Piston Slap: A Car So Nice I Wanna Buy It Twice!

I swapped my '84 Jetta GLI back and forth with my best friend for eons. We would each keep it for a couple years until we got bored and sold it to the other. Usually for a nominal sum. So I can totally see doing this, assuming you have a place to keep it and ideally something else as a daily driver. Though the thought of replacing the engine every 100K doesn't really scare me that much, given that is ~20 years of driving for any one of my cars. :-)

If I could find another 88 Thunderbird with the 302 V8 and the AOD transmission, in metallic silver, moonroof, dark blue leather interior, and the aluminum billet wheels I had to lean on the dealer to swap in, I would buy it in a heartbeat. I got over a quarter of a million miles of fun out of that car in under a decade, before I had to sell it. Had to choose between supporting it, or supporting my then new wife and child. I made the right decision, but would love to have one back. Sometimes I fantasize that FoMoCo would have a giant 3D printer, where, for the price of the original, one could order up an exact replica of an earlier offering. I would buy another one of those Birds, just as it was the day I drove it off the dealer's lot (minus the Eagle GT's and plus the Sumitomos for half the price and twice the traction). That car even trumped the Mk II Jaguar I once owned. In fact, if I hadn't been so in love with my then and now wife, I wouldn't even have been in a position to have had to choose between her and the car. But she is one in a hundred million. When we had been dating for about six weeks, I found out that she had driven it when her hooptie died for the nth time, without telling me while I was on the road for a project I was doing. Any other woman, I would have figured I couldn't trust her, and would have x'd her off...her, I just told her that if she had asked, I would have told her yes, but made sure she knew how to care for it. I realized I was already all in at that point. It had snuck up on me, but there was no turning back. I had been enjoying my new freedom for several years after my divorce, but I knew then that those days were behind me. Still, I loved that car then, and would love to have it back again. Even if it had a 100K +/- on it. But not enough to have remained a so-called "free born man of the USA" (a Wire reference for those who don't know it.) But that was a tough day, when I had to let the most enjoyable car I had ever owned go. Especially since the early years of our marriage were good overall, but had their downs as well as their ups. But today, my only regret is that I didn't make even more money than I did, so I could have swung both deals back in the mid-90's. That configuration of the 88 Thunderbird deserves to be on a list of all time great Fords, along with the Model A (only for historical reasons), the T bucket (only because it made a good hotrod), the 32 Ford three window coupe, the 40 Ford, something from the 50's and from the 60's (you pick 'em), a few more modern ones, and I'm sure, the new GT350. If I had the kind of money Jay Leno has, I'd have all of them in my collection. But if not, I would still have that 88 Bird again, if, and it is a big IF, if you could "go home again". And while I respect some of the authors who rave about the Miata being the answer to any question, in my mind, it is even the answer to "what is an under-powered, over-rated money pit?", especially the first incarnations. But damn, no you have me jonesing for another Thunderbird...not a prudent use of my retirement time and money, but I would love to have it anyway. Unfortunately for me, my son's auto taste runs more towards the high performance version of the Tesla. But if I was his age, mine probably would also. Still, that was one sweet matchup of comfort and roadworthiness in the Bird.