First a rant:
Why is it that so many people are content with disposable junk? Why? Why can folks not see past the BS advertising that is trying to convince them that shiny and new will make them happy? I know why; it is the banks, the banks that say that it is easier to put a value on something that is new rather than something that is old that way we can have established values for things and when folks can’t pay we can reclaim.

That all said, we can’t find these lower trim pieces for the Volvo. Not that they are in terrible shape but the whole car is getting re-painted and I wanted to replace them, they are getting a bit scuffed up, a bit sun faded, etc. But they are NLA (no longer available) and it sent me back looking at Ford Model As again, a few years back (maybe 10), the company that manufactured new model A frames ceased the frame building but up to that point you could build a totally new model A. They were originally manufactured from 1927-1931. That thought process got me thinking that there is one manufacture that actually supports 100% of all the vehicles they ever manufactured. Mercedes.

So I found this one:
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/mercedes-benz/320/2129384.html?utm_source=autotempest&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=autotempest_classifieds
Do the lights even go red for you if you drive this? Do all the peasants just get out of the way?

Going for a happier color:
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/mercedes-benz/170v/2471845.html
This one has a price tag, and survived the war, and would require a bit of a swim to get it back…

Then I got to really thinking about the whole issue. Petra (my wife) has said that I have great mechanical sympathy, I can feel the pain of mechanical thing (house, water heater, car, steering linkage, etc) and if there one thing I hope none of us ever have it is the empathy of cancer. But it does happen, cancer is a real disease and while the cause in people is frequently a mystery (sin and the fall of man aside) we know that for cars, salt is one sure fire way to get the cancer going. So here I am, about the embark on a journey back to the mid-atlantic, where they pride them selves in how many thousands of tons of salt they can dump on the roads every time it looks like it might snow; and I have a truck that has never been east of the Mississippi (I think last year when I went up to NM might have been the first time it was out of Texas), a Volvo that was a CA car its whole life and the Porsche which is finishing up its last round of chemo getting all of its cancer fixed.
In good conscience I cannot drive these cars in the winter. I have thought about selling almost everything except the Porsche once I get there and just getting some local, already cancer ridden cars to get us through… (like my cousin’s Audi wagon that he has already promised me)

There is a game that says you get a new car every 5 years, but I don’t want to play that game, it is very expensive and helps no-one.

What would you all do?
What are the rules of the game that I am trying to play?

And good morning!

Andrew