What's your motor vehicle history?

[putnam6]

That’s a beautiful rig. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always wanted to buy and restore a 70-74 Ford Bronco. The convertible top one. Cherry red with big black fender flares and humongous BFG A/T tires (best tires on the planet). Maybe I’ll do that in my early retirement. I’m goddamn sick of the wine tour biz…

Yeah I dig the 70s Bronco a lot, like FCD mentioned pre 75ish. As a kid I loved the Bronco, think I just found a good deal on my Blazer, to me they both are interchangeable but yes the convertible Bronco was cool as hell. 

As for retiring, life is short if you can make that work you ought to try. Hell put the business discreetly up for sale, or see if you can find somebody to come in and work with you train, and buy the business out as they work for you. They could hopefully take up some of your workload and if it works well enough it could ease you into retirement.

If nothing else put it up for sale at a ridiculously high price, you never know who might fall in love with the idea and buy it. We had one of our clients sell thier retail store, they had an NFL player come in and they took great care of him and his wife. He came back a couple of weeks later asked if they would sell the business. The owner and his wife didn't want to sell, at first, but he finally asked what's your walkaway price? 

I'd imagine your business has the same high-end clientele... sounds a bit recession-proof too. Find somebody you trust and see if you can work out an arrangement that works for you. I'd love to have that opportunity I'm sure a lot of people would, honestly. 

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The AMX ultimately became the Javelin, when the raw muscle cars of the 70's weren't selling to the people who had the money to buy cars.  All the models, the GTO, the Firebird, the Camero, and even the Corvette were "dumbed" down to a new class of buyer.  At the same time EPA emission controls had choked most muscle cars into oblivion.  By 1985, muscle cars in the raw form were dead. Ironically, at the same time, NASCAR race cars started to lose their identity as real cars.  Today, NASCAR race cars don't even share a single bolt, nut or screw with a civilian car.  NASCAR is all just fantasy today, and when you add in 'resrictor plates', it really exposes NASCAR for what it is, for what really attracts fans...WRECKS! 

Restrictor plates cause wrecks.  Period.  This is what draws viewers in...WRECKS.  Oh, but NASCAR is a whole other post, now isn't it?

I can talk 60s and 70s cars till the cows come home.

I can talk NASCAR too, again its the history, the cars, the racetracks, it's changed so much I used to watch a lot in the '80s and '90s.

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I have never bought a new vehicle in my life.   I don't think it's going to happen.   

1963 Chevrolet C20 pickup truck.   I saved up and bought this in 1974.   My graduation present in 1976 was four new tires.   On graduation night, I dropped off my girlfriend at her house, and was intending to go home, change, stock up some things and we were going to go up to Point-of-the-Mountain where all of us were going to get shitfaced and stay overnight.   As I was pulling out of her complex, I was broadsided by a cement truck driving 60 mph at night with no lights, guy was following his wife home.    Truck was toast.   Tore off the truck from the windshield forward.  Truck driver was hospitalized for six months.   I walked away with minor injuries. 
1977 Chevrolet Vega GT.  I was DJing at a disco, and driving home late at night, came over a hill to find  a coal truck in the left lane and a coal truck in the right lane.   I went off the road and drove through a telephone pole.  Toasted the car.   I walked away with minor injuries.  
1963 Mercury Comet.  I loved this car.   Brown Batmobile.   Left it with the signed pink slip in the barrio in Hawthorne, CA, when I left the state to go to school.   Had blown freeze plugs, or I'd have driven it.   Always visualized it as a lowrider with lifters bouncing along the streets.  I hope it was happy.
1980 Chevvy Luv Truck. Drove this little bad boy all over Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California.  Blew the main bearings in Palo Alto California, and couldn't afford to fix it.
1978 Honda Prelude.
1974 240Z. My Darlin' and me owned this car together.   She drove it at Sears Point for several years.   Awesome car, especially when we upgraded the fuel cell, suspension, interior cage, took out the side-draft Hitachi carbs and replaced them with Webers.  
1978 280Z.   Again, a shared car, and a great driver.   I drove this all over California, Nevada and Oregon.   I had jobs all over the place.
1992 Mazda Bongo Van.   Total workhorse. 
1982 Dihatsu Rocky.   Fun.  Rough.  Worried about putting my foot through the floorboard.
2017 Hyundai Porter Truck.  Mostly indestructible. Like me.

Dig stories like this, for some of us our cars and vehicles are an intricate part of our lives.  Had to look up where Point of the Mountain was thought it was in the high desert southwest. Ive never had a serious accident in all my miles, loads of fender benders
though. Only 2-3 were my fault and one of those was it was snowy and icy.