This last couple of years has seen a stark change in my priorities and values, and within these last 6 months especially I've slimmed my fleet down to 3 cars. Why? The future of having my unit/storage is looking tenuous, I don't actually enjoy driving, I cycle more miles a year than I drive, I'm pretty environmentally minded, gone vegan (shoot me) and now feel driving for the hell of it just isn't a good thing. Frankly hobby cars just don't seem good value to me any more, insomuch as the time, hassle and expense of keeping them is no longer worth it to me. £100 would go further if invested in either my other interests (cycling, cooking, reading, podcasts etc), or in charitable causes.
Now my 940 is my "car car", and as near to a daily as I get despite not driving every day. So I don;t want to sell that any time soon. The AX is going to serve as a stop gap in the coming months, whilst Volvo is undergoing work, then I will probably sell that too. Which leaves my 100e.
I bought it in 2015 when I was 21, working away so earning good money, and brimming enthusiasm. I spent 3 years Pinto swapping it, fitting Mk1/2 Escort steering, GRP4 front suspension, TCA's and heavy duty crossmember, converted 2.8 Capri Bilsteins to coilovers, fitting Sierra type 9, fabricating a trans tunnel for it, fitting 105e axle on adjustable shocks and lowering blocks. Y'know, all the good bits.I did all the work on it myself, learnt a tonne and (at the time) enjoyed the build process.
Its been a hoot since getting it on the road in spring 2018. It drives very very well, goes like the hammers of fuck, handles terrifically, sounds good and looks just how I envisaged. Driven up to Santa Pod in a it a couple of times, pootled to the shops in it, and attended breakfast meets and shows just to piss of the purists. I always have said its the "car I'd never sell", because it never would be worth as much to someone else as it would to me.
But I've just not driven it recently, maybe twice in the last 6 months. Even for winter that's much less than previous years. And last summer I didn't use it as much as I should either. I just can't get in the mood to use it nowadays. It's not stepped out of line, or pissed me off and been relegated to a corner or anything like that. I haven't got bored of it specifically either, but more bored of "fun cars" in general I think. I keep it 8 miles from my house, and when the weathers nice I sooner reach for my bike than reach for the 100e keys and drive there to take it out. The urge to drive a "head turner" seems even more shallow and unappealing than ever to me now. It juts doesn;t make me happy any more. Not really, not in the true life-fulfilling sense of the word. I feel it's going to get harder and harder and to run cars like this in the coming years, with fuel prices and E5 and taxation etc. It's like a plane taking a nosedive: its all only going one way, its just up to you when you jump out.
So toying with selling it, and faced with the dilemma of how hard I should stick to the "never sell" proviso I made for it years ago, because I'm acutely aware this is a perfect example of how narrow-minded, inflexible stubbornness can get the better us. I am not going to delude myself into thinking I need to keep it to validate the good times and fun I've had before with it either. I believe lives about the doing and the being, rather than the having and the owning.
So who else here has sold a car they swore they never would? Did you feel regret weigh on your shoulders, or relief lift from them?