Last Tuesday I crashed my Mercedes. I was behind a guy who wouldn't get over, he went extra-slow around a turn which put me on his ass, then he hit the brakes. He had ABS, I didn't. I bent his bumper, the front of my 300SD was pretty-well mangled, though it seems repairable. He said we would simply deal with the issue between us, and then called my insurance company.
Luckily, I was not left without a car for long...
On Thursday, we looked in the Penny Slaver and found the following ad:
1993 SUBARU IMPREZA: AWD, 28 MPG!! ALL POWER OPTIONS, CRUISE, A/C, CD, NEW TIRES, AND BATTERY. SMOGGED, CLEAN, $1500. (phone numbers here)
I immediately picked up the phone and called. No answer, so I left a message. I called again Friday morning, and got an answer - they were going out of town about 1pm, so if I wanted to come see the car before Monday, I'd have to do it at lunchtime.
The car was approximately ideal, except for the color, which Subaru refers to as "Amethyst" - a metallic purple. Still, at least it wasn't pink... The prior owner had disabled the AWD by installing a fuse. This is particularly odd, because he had purchased the AWD version of the vehicle and FWD cars were made. In fact, all models of 1993 Impreza were offered with front wheel drive, and the base model only came FWD. They didn't drop the FWD model until 1996.
In fact, this vehicle had ABS, and so (as I learned later) it is an LS model - only LS models had ABS in 1993. The vehicle actually has every option except for alloy wheels, which may have come on the car as the former driver bent a wheel at one point. The car is currently wearing four black steel wheels with cheesy hubcaps on them (the kind with the fake brake discs - hilarious since ABS cars have four-wheel disc brakes, 10.4" ventilated front and 10.3" rear) and in spite of that it looks great. There's a few small dings, but no dents (dents have creases) and the interior is in great shape except for a seam rip (repairable) in the rear seat.
Anyway, I'm still sad about the Mercedes, but at least I've made a rapid recovery to a working vehicle.