On October 9, 1995, I drove to Preston Ford in Preston, Maryland, to purchase a new car. At the time, I was driving a 1983 Ford EXP who had seen much better days in it's life.
Several hours later, I drove away with a brand new 1995 Ford Aspire. Who knew the relationship I had with that machine would continue for almost 11 years.
On August 17, 2006, I traded in my little Aspire, along with a 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier that I bought back in 2004, on a 2005 Pontiac Sunfire. I was saddened to see my little Aspire in the rear view mirror as I was leaving it at the Ford dealership. I figured it had been nice to me for 11 years... it's the least I can do to dedicate a little portion of my patented Waste of Website on the car that just wouldn't die... no matter how hard I tried to kill it.
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From the front... |
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... and the rear. |
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The driver controls. Not too much as far as creature comforts... such as no air conditioning. That's why that crappy little fan was clamped to the dash. |
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The instrument cluster. At press time, the car had about 161K miles. When I traded it in, it had just about 181K. |
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The power plant, such as it was. A Kia 1.3L inline-4... boasting a massive 88 horsepower. Built for economy... not for speed. Still... I managed to get the car up to 100 MPH on a couple of occasions. |
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It's battle scars. Yes... I wasn't kidding when I said I tried to kill the damn thing. Not intentionally... but I still managed to try. |
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The various decorations on the back window. I officially retired that firefighter tag when I sold the car. It's now packed in a box in the garage. Oh... and that "Mean People Suck" sticker that was on the back window was placed on the car when it was new back in 1995. I never had the heart to scrape it off... no matter how ugly it got. |