Our "Cult Classic"

We regret our stint at owning a turn of the century luxury minivan in that we have truly experienced what it's like to travel luxuriously. Big cushy leather seats, plenty of room to sprawl, lack of stuff piled under your feet...but alas, we did have a few qualms after our last road trip, one being the lack of off-road ability the other being gas mileage.

We came home from the trip and got back on KSL classifieds just to "see" what was out there by way of Honda CRV's...just to see. They're less luxurious but get slightly better gas mileage and are better build for off road. We pulled up KSL and what to our wondering eyes should appear; a car dream come true!

Ok, timeout. Let me take you back 3 years to when we first considered replacing the Subaru. My friend Jen had a VW Jetta TDI diesel wagon that got about 45 mpg around town and 55 on the highway, I loved her car. Joe and I went to the VW dealership to inquire about a used one. The guy laughed in our faces and told us they only made them for three years and that they were now a "cult classic" they had a waiting list to get them and people usually bought them sight unseen over the phone with cash...this is what he said; so we dropped the whole idea.

...as I'm sure you've guessed this VW TDI had just been listed on KSL. We gave the guy (Dan) a call and luckily were the first ones out the gate. We told him we would call him back. We, like many of you have heard that VW's are a piece of crap so we pulled up consumer reports only to find that VW's were indeed a piece of crap all EXCEPT for the Jetta TDI wagon. The Jetta was horrible but the TDI wagon looked slightly better than an outback and we lived through that so we thought why not.

Thirty minutes later we called Dan back and he had already had a few calls. We dispatched my Dad to look at it (the car was in St.George) luckily he lived close by, luckily it met his approval, luckily my sister lent us $, luckily Dan was driving up to Layton the next day and luckily we fell in love (not with Dan, with the car, but Dan was great too). I was so excited I literally did not sleep for two days.

Here she is in all her glory as well as a photo of her passing the fitting of the bike trailer test.We have big plans to eventually add a 2" lift and an aluminum skid plate (something apparently popular on TDI forums, makes for good off-roading with minimal effect to gas mileage), maybe a plywood shelf, might need an extra car top carrier; and once she's a bit older it would be cool to manufacture our own biodiesel. We have a lot to look forward to. You thought we took a lot of trips now; with 55 MPG highway...you ain't seen nothin' yet!

P.S. Anyone interested in buying a turn of the century luxury minivan?