a few days ago and I’m happy to hear he’s made good progress on the restoration. He’s reconditioned the wheels and the frame, but sadly, the original 40-year-old curtains disintegrated into a sort of cotton powder when he tried cleaning them.
Once these cars are out of my life the only Volkswagen in my fleet will be the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI, and I’m okay with that! My Touareg VR6 was the subject of a different purge I did earlier this year and the Volkswagen Phaeton has already ended up in the hands of a dishonest flipper, who continues to have a hard time selling it.
So, what else am I getting rid of? I still want to rid myself of the 2005 Genuine Stella. I bought it as a fun project, got it running, let it sit, and then gave it to my wife to teach her how to wrench on a bike. It has served its purpose and I have no desire to keep it. I have so few feelings for that scooter that the picture above is five years old and it’s the best picture I have of the Stella.
I’m also saying goodbye to the 2007 BMW 530xi that I bought from the Bishop. This car is one of the nicest things I own. The Bishop took incredible care of this car and if it weren’t for the 180,000 miles on the odometer, you’d be able to fool me that it had maybe half of the miles.
But, at the same time, I don’t really have much attachment to this car outside of liking how it looks. I like looking at it and it is a comfortable drive, but it’s not a car that appears in my dreams at night or on my phone’s wallpaper. So, let’s get rid of that, too.
Once I’m done with this purge, my car list will contain the six Smarts, the Honda Beat, the Suzuki Every, the Saturn Sky Red Line, the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI, the Plymouth Special DeLuxe, and the holy grail BMW X5 with a manual transmission.
I should also get rid of my bus, but I would love to have that be a part of my personal vehicle museum one day. I’ve been wanting one of those buses ever since I was a kid and I fear if I get rid of it I’ll regret it. At the same time, my heavy diesel mechanic friend has warned me that I’m truly boned if I ever need a major repair like an engine overhaul. He’s warned me that a transit bus engine overhaul at his shop would cost at least $10,000 and really, they are not meant to be owned by singular weirdos like me. That’s like playing with fire.
The good news is that I don’t need to make that decision right now. But what I do want to do right now is get rid of those cars that aren’t my dream cars. This is already having a positive impact as the cars I have gotten rid of have given me the time and motivation to fix my old 2008 Smart Fortwo.
It’s now all cleaned up, wearing newer non-snapped front springs, and ready to be a daily driver again. I even have a plan to get rid of the decals of the business from which I bought the car. As it turns out, I don’t need to buy new panels! Which is good since those are darn hard to find nowadays, anyway.
What’s next? I plan to keep the fleet on a downward trend, but I also want to chase nothing but my dream cars. In 2025 I will import an Audi A2 and then tell you how to get your own car from Europe. I also want to import a Rover MGF, maybe not to keep it, but definitely to try it out. How bad could a British Miata be? I have no idea, but I want to find out. I also have other cars I want to try like a first-generation Honda Insight and a BMW Z3. Again, I may not keep these cars, but the glut of non-dream cars I have sitting around hinders me from following my heart.
Until then, I’m just happy to have lifted a weight off of my shoulders. I’m going to be under 20 total vehicles for the first time in far too long. Hopefully, these next cars going up for sale will go to people who will appreciate them rather than try to offload them onto someone else with a dishonest listing.
Didn’t you also have a small and unusual Yamaha? IIRC the model designator had a 7 in it.
U-7 step thru 70cc
That’s it – thank you!
I have 16 vehicles, 11 registered. It is definitely a task to keep up with them. At present, three of my 11 are inoperable for various niggling reasons. Not to mention plate fees, and about half the fleet is on tires aged “maybe new ones would be a good idea”. So I understand the nagging frustration. And let’s face it, in the present especially, there’s expense to it that I realistically don’t need.
So I get the incentive to downsize. I always said if I was rich enough I’d have a building full of cars. But the reality is still there, it’s a lot to manage. People see a Koenigsegg or whatever and say how does it have so few miles, why did they never drive it? Well the answer is the guy probably had 15-20 cars and just didn’t get to it that much.
Luckily my fleet still calls to me, and looking at the rack of keys in the morning and thinking, “what do I feel like driving today?” is a lot of fun. But if there’s stuff in your fleet that doesn’t move you, then absolutely, move on and rotate something in that does.
Do you ever end up having to leave stuff in the parking lot at the store, you know, until the part comes in or something?
