MrGrumpy takes the plunge

Even after just a couple of days looking at vehicles, MrGrumpy was bored of looking, all the vehicles in his budget were what you would expect for 12+ year old vehicles with 150K+ miles on them, all a bit tired. With 2x the budget he could find some very nice ones, but that was not going to happen. After MrGrumpy saw that a BMW was acceptable on insurance, he searched the net for some, found a couple locally, one had already sold (nice looking BMW 540i) and there was a BMW 740iL at a local car lot, so off MrGrumpy went.

At the car lot, there was a reasonable selection, but no BMW. Looking around he found a Camero, Mercedes (24+ Years old SL380), Eclipse spider and a Mustang convertible.  "Uhm, this seem promising" MrGrumpy thought. The Merc was classic, but when sitting in it he just knew it was not right for him. The Eclipse was just out of his budget, but looked nice, so on to look at the Mustang.

Ok, nothing special, just a 3.8Ltr V6 Auto, cloth seats, few chips and scrapes, but nothing out of place for a car of this age (1998), MrGrumpy took a closer look. Engine fired up, quite and no rattles from cold, no plumes of smoke, tidy engine bay, suspension looks quite new, new tyres, soft top is still watertight but showing quite a few signs of wear, overall quite a genuine second hand car (with 159K miles). Off for a test drive went MrGrumpy.

The test drive was better than the V8 Mustang he had driven before, everything seems to work, air-con, heater, windows, soft top. Not the most exciting of vehicles, in fact almost as boring as a Volvo but with more rattles and cheap plastic. MrGrumpy could see this was probably a car that would work for a year without too much going wrong (fingers crossed...), so back to the car lot.

MrGrumpy is not good at haggling, in fact he is pretty rubbish at it really, he manages to get $200 off the $3999, so it was quite a cheap mustang in the first place. Total price with registration, tags, tax and the other hundred things the California DMV want, it was $4200. So MrGrumpy was now the owner of a metallic green 1998 Ford Mustang 3.8 V6 Convertible... (insurance and fuel consumption also helped MrGrumpy decide, oh and the sun was shining and he missed his Porsche convertible).

MrGrumpy decided that he could keep looking but this seems like a genuine unmodified and honest used car, the odds on it being a duff one probably lower than that on a pristine modified and thrashed example. 

Not MrGrumpy's best bit of parking...