Owing to the fact that I’ll soon be a father, I recently had to upgrade vehicles. I put my highly unnecessary and ridiculous 1991 Nissan 300ZX into storage:
Car is currently a bubble boy
And purchased a 2008 BMW 328xi Touring.
Touring is British for wagon
The concept for White Trash Daydreams was born out if my idiotic purchase of a 1991 Volvo 240 wagon site unseen from my Father’s neighbor and the hilarity that ensued when my father told me he’d inspected it and that it met my standards and then my experience owning the steaming pile of shit I was stuck with. So, let’s start with that story. Here I am, sitting on a beach in Mexico, and my dad sends a picture to our family group chat of this:
“Hey remember when we had one of these the year the family lived in London? My neighbor is selling his for only $1,000!”
I spit out my margarita and asked why so cheap, dad? I could actually use a second car (this is pre Z. Wife and I were only sharing our Mini Cooper Countryman at the time. Our Mini Cunt, as it is called.)
“Oh, he’s moving and they don’t have room for the car. It’s in good shape.”
Ok dad, so long as it runs, there is 0 rust, the interior is in decent shape, and it’s manual transmission, I’ll buy it from him. Those things are easier to fix than a toaster mechanically, but I can’t fuck around with rust or a complete interior refurbishing.
“Don’t worry son, you can count on me.”
Well I get back from Mexico, go to get the car, it’s an absolute rust bucket with an automatic and the interior looks like a family of raccoons lived in it for a winter. I spent the summer driving it to and from the gym a mile from my house and sold it to a Polak as a parts car for his 240 wagon project for $600 less than I paid for it.
Once that POS is off the books I get a new itch, gonna get an old sports car that’s in good shape but needs to have the routine maintenance performed to bring it to tip top shape. Every chance I got I scoured Craigslist, those free auto and RV mags at the grocery store, and internet specialty car classifieds. I’d been looking for a Porsche 944 because my friend’s parents told me I could buy theirs from them when they were going through a divorce and then somehow the kid across the street wound up with it…
That could have been me!
Well next thing you know I’m in Minneapolis for Christmas and I tell my in laws I’m running an errand and then return with a 1991 Nissan 300ZX that I bought from a guy on Craigslist. Pretty sure that I’ve been straight downhill in their eyes ever since, but I could only keep a lid on my trash nature for so long and at least now they know and accept the fact that I live for T-Tops and Marlboro Reds.
Isn’t that your son in law?
I’ll be honest, I cannot believe how well that purchase turned out. I have spent about 30 hours under the hood getting it up to its proper maintenance schedule and it has been infinitely rewarding. I’ve conquered daunting challenges that I never thought I was capable of, like bending a generic Auto Zone brake hose into perfect shape to match OE specs, and tearing the whole front end of the engine off to perform a 120k mile service myself. This summer I’m going to rebuild the suspension and maybe even get into some light bodywork stuff. Idk, maybe even do a turbo swap!
Yup
Ok, so enough about that shit. This is about the Dadwagon. I bought it because I hate minivans and SUVs, it was half the cost of a car 10 years newer but with 3x the build quality. Every car I drove built post 2014 felt like a steaming pile of shit. Then I got behind the wheel of a BMW e9x model and holy shit I was hooked. I spent a few weeks bidding on auction sitesm and test driving around the city until finally I struck gold and fell into this gem on Bring a Trailer.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2008-bmw-328-12/
After speaking to the dealer the seller bought it from seven months prior, I was certain it was the one. I flew out to Philly with my dad in tow (no hard feelings over the Volvo) and we drove it back to Chicago the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
My wife hated it at first bc wagons are gross, but lo and behold I had to jump the Mini Cunt the other day bc the battery died after she hadn’t driven it in so long. The wife now acknowledges that the thing is an absolute gem of German engineering
a joy to drive, and maybe wagons aren’t that gross. Also, there is a quick path of bolt on parts to bring it up to 300hp and make it a sleeper dragster.
I wanna go fast!
Hopefully I’m able to get that done before I realize how much I need to save for the pup’s college and daycare and hockey and whatever the fuck else this kid is gonna do you my wallet.
– Pug Racer
Ps. Here are some sexy car gifs for bearing with me
White Trash Day Dreams 