I just started driving my geo storm again, and I have to admit that I had forgotten how much fun a little basic car can be. There are a number of reasons why I love old econoboxes.
1) Part of the fun is because the geo is a stick, and I've spent the last year puttering around in an automatic. It is so much more....engaging, I guess. I've decided that the way to get people off their cell phones is to have manual transmissions....there's more to do, and you cannot be bothered with a pesky conversation.
2) In my modern daily driver, there's lots of sound deadening....even if the engine is doing something interesting, I'll never know....I simply can't hear it. The old geo is so anemic that it really has to work to get anywhere, and oddly, that's exciting. I felt like I was really flogging it, then got passed by an SUV, looked at the speedo, and realized I was within two MPH of the speed limit. I didn't care....it was fun.
3) A lightweight little car like that makes you feel every bump in the road.....instead of being in this little cocoon, sheltered from the details of driving, you're experiencing each one of them.
4) A lot of stuff on older cars is much easier to do. Remember how nice it was when you didn't have to disassemble a car to do something basic? I had to put a turn signal into the geo, and the whole process took just under four minutes. The only tool needed was a phillips screw driver. Last week I unsuccessfully tried to replace a reverse light in a friend's Lincoln Navigator.....as near as I could tell, getting partway through the process, this requires taking off the grab loop on the inside of the hatch and then removing the entire skin.
5) Having a beater gives you something to flog without fear. The abuse, wear and tear are not being done to the car that has to get you to work on Monday.
I'll stop rambling now. I'm going to go for a drive.
