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January 31, 2004

Julia's New Car

I did a page on my Mustang, so I thought I would also show you Julia's new car. Her Miata, which is a fun little car when the weather cooperates, is less than ideal for Cleveland winters. After a close call, Julia started asking about alternatives. I threw a bunch of ideas for 4-wheel-drive vehicles at her, but she wanted a convertible. So that narrowed it down to one: the Audi TT.

Nimbus Gray with Baseball Glove leather interior and polished 17" wheels.
Pretty cool, eh?

She went on-line and looked around for a used TT roadster. It didn't take her long to find her exact dream car: Nimbus Gray with a baseball-glove leather interior. When she first saw this combination at an auto show, she wasn't so keen on it, but we saw a production car in person a few years ago, and she fell in love with the interior. So finding a used one (one of about 600 built in 2001) that was fully loaded at the right price was a real miracle.

The downside? It was in Detroit.

I called the owner, a super nice guy named Wayne, and arranged to see the car on Saturday. He described the car as his "baby" and had decided to sell it because he had just started his own business. Then I arranged a loan at the bank and we headed up to Detroit on Saturday morning.

The car was perfect. Wayne had maintained it perfectly and it didn't look like a 50,000 mile car. The leather was flawless, no wear evident, and even the usual wrinkles that leather develops were absent. He even kept the factory plastic on all the aluminum trim on the door sills and dead pedal!  It had a spare set of wheels with snow tires (on the car) as well as the factory polished wheels that you can see in the picture above. After going over the car pretty carefully and taking a drive, we bought it. We threw the spare wheels in the Protege and had lunch with Wayne and his wife, who we really enjoyed meeting.

It turns out that they used to live near us here in Cleveland. It is likely that this is the very car we saw two years ago when Julia fell in love with the combination. Take that for what you will, but it's at least a cool coincidence.

Dig the beautiful hand-stitched trim on the seats that give them the look of a
baseball glove. The interior is like a work of art!

There's a power glass windblocker that comes up behind the roll hoops.
I guess that's for the sissies who don't like a convertible that feels like a convertible.

The car is just flat-out awesome. It has every option available: Bose stereo with CD changer, heated seats, power top, windblocker, navigation system, etc. It also has the high-performance 225 horsepower turbo engine and a 6-speed manual transmission mated to quattro all-wheel-drive. With the snow tires and traction control, it's unstoppable in the snow. Julia is thrilled with it and I feel much better having her drive a better car in the winter.

I don't know why a little car like this needs a power top, but Julia
likes it because she's so little.

This also means that our really nice Miata is for sale if anybody's interested (I'll put up a photo shortly):

• 1997 Mazda Miata

• Nogaro Blue with black cloth interior and top

• 5-speed manual

• AM/FM/CD/Cassette stereo

• Power windows

• 14" alloy wheels with newish tires

• New rear window

• 22,000 miles (yes, 22,000). I do all the maintenance on it, so you know it's mechanically perfect.

• Never modified or raced (I doubt Julia has ever taken it over 4000 RPM!).

• Best offer around $12,000.

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E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net

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Last modified on 02/06/2005

Thanks, Fidget!