Cars Part 3, 1997 Mercury Tracer

To recap: I had a car that’s ignition would quit on me so I went to look at new cars and my car’s ignition quit again and I was stuck at a dealership with a car that wouldn’t start.

(once again, not my actual car - but this time it's the correct color)

Since I was at the dealership and stuck there, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look at the cars, maybe test drive a few. Then I was going to call my dad and have him come get me. There was no way they would sell me a car even if I wanted one.

Different times, those 90s.

I had never been inside a real car dealership at an age where they could legally sell me a car. I was pounced on immediately. I’m sure they thought I was an easy target. Young girl, wide-eyed, maybe I had rich parents. My car dealer walked me up and down the lot. He stopped in front of an easter egg green 1997 Mercury Tracer. It was less than 2 years old. It looked so new. He told me to get in and see how it felt. He then told me he thought it was a car that I “would look cute in”. Even at my young, naïve age, I knew what a sleazy car dealer man line that was. But, you know, I didn’t look bad in it.

I was sold.

We went inside to initiate the paperwork. I called my dad who was doing an overtime shift just down the road to see if he could come down and co-sign. After a couple of “Jesus, Niki!’s” he made his way down. Amazingly all of the financing went through. They even gave me $500 for the old Taurus. The very Taurus that wouldn’t start and was sitting stalled in their parking lot. And I rolled out of there in my newish car.

I loved this car and we had a lot of adventures together. I started dating my husband when I owned this car. We took trips to Duluth in this car. We drove to Arizona and back in this car. Then it slowly became destroyed.

First, I was driving down a cramped city street in the winter and my passenger side rear view mirror was ripped off in a minor accident.

Then, the driver’s side passenger door was almost ripped off in another accident. The outer shell was left completely twisted. At this time, I was unemployed and couldn’t afford to get it fixed. I couldn’t even afford the car payments, which is when the collection folks started calling all the time.

So, one spring day, I was out of town and my car was parked outside of my apartment. The city was doing street cleaning and so everyone had to move their cars. I wasn’t there to move mine. My roommate looked everywhere for my car keys, but could do nothing as she watched them tow it away.

Since I was unable to get it fixed or make payments on it, there was no way I was able to get it out of the impound lot after 3 days. So the next time the collection folks called, I told them where they could find the car. And they never called again.