Luckily no, but at least three of the bikes I’ve had to wheel into my office at different times in the last couple decades, because they wouldn’t start to go home! 😀
Oh that’s even better. There’s nothing cooler than having motorized vehicles where they don’t normally belong. There’s an old tv show V$gas where a private eye lives in a big garage & just drives his T-bird right into his living room area.
I remember that show! I think my Dad used to watch it.
Yeah the Ducati once spent about three weeks in my office while I slowly took it apart to replace all the fuel lines in my spare time. Once I had it back together I fired it up right in there! Had to make sure it didn’t leak, you know?
I spoke to a local collector in Brooklyn (he has like fifty cars), and he realized it was less trouble for him to register as a company and get a dealer plate than try to keep up with registering and inspecting all of his vehicles. Now he can drive whatever he likes.
In NYS, historic cars also need inspections every 12 months – it costs $10, which means no shop is particularly interested in doing it since it means they lose about $50 on the whole deal.
Good for you! Thinning the herd is good for the soul. Especially jettisoning the VWs-they are a special kind of hell. Just did the DPF replacement on my mom’s 2013 Jetta TDI as she couldn’t afford the 5k + bill from the dealership or her mechanic. Luckily the car is pretty clean or else I would have broken every fastener. Still not a fun job and the timing belt needs replacement next. When the DSG dies or the body gets too rusty I’ll snag the TDI for a swap into something that doesn’t actively hate me.
Jetta-soning the VW’s.
Out of the automosphere passat the moon …
I can barely keep up with five cars (and three of them only get driven in the summer), I can’t imagine dealing with that many.
Ugh, no kidding…I owned five for a while this year, but only for a short while. I couldn’t get back down to three quick enough.
At one point I had seven, that was WAAAY too many. Five is OK mainly because they are split between my summer and winter homes, so I deal with the two in FL when I am there, and the three in ME when I am up there. And with two of the three in Maine being toys, there is never any huge stress about fixing an issue.
Historically, I have done the overwhelming majority of my own work on my cars. But advancing middle age has caused me to pick my battles. I spent $4200 at the local Indie shop for some Mercedes fettling last fall. That hurt my pride more than my wallet. It does help that may cars are emphatically NOT hoopties and are generally extremely well-maintained and reliable.
I’ve no idea how you guys manage collections like this, at one point I had a Miata, an M Roadster, a 190e, and a toyota pickup as a single person and it made me crazy. Near constant repairs/rego/smog shop trips were bad enough, can’t imagine going 6x and dealing with storage on top of that… Sold the merc cheap to a friend in need of a car and felt better, and finally dumping the miata was transcendent. Feeling like you’re owned by your shit *sucks*.
Good on you for taking inventory and deciding what’s important to you. I’m sure you have the euro importing thing well researched at this point, but VW/Harlequin super fan Jamie Orr runs a US import service out of Germany. Could be an extra cool story getting involved with Jamie for the import.
So the dream to be living is going to be something like owning a train, right? 😉
It’s about owning your things versus them owning you.
The obligations I feel when I have too many projects definitely has a negative impact on my mental health. Look at all this work I have to do. I can’t do that fun thing I want to, I need to get this thing fixed. And then I can move on to the next item on that long list.
Every few years I need to relearn this lesson, but thankfully I’ve never gotten to the point of owning a double digit number of cars. But I’ve again let myself get carried away and have two non-functional cars taking up garage space, and no will to fix them. There’s too much fun to be had with my fully functional cars.
Good for you. If it doesn’t spark joy and it’s getting in your way, ditch it. Even if it’s at a slight loss. There is a definite value in avoiding headaches that come from trying to optimize everything.
I don’t have the number problem.. but I feel ya. The anxiety I get over whether my fun car is going to leave me stranded sucks. Plus the things it needs to have fixed doesn’t help. It really negates the point of having a fun car.
If you and David team up to liquidate your respective fleets, you could start a site to rival Cars & Bids or Bring a Trailer.
Only living in an HOA has stopped me from accumulating more than 5 or 6 cars at a time. I’m usually forced to trade them out to acquire new ones. For instance, Tuesday, I traded a 2021 F-150 Limited 4×4 I didn’t like for a 2024 VW Golf R DSG that I adore.
I can’t wait to hear about the A2; that’s a car that has always interested me. If I were going to import something in the coming years, it’d probably be a Renault Avantime.
Yay! Send these vehicles on to happier homes. Embrace the ones that make you truly happy. More isn’t always better. Everything in moderation.
