From a Saab to a Subaru: Growing Up One Car at a Time

My journey to adulthood told through car ownership

I take pride in my vehicle.

I purchased my first car, a 1987 Saab 900s, from a friend in 2001. With some basic coaching from her, I learned to navigate a stick, and I drove the Mass Pike to upstate New York.

The fabric ceiling was held up by pins and I used a Fast Pass on the highway because the driver’s side window didn’t roll down. It was the coolest car ever, down to the ignition in between the front seats and the black and white cow-themed seat covers I bought to add a distinctive, personal touch.

Back in ’01, there were still a few old Saabs on the road, but it was not commonly seen, particularly in Subaru country, aka upstate New York. In a sea of boring, reliable Subies, I stood out.

I wasn’t a fuddy-duddy, forty-year-old. I wasn’t safe or reliable. I was spunky and creative and ready for danger and excitement.

Or at least that’s what I thought my car projected to the universe. I sped along the curvy, rural roads of my new hometown, shifting gears with minimal grinding and using the e-break for extra support when stopped on a hill.

It was my first car. I bought it with my own money, taught myself to drive it, and used it to start “the rest of my life” after college. I didn’t know where my move to New York was going to take me, but I knew the Saab was going to take me there.

When I met my now-husband, he drove a red, Ford Explorer.

I have a thing for red, and I saw the value of owning an SUV while living in the snow belt. His car was one of many reasons I found him attractive.

Apparently, my Saab didn’t have the same effect on him. In his fatherly and commanding way, he convinced me that my car was unsafe for me to drive in our harsh winter conditions, and was costing me more money to maintain than my loans could afford.

I sold my baby to a classmate, who drove it halfway across the country after graduation, and I accepted my husband’s gift to me, his reliable, red SUV.

He’d just started his first professional job, and it only made sense, as an official upstate New York resident, to buy another SUV. We settled into sharing life together, with hardy attitudes and all-weather tires.

One cold and foggy morning, as I drove the few miles from our rental house to my first professional job, I zoned out while listening to David Gray’s debut CD, and I neglected to look left, look right, and look left again before pulling out into oncoming traffic.

A car without its lights on hit me before I saw it coming.

My red Ford slid down the road and teetered a few times before stopping in the center of the two-lane highway. I pushed my body out against the door handle but it wouldn’t open. Confused, I climbed over to the passenger side to exit. Andy was right.

His SUV protected me while a car, going 50 miles an hour, slammed directly into my driver’s side door.

I walked away without a scratch. The car was knocked off its frame during the impact and had to be totaled. We had just paid a thousand dollars for a new engine but had not paid for collision insurance.

We spent many months paying off our credit cards and my carelessness left me car-less for at least six months.

Over the next decade, we welcomed our two children, and a series of used vehicles, including a Toyota Avalon, a bunch of old trucks, including one that caught on fire on the side of the road, and my favorite, an old, beaten up Dodge Caravan that we bought for four thousand dollars.

I wouldn’t even consider buying a car if it didn’t have at least 50k miles on it or if it didn’t reflect my mood or personality.

That was until my husband’s dad showed up at our house with a little, black Nissan Versa. He’d bought it a few years prior and, in a moment of foreshadowing, told me it would be a great car for me.

At that time, I was still driving the minivan, a car in which I could walk around, or change a diaper, nearly standing up. I laughed off the comment until the van died and he stood in our driveway, offering us a car for a price we could not refuse.

Despite his goodwill and generosity, I hated the car every second that I drove it.

After driving a house on wheels, the Versa was claustrophobic. I could touch the passenger side door when I extended my arm from the driver’s seat. It didn’t have a lot of get up and go, often sounding like the little engine that could as I drove over the many mountains covering the state’s landscape.

The black fabric did nothing to hide the dirt the kids tracked into the car, or the crumbled goldfish crackers and other snacks partially enjoyed before being crushed by tiny hands, and dropped onto the seat and floor below their car seats.

Despite my lamentations, the car got great gas mileage and needed very few repairs outside of typical wear and tear. Yet, I could never get over my distaste for the Versa.

It lacked the funky personality I need in a car and I never connected with it. I not so fondly nicknamed it the Tin Can.

A few years into owning the Versa, I was running past the local car dealer one day and connected immediately with a beautiful, red Honda Element. I rushed across the busy road, just steps from my accident with the Ford, to peer inside its big windows.

I felt like Goldie Locks.

The mileage and the price were just right for me: 100,000 and $9,999. I found my perfect, red SUV.

Mom and Dad would approve, as dedicated Honda drivers. When I returned home, my spouse didn’t seem to approve, but he knew I’d made up my mind. I returned to the dealership and bought Big Red.

