The tale of a car.

What my friend Jay once coined the "hippiemobile" persists to this day,
even though the girl that drives it no longer looks so much like she could
live out of it. This is the Saab, the manilla file folder-colored Swedish
ice box. Purchased for $200 out of the back parking lot of a warehouse
in Grand Chute with pieces of the exhaust system propped up comfortably
in the back seat, it's been one hell of a financial and literal ride.

The basics: 1985 Saab 900 hatchback, "cream" colored, but more like the
color of the old refrigerator in Jay's ex-apartment, sans the graffiti.
It's my mini treasure, simply in the name of being the first car I've
ever owned, and the first car I subsequently ever allowed to have senti-
mental value of any sort. I can't say my mother's Ford Escort wagon (the
one in which the engine blew up during Mothers Day brunch at the Holiday
Inn a few years ago), the GMC van, the Buick woody wagon, or even the VW
Vanagon (I don't have many memories of the now bashed up Toyota pick-up)
were ever held in such high esteem. Not that the Saab deserves any sort of
esteem. Two new wheels, an installed exhaust system, a new clutch kit, hotter spark
plugs, the re-plugging of those same spark plugs, a new battery, new brakes,
and some other minor adjustments later... it's now a $3000+ piece of shit
that fails to look any better than the day I bought it, but it's still loved
and admired by those who know of the trials and tribulations... and the
history it has with me. It is Katie's hippiemobile after all. A good many
excursions have been made in that poor thing.

Two summers ago, my sister and I painted a "flower" on the front as I began
to gradually acquire bumper stickers. Many of them no longer apply to me
as an individual, but I won't take them off. There are just more to counter-
act the superficial ones. :) then in May of 2004 I repainted it. So there
are some before and after photos for your viewing pleasure.

Presenting. The Saab.

BEFORE.

I apologize for the quality of these smaller photos.

AFTER.

<3.

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