I’m beginning to learn that more is just…more!
So much wagon-y goodness for sale.
Your autopay notifications must ding hourly. lol
It’s even worse: Everything is due on the first of the month, so money gets practically vacuumed out all at once. My wife and the Autopian are the only reasons I’m able to do this without going bankrupt.
I’d imagine.
In all seriousness, I get keeping the Saturn, maybe your two best Smarts and a sedan, but the rest of it?
Whatever makes you happy, but, yikes. Just rent something if you need it for whatever.
[Mike Brady, to Carol Brady] It looks like our Mercedes is growing up!
I read somewhere that the MGF weird shocks are unobtanium
Smart lady!
Decluttering is good.
When your possessions become a burden, it’s time to let them go.
This is good, glad you are moving your fleet in this direction.
I only have one car right now, so I can afford to baby it and take good care of it (in both the time and money sense). The more cars you take on, a) the less time you have to actually spend time enjoying each one, and b) the thinner you have to allocate financial resources for proper care and maintenance.
Seeing as how many of your cars have had issues due to a combination of neglect and/or deferred maintenance (not washing the mud off of your off-road smart, mold growing in the interior of the other one, janky VW’s with expensive issues that have not been repaired), you’re much better off with a few special cars than 20+ meh ones.
While life is too short to drive boring cars, it’s also too short to constantly juggle a bunch of janky ones that you rarely get to enjoy.
In fairness to those two Smarts, I made those mistakes before I got a huge collection. I neglected to wash the mud off of that one Smart in 2019 when I owned nothing but three Smarts and a Ford Ranger. It was a stupid move I still regret.
The one that got moldy was another stupid mistake storing a car for the winter with actively wet carpet. It’s annoying because I stabilized the fuel, put the car on a tender… and still screwed up anyway.
I have a checklist nowadays because I’m prone to screwing up. Step one is don’t work on cars while intoxicated!
One fancy plane flight and now you think you are too good to wrench. Next, you’ll be moving to LA and hanging out with Jay Leno.
And eating PB&J’s with the crust cut off.
Fancy Mercedes is being born or something. LOL
The only way I’m moving to California is if you’re paying me to move there. I love Cali so much, but oh my the money…
Living in the dirt cheap Midwest allows me to play with cars for fun! My apartment rent isn’t even $1,000 a month. 🙂
Obviously I am kidding. Now that DT has gone Hollywood, you are the purest automotive and motorcycle nutcase on Autopian. And I mean that in a good way.
You pay less in rent than I pay in property taxes alone here in the PNW.
Yup my Property tax in CA is right around $1k a month…
Marie Kondo visits The Autopian. First David and now Mercedes have embraced the reduction of clutter.
Do they spark joy?
Correction: do the spark, air, and fuel joy?
Shouldn’t that be reason enough to not own SIX of them? I commented this on your last article about divesting cars, I understand wanting duplicates, but 6 of the same car is a burden!
They’re not exactly the same car! Largely one of each generation plus special variations. Weirdly, the six Smarts are the easiest to keep around. They’re cheap to insure, cheap to run, and all can fit in a garage I don’t have to pay for.
The VWs…gosh those were a mistake. I’m not even chasing an Eos anymore because I want off of the VW merry-go-round.
Heh, you sound like me trying to justify to my partner why I had a Tracker, and a Sidekick. “They’re different generations!”. In the end I eventually decided that she was right, and sold the little sidekick. BUT, I’m also in support of “If you have the space, multiple cars don’t hurt anybody”. I’m down to 6 rigs now, which for two people is still too many, but they at least all fulfill different roles now.
> The VWs…gosh those were a mistake
We coulda told you that :p
“Is this still available?”
You. Out.
Too bad the Autopian doesn’t allow gifs…
If you ever do decide to get rid of the Beat, I might be interested.
This makes me happy. Lying bastard. I hope he loses money on it.
Me too. I hope it haunts him. Hell, I almost hope someone takes exception to his scummy schemes such that he remembers it for years
I kind of want the scooter but I am both cheap and mechanically inept.
Where do you park this many vehicles? I feel like David got heat for a much smaller fleet.
I rent a lot of space. That’s another motivation for culling the fleet. I’d like to get rid of at least one of the spaces.
The garbage I tend to buy is so cheap that I can’t justify paying for storage. It only takes a few months of those fees to exceed the value of the vehicle, at which point I should have just saved the money and bought one when I was ready for it, and done other fun things with the money.