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I’m in luuuuuuurve …

I was driving home the other day and saw her driving next to me. Whew. Knocked my socks off. Instantly, I fell in love. I’m sure Wifey™ wouldn’t mind having a third member of our family.

Her name is Karmann, pronounced Carmen. Last name — Ghia. She’s a red hot tamale produced by Volkswagen from the mid 1950’s to about 1970. She mostly comes with a hard top, but a few come with an adjustable top.

For quite some time I’ve been on the hunt for a good hobby. Not just computer stuff, which is starting to bore me a bit because I’m on a computer all day, but something a little more exciting. Something that would bring me outdoors and at the same time teach me something. Sports are out, because I’m not exactly the athletic type. Anything involving a team is out because I’m pretty antisocial when it comes to my hobbies. As you can see, finding a good hobby is tough. However, everyone seems to have one and I want one too. It makes you look interesting, for one.

Have you ever filled out an application for a job, or a form of some sort and there’s the dreaded line: “Hobbies”. And you sit there, and sit there trying to think of something that sounds realistic, but also exciting. I mean, you sure as hell don’t want to put down something that makes you sound like a total bore. I usually put down woodworking, because I have fun doing that stuff, but it’s not really a hobby. I mean, I dont do it in my spare time. I just do it when I need something and am too poor to buy it.

And so that brings me back to this car I saw the other day. It’s sporty looking but also affordable. You can get one in need of TLC for about $4000. Most finds will start off looking alot like this:

Hmm. So what’s so cool about this, you ask? Well, first off, it’s a pretty well built car to begin with. There’s nothing fancy about it. It’s just VW Bug that’s been squashed down and streched out. Those thing last forever. So, althought most of these cars are over 30 years old, with a little TLC, you can bring it back to showroom quality. From what I’ve read, it’s a great car to start off with if you ever want to restore a car. Which brings me to the idea of a hobby. Restoring an old car.

I think it would be a blast. To have a car that you can actually drive around, but also in your spare time fix up. Add new tires, get a nice paint job, customize the interior. Plus it would get me outside and off the computer. And probably teach me a thing to two about cars in the process.

As for the problem of practicality of this type of car, well thats another question. It’s probably not very practical to have a two seater, convertible car when you are probably going to be having children in the next few years. It’s probably more practical to go to a showroom and buy a fancy new four door car with airbags and areas for car seats. Of course, those cars also have at least a $15,000 sticker attached to them, and when you are thinking of buying a house, having another car payment isn’t exactly financially possible. We do have the CR-V which is perfect for hauling a kid around in and, in my opinion, much safer than any passenger car would be. A second car would also only be used for commuting to and from work, so a smaller car is perfect for that.

And better yet, just look at what it could look like with a little elbow grease:

[The two photos above are of the same vehicle, before and after restoration. Booyah!]

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