#Crapwagon

For decades, compact cars from Dearborn were miserable. Blue Oval enthusiasts in North America looked longingly at the rally-bred Escorts in the UK and Europe, wondering when the promised “world car” would cross the Atlantic.

Improbably, I was one of those guys. I bought a 2000 Focus sedan (ZTS model with the twincam Zetec) with six months and 6000 miles on the odo, and flogged it for seven years and about a dozen recalls. Should have listened to my Dad, who always warned against buying a first-year model.

I once read a book abut Subaru’s history in the American market, which I assume makes me an expert on all things Fuji Heavy. That and I came home from the hospital in a GL10 Turbo station wagon, which suffered an ignominious death from rust just months later. But somehow, there was a gap in my Subaru knowledge, specifically with their two-door models.

The best part about working at TTAC has very little to do with the constant press car access, the barely-disguised graft known as “new car launches” or having various varieties of invective spewed at you by tens of readers each day. No, the real fringe benefit is that you are paid to spend a fair amount of your waking hours reading and researching about cars, and that includes browsing the online classifieds for strange and obscure cars.

For some time now, I’ve had the notion that I’d like a BMW – and a specific one at that. I want one with a manual transmission, a naturally aspirated I6 and hydraulic steering. Finding one isn’t exactly hard, but finding a good one is very tough. So much so that I nearly pulled the trigger on one of the last 128i 6-speed manual coupes to come to Canada. The dealer offered me some rather generous terms, but my overriding distaste for owning a rapidly depreciating asset (128i residual values are flaccid, to put it mildly) ended that idea. The next best thing, according to former E46 330i Sport owner Jack Baruth, is a used E46 330i Sport.