For about the last five years I was forced to use a small car, because I couldn’t afford to buy and maintain a bigger one. The German government punishes you as much as they can for owning a big car. They somehow reserve that “luxury” for richer people, by cashing dishonest high car taxes, unhealthy high gas taxes, making maintenance and repairs unaffordable by greedily high value added taxes and so on. They try to tell you, that all that is reasoned and it’s all about protecting the environment, but that’s one of many lies governments try to sell to cover up their greediness for tax money and their vile ambition to patronize.
Screw that! We bought a “new” car.

We found this 1994 Ford Explorer on the Internetz offered in a town not too far away to give it a try. The price sounded somehow reasonable so we decided to allow us that “luxury” without calculating too much back and forth. Silke had fallen in love with it instantly and I tried hard to justify this purchase with our future demand for a bigger and more powerful vehicle. And on top of that it obviously suits a big guy like me way better than our small 1989 Audi 80. Another feel good thing: it’s an American car!

The Explorer also reminds me to better times I once had. Times were I was an in general more pleased owner of an always handy crew cab pickup truck, an Australian manufactured 1996 Mitsubishi L200.
Unfortunately I was forced to scrap my beloved and very handy pickup truck in 2013, a vehicle I owened for about 16 years. Governments are very creative in making your life less easy, especially when they can cash in more money by changing laws, rules and standarts or what ever they nose out to boss around. No matter what kind of politicians are in charge they are about to “improve” whatever and the sad and painful bottom line becomes: pay more money or “verboten”!

The infamous “yellow badge of fine particles” killed my pickup truck just by law abidingly sticking to it’s windshield. This sticker bans all stigmatized vehicles from not only driving in but just being within the city limits  – this is Germany!

But now we’re kind of back in the game with this utilitarian American station wagon under the promising product name “Explorer”. Hopefully this Explorer helps us explore the paths to Our Good Place.
An expected asset to “Our Good Place” project it has been nicknamed with a wink as “Our Good Car“. Hopefully it will live up to this expectation. I even custom designed and quickly tinkered together a fitting US licence plate to be put on the proper rear bumper spot of the car.

 

2019 pre-springtime postscript.

Now as the weather has gotten better I was able to take a picture of our little vehicle fleet, which I hereby present to you humble yet proudly.
Our Good Car“, the “Little Red Sportster” and our “Tiny  Trailer“.
It’s long overdue to get rid of our old 1989 Audi 80, but I hadn’t yet the heart to do so. I feel somehow I should – as a last salute to this car – obtain it the legal status of the oldtimer it has become by age this year.