beemer remembered

Our 318i looked much like this one.  White with grey interior.

Not too long before Gina and I got married, she purchased a BMW 318i.  She wanted to step up from the Dodge Reliance she had nearly died in a few months before.  She wanted a car that she would feel safer driving.  We owned the car the first 8 to 10 years of our marriage.  It was a great little car, but it sure was expensive to get repaired.  The parts were always more expensive than my old Volvo station-wagon.

For some reason we had to keep replacing the window motors.  We also had trouble with the front driver's seat kept breaking.  We had them welded and re-welded and they kept coming undone.  They first broke on a trip from Kentucky to Alabama to Florida to Washington, DC.  My back was killing me that trip.  We purchased some second hand seats, but within a year both of those seats broke in the very same place.  It must have been a standard defect.

After ten years of good service, Gina and I decided to keep the Beemer instead of getting something newer. We had the engine worked on, repainted the car and put a new set of wheels on her.  About a month later a deer jumped in front of the car while Gina was driving down Green Valley Road one evening.  We sunk all that money into a car just to see it totaled.  Such is life.

Even though the car had it's flaws, it was a great ride.  We drove thousands and thousands of miles in her and we were sorry to see it go.  We had a kid by then, so we replaced it with a Dodge Grand Caravan.  Gina and I went from Yuppie to Utilitarian overnight. We ended up owning two Grand Caravans and drove them each for about a decade too.

Gina and I have owned a lot of cars down through the years.  We've been fortunate to have never owned a lemon.  The BMW was a good one.   The 318i had a classic appearance and  her lines and design still look contemporary all these years later.

When Gina and I were in our first six years of marriage, we had time to travel and we did. We drove many places in that BMW during our honeymoon years.  We rarely travel far these days.  When I think of all those trips, I think of exploring new towns, new places next to my lovely bride.