[V8] Idiocy is lurking once again....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Ok, ok, ok.  It's a nice sunny cool morning here along the coast of Maine.
The snow of last week is gone completely and we have bare ground.  I am
thinking about spring, but then, I often think inappropriate things.

Like the latest V8 that I have been pondering.  You see, my wife has made it
perfectly clear that she really wishes that I didn't have The Black Mariah
any longer than absolutely necessary, and that I NOT replace it with another
200 20Valve Avant. 

The reason?  Well, whenever we go anywhere together,  I prefer to drive and
I prefer to drive my car.  Sometimes we go to rather obscure, wilderness
locations to look at land, and sometimes...no often times...these locations
are down dirt roads with the last house that we saw about ten miles away.

And my lovely, smart, creative and extraordinarily well experience and
sophisticated wife is absolutely defeated by ANY sort of machine requiring
more than one activity to make it work. A vehicle with a clutch to her is
like a Space Shuttle to a cave man.  And her thinking is that whatever might
happen if I fell, or was somehow disabled and she had to play rescuer.
Thus, the next vehicle is to be something that she can drive, which means
something with an automatic transmission.  Ok. Well and good.

Right now, I am thinking the unthinkable.  I am thinking about a 2000 or
2001 GMC ex-cab truck with a short box.  Although I would never have thought
that I would want a truck with a short box, there are some really good
reasons why it might work well.  First of all, the extended cab with opening
rear doors allow an enormous amount of transport and storage options inside
the truck, and the bed is still fairly large.  With the gate down, long
objects can be transported fairly easily, and if we need really long stuff
delivered when we are building the new house next year the lumber company
can take care of that.  Or so I think now.  

So, I am watching the eBay auctions for a suitable truck.  Right now, there
is an 99 that is yummy looking on the surface with just a tad over 100,000
miles in Michigan, and another that is a 2001 in Ft Lauderdale that looks
like it might work (except for those ridiculous wheels and el-cheapo
tires!), that will probably be to much money.

So.  Let's say, I get this truck which will become my daily driver.  But
what will I do for my Audi habit?

Aha! I might have the perfect fantasy.  Right now on Cars.com, someone out
in the Midwest is selling a '93 V8 Quattro.  The car has a gazillion miles,
but only two owners, apparently, and the first one was a corporate owner so
the claim is, and presumably so:  the car was well maintained through the
first 170,000 miles.  

Now, IF the car is reasonably well serviced, why not take a shot, realizing
that the car will need substantial rebuilding in all likelihood.  It CAN be
done, and the exterior looks pretty good and clean.  

Best of all, it seems like this might be one of the odd colors that are so,
so terribly rare.  Look carefully at the pictures.  I don't thnk this is the
typical Audi deep green, but might it be the rather neat, and very rare Moss
Green?  

Of course, it's too much money for the miles, but if the price could be
brought down to the penny level, might this not be a nice project to restore
and...well, perhaps I need to go and stand in the cold air for a moment.

What do you think?

Roger