We owned this Jaguar for only 12 years. Only 300 of these cars were made in the US. It was previously owned by the car dealer’s wife and had 7,000 miles when we bought it in 2008.

My husband found it on eBay and we bought 2 one-way tickets to Denver, Colorado to look at it. I had never done that kind of car purchase before. In my family of origin, we kept cars forever. We dreaded talking to car salespeople and changing out our cars. Car guy does his homework, enjoys the prep, and walks onto that car lot with the kind of calm as if going into the grocery store to buy a bag of baby carrots.

We both test drove the car and paid for it.The sales guy must’ve sensed this was the nicest car I had ever owned. He said: “If something ever happens to it, don’t worry, we have more here.” I scanned his inventory. One car would’ve easily paid for my entire college education which I paid for myself. Back then, I drove a brown 1980 Toyota Corolla with a bad paint job, an AM radio, no cassette player, no AC, and no power windows. It got me to where I needed to go and never stranded me. When Dad purchased it for me, he said part of the deal was that I would replace it with another car of equal value. I made good on that promise. The Toyota Forerunner I gave him was the last car he drove before the stroke impaired his ability to drive. Since then, Dad and I spend a lot of time in the car together. He also likes cars and is intrigued by their bells and whistles.

Ah, sorry for the detour in the story. Let me get back on track…

After we bought the Jaguar, we celebrated over Italian food, then headed on a road trip back to SloCal.

To break up our trip, we stayed at a seedy motel (somewhere) where the furniture in our room, except for our bed, was lawn furniture. I was too scared to shower and was surprised to find the car parked, unharmed, where we left it.

I had never owned a high-performance car with two-toned leather seats. It was fancy and very fun to drive, especially the way it handled around corners and our freeway onramps. It is also a car that kept us humble because of its expensive repairs and funny memories.

On one of our first trips driving down to San Diego, out of nowhere, just past Camp Pendleton, an empty 30-gallon lawn and leaf trash bag flew and snagged onto the hood leaper ornament. We drove with a flapping trash bag strangling that jaguar for so many miles. We laughed at how we weren’t meant to be fancy or full of ourselves.

Another funny memory was the time we crammed three senior citizen ladies in the back-seat: my mom, my mother-in-law and my mom’s friend, Bobbie. We had been given 5 tickets to see a Christmas cantata. Dad didn’t want to go so I asked Mom to invite a friend. However, there were stipulations. Her friend had to be small and free of a walker or wheelchair. Mom’s walker occupied the entire trunk. Mom walked around the dining room of their senior living facility to see who would qualify as a passenger. She came back to me and said she had found someone but they were slightly blind and a little hard of hearing. Perfect. My mother-in-law was kind enough to escort mom’s friend to a seat where she could see and hear the performance. Afterwards, we had a simple soup dinner that simmered in the slow cooker. Mom’s friend was sweet, appreciative and loads of fun. She saw the banister in our home and perked up to share something. She randomly announced, between bites of crusty bread, that she was still spry enough to slide down the banister as she had just done so at her son’s home. Our eyes got big and we told her we believed her. We thanked her and declined her offer to demonstrate.

Whenever Car Guy would ask or threaten to sell the car, I would tell him to do so but he had to find another Jaguar with the same VIN number. That conversation went on for years. The odd thing about this car is that I frequently had other car guys come up and ask about the car. They’d want to look at it or share some fact about the car that the general public would not know about. I would come home and tell my husband that he did a great job of finding something so unique that only other car enthusiasts would appreciate what he had found on e-Bay. I would always tell that story and if they owned a Jaguar, I would hear their stories about their cars.

My husband tried to make repairs on the car and was towing it to and from the car repair place. The final straw was when I was driving behind him and smelled smoke, saw sparks coming out of the left wheel. He stopped and I stopped. With butt up in the air, he was on his knees blowing out the flames like the 58 candles on his birthday cake from the day before, while cars were whooshing by. He could’ve been burnt. He could’ve been hit by a passing car. I came over with a partially filled water bottle I found in the car. He extinguished the fire.

He was relieved there was a water bottle. When he called the tow truck driver again, it was the same guy that had hauled that jaguar two times before to/from the car repair place. That flaming incident led to its sale at Car Max. My husband kept it in pristine shape so it was snagged immediately. In my heart I vowed never to get attached again to a car and knew the next car I owned would probably be a Chevrolet, like the other cars in the garage.

A week after Mother’s Day weekend, Car Guy, found a great deal on an electric car, a Bolt. A friend had one and I absolutely loved it. I don’t miss sitting in the gas line at Costco. It is a new experience to drive and very easy to park because it’s so small. I love how the back seats come down easily to fit those huge Costco sizes of paper products.

Car Guy saved us a lot of money by installing a charger in our garage. It is very convenient. HOWEVER….

In poetic irony, there is a recall on the battery which Chevy is replacing. 14 cars caught on fire and they recommended that you not charge them inside your garage. What is the universe telling me that my last two cars could nuke me like a baked potato in a microwave?