We gifted the Versa back to my in-laws because, despite being very dirty, it drove with no issues. I was so proud of my Honda. It drove like a tank, was beautifully warm and cozy on the snowy days of winter, and proved easy to clean, which still mattered since the tiny hands turned into small hands that still crushed food and dropped it on the floor.

Like the Saab, there were only a few Elements on the road, as Honda stopped making the model for reasons I will never understand.

There were even fewer red Elements, and I was never once lost in a parking lot at the mall because my tall, red, toaster towered over every other vehicle on the lot.

The years passed by and I clung to Red despite growing mechanic bills, both in frequency and in cost.

Yet, no one wants a car payment and we planned to keep the car for as long as possible. It was a day of true pride when the odometer pushed over 200k and a day of loss when our mechanic pleaded with us to stop repairing the car.

Not able to let Red go, we parked the car in the driveway and agreed that I would drive my husband’s second-hand Rav4 and he would use our business truck until we could get through the coming winter months and costly holiday season.

I was sorry to lose Red but it was a smart and reasonable plan.

Taking advantage of no car payments, and in need of time alone, we escaped to New Orleans for a long weekend that fall. It was our first trip without kids- ever- and we loved every minute of it. My mom joined my in-laws in watching the girls while we savored the history, food, and drinks of the Big Easy.

On our last evening, we sipped drinks and noshed on local cuisine. Between our apps and entrees, we called the house to say good night to the kids. Charlotte, then 8, gave us a pretty standard rundown of the day and shared our enthusiasm about our return, planned for the next day.

I wished her good night and, before I could hang up, she blurted out, “Something happened and it is going to cost you a ton of money, but it’s ok!”

A few phone calls later and we learned that our reliable, trustworthy parents had pulled a fast one on us.

Like teens getting busted by the cops for throwing a party the first time their parents went out of town, our parents decided to make some reckless decisions.

My mother-in-law had an accident and drove her car up to our deck and then through our garage- our garage that we used as a storage unit.

Realizing she was ok, they didn’t want to ruin our trip and decided not to tell us.

Unfortunately, the secret was short-lived due to my kid’s loose lips and our neighbors’ concerned texts about a car sticking out of the back of our garage.

Have you ever had someone text you, “Hey! When the bus picked your kids up today my kids saw a car sticking out of your garage and a bunch of stuff scattered all over your lawn, like a fridge and a bunch of beer, maybe a scooter and a boogie board? And like 10 bags of cans, like maybe your recyclables”?

Well, neither had we until that day. The party was long over by the time we returned home, but the mess lived on. We spent the last afternoon of our short holiday beginning to clean up the wreckage.

Our neighbor brought over his tractor and towed the car out of the garage. Besides some scrapes and dents, the car was still fully functional and drivable. I knew then, that car had nine lives.

That tiny, tin can, Engine That Could, Nissan Versa.

We parked the car behind the Honda Element and had a little conversation with our parents about their not-so-little accident, and their big mistake of not telling us.

About a month later, flurries swirled outside my window near the end of my workday. As the sun set, the snow rapidly accumulated and I made the quick decision not to take the back roads home in favor of the highway.

I was standing in my mudroom, shaking the snow off of my coat, when the phone rang. My husband, who had holed up in his office with our sick child, decided to drive the back way, and his truck spun out of control.

The truck tipped sideways, suspending my child over my spouse, held in only by her seatbelt.

Like my accident so many years prior, they survived without a scratch but the truck was totaled. Still weeks from Christmas, and still avoiding a car payment, he returned to driving his Rav4, and I very reluctantly, or very angrily, returned to driving the Nissan Versa, scratches, dings and all.

We raised our spirits to celebrate the Yule season and let old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, but my husband knew I could not begin the new year driving a car that I outright hated.

On New Year’s day, we drove to the local car dealership and, for the first time in my entire life, we bought a car considered new.

It read just 3,000 miles on the odometer and had only been used by the dealership as an occasional loaner. I held my breath when we signed the paperwork, having never paid for anything so expensive outside of our home and my lifetime supply of college tuition loan debt.

It was clean and it smelled new and it came with blue tooth, XM radio, and a backup camera.

My husband drove it home and, while I felt ill for buying a car for more than 10 grand, it was nice and felt luxurious, and very safe. I’d come a long way since I drove my Saab to New York, proud to own my own car, but very little else. I reflected on what I’d accomplished since that year, all I had earned, and the person I’d become.

I felt like an adult who had finally arrived.

The next day, I drove it to work and stopped by the parking office to get my decal, knowing I’d likely get ticketed if I didn’t have my sticker. I held the registration in my hand and the cashier asked me the make and model of the vehicle.

I answered, “Subaru Forester.”

Copyright Melissa Marietta