Jack and I have only bought two new cars in our nearly 50 years together. But whether we buy new or used, we aren’t “brand” buyers. I know people who would only buy a Ford or Chevy, but we’re equal opportunity buyers. If the car is right and the price is right, we’ll bite. Frankly, I don’t care who built the car I buy. I want it to go from point A to point B with the minimum of trouble and discomfort. If it does that, I’m happy.
The two new cars we bought were a Datsuns (later Nissan). That was 1984, I think. We kept that new Datsun over 13 years, and it was still running well enough for a man to buy for his daughter to drive back and forth to college.
The other new car was a Jeep Eagle. A friend of ours in Kansas City said he had test driven one while visiting his parents in Florida. He raved about it. Because he wanted to go and see one at the Jeep lot in KC, we went along out of curiosity.
We all went for a test drive, and I drove first. We’d been truckers, remember, so I wasn’t afraid to put the car to the test. We found an empty parking lot. I took it into tight curves, did a sharp U-turn, hit the gas and then hit the brakes hard, went slightly off pavement and then back on. The salesman paled with the first hard stop, but Jack assured him I knew what I was doing. The car performed flawlessly. Plus, it had a small exterior that hid a very roomy interior.
We went back to Virginia for a visit, just for kicks stopped by the Jeep 
dealership in Richmond. When we returned to KC it was with a brand new Jeep Eagle. They didn’t make many of them or for very long, more’s the pity. We loved our Eagle, and only gave it up when we moved to San Francisco and having a car—any car—was so very impractical.
Other than those two cars, we’ve owned a Ford, two other Jeeps, a Volkswagen, a Chevy van, and a Subaru. Jack’s normal way of buying a car is to find a local very small dealer, or to ask a dealer about a decent car they had taken in on trade but hadn’t spent the time or money to repair or clean up. That’s how we got the Subaru, and it turned out to be a great car.
As in anything, brand doesn’t guarantee quality. Only quality guarantees quality, and you can get that with a brand or not. Have you developed a brand loyalty for vehicles?
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Dee
Burning Bridges by Anne Krist