It served long years as one of two family cars. At some point, however, there were three drivers for two cars, so my Maman decided to become an owner of a Black Volvo 'Mobile Coffin'. At this point, the Chihuahua was mine to drive.
Several years earlier, it had undergone a tragic transformation when a hailstorm passed over Chihuahua. From then on, it had many little 'golf ball' bumps. And these weren't the only bumps - it had met forcefully with a long ladder, with our garage wall, and last not least with a giant aggressive plant pot. This pot delivered the most impressive blow to Chihuahua. It smacked out the left front light, hit the bumper, and crushed the metal parts around.
I, skilled as I am, took the damaged parts and hammered the bumps out with a Gummihammer in our cellar. And Behold!, it was as good as new.
At some day, when I already had my Chihuahua for a long, long time, my people decided that it's no good for me to move between K-Town and I/O in such a small tiny automobile, and my Dad swapped cars with me.
That was the Beginning of The Time of The Bourgemobile.
But this wasn't the end for Chihuahua yet. It served well for a few weeks/months longer, until some rainy days came and the car's lights were left switched on. Naturally, the lights went out after some time. I tried to start the motor by connecting it to the new Volvo's battery, but somehow that was too much for good old Chihuahua and the starter suffered a massive core meltdown.
Then it stood around for a few days, and when after a long odyssey we bought a new starter, it turned out that the engine was stuck fast.
And that was it.
(My Dad had to walk to work for a medium-sized period of time, until his new car arrived.)
Chihuahua
Bourgemobile
Das ist nicht zu trennen. [...] Philipp Stolka und der weiße Mercedes, das Bourgemobile... das ist wie ein Markenzeichen.
Joachim G. (2002)
The Bourgemobile (My Bourgemobile), on the other hand! Brillant arctic white, deep black velour interieur, nearly-wooden gear box mounting, a steering wheel that truly deserves its name, and most important: the small little three-spiked chrome thingie in the front that you drive around with you all the time... a true 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190.One of the two facts that might constitute a drawback (a major drawback) is its unquenchable thirst. Sometimes more than ten liters Super per hundred kilometers...
But otherwisely, pure joy!
To feel the power when nearly a hundred hp get a grip on the asphalt and thrust you away, to feel the warmth of the sun through the manually-operated open steel roof in the (albeit short) mid-European summer - ah!
To see how the kilometers get eaten away - 200.000, 210.000, 215.000, 245.000 -, to watch how the fuel indicator responds immediately to the engine's will: Impressive!
Forcing open the doors gives you an instant feeling of achievement!
Rain in the trunk? Back to Nature!
The other fact?
Well, it's chronically (maybe terminally) ill.
It loses parts. But - shhh!
It is a creeping, slow decay that has taken hold of the Bourgemobile. It began with things like a stuck handbrake. Nothing spectacular, especially for a car as weathered as the Bourgemobile. But soon, desaster struck.
Once, when visiting a town near Hannover, I parked the Bourgemobile at the roadside to buy some flowers. Innocent flowers. When I came out and wanted to leave the parking lot by doing a U-turn across the street, the left front wheel fell off.
So the Bourgemobile lay flat on the street without any chance to move. In spite of the small size of the town where this happened, a queue of cars built up in less than no time. What's more, a whole house came along. On a truck. A gang-bang-busting house.
Even the emergency service had to come twice because they lacked the right tools to heave the Bourgemobile off the street the first time.
Later incidents proved to be less spectacular. Shortly later, the exhaust pipe fell off and ripped away the rear bumper. Then, the water pump broke and all the coolant leaked rapidly (really rapidly).
The last problem turned out to be a break in a part I never even heard of (the so-called Hardy disc), but still it inhibited further use of the Bourgemobile.
Oh, and it honks sometimes when you start the engine. In this case, you have to adjust the honking-button manually to stop the noise.
You see? This is My Bourgemobile.
(Don't think bad of it. After all, in better times it faithfully brought us to nearly everywhere in Western, Northern and Central Europe; from Spain, France, and Italy to England, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and many more.)
May 2002:
I had to throw away the old winter tires, dating back from the Eighties of the last century. Now I am under pressure to decide: Buy new tires this fall, or dump the whole Bourgemobile.
June 2002:
The crank of the driver side window broke off. I swapped it with one from the rear windows. Behind my driver's seat there's no room for anyone, anyway.
December 2003, last addition:
The Bourgemobile didn't make it. It failed the TÜV testing, which didn't surprise me very much, once the mechanician inserted a screwdriver into the Bourgemobile in places where surely no screwdriver should be insertable.
Eure Familie hatte schon immer ein Faible für eigenartige Autos.
Next in the row of automobiles is the luxuriant, sumptuous, sensual, indulging, caressing and, in general, absolutely oversized Smørebrød.
Since there isn't much to be told about it yet (I feel somewhat embarrassed to talk about it), let it suffice that it's almost too large to fit into my underground parking lot.
Smørebrød
ShabuShabu
Now, it's really too large to fit into my underground parking lot. The name ShabuShabu derives from multiple sources... two of which are that it looks like a Küchenschabe bug - low, dark, and with round eyes, and that it's the name of a Japanese meal.
Given the sorry state of the American car makers, a good, sturdy, well-known European car seemed to be in order. For one year, I didn't want to make too many experiments with cars (although I was on the verge of buying a '64 Ford). So it turned out to become a Smørebrød-lookalike: Sandwich.
Despite its 2000 Volvo-ish looks, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. It will easily make short work of everybody else at the lights, with its 4WD and around one million hp.
This will, however, come at the expense of 17mpg. Which in turn comes down to almost nothing, given the slump gas prices have taken when the 2008 crisis set in.
Still, it is clearly no Mercedes... and it is the first non-handed-down car I have, meaning not something my parents rode before. Instead, it's been my ersatz family's car!
Sandwich
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