Back in 1988, I was growing up in a family of 6 people - my step-sister and I, in our teens, and my two younger sisters, who were 3 and 4, along with our parents.
At that time, we had a 1978 Chev Malibu wagon that was on its last legs. It has been a lemon from day 1, and my dad had just gotten angrier and angrier with it over the years to the point where he DESPISED all domestic cars, and thought they were all junk.
My dad thought Toyota's were the best cars, and had wanted a 4WD Tercel wagon when they came out really badly. However, money was tight, so he had to wait until the Chev. basically died to replace it.
So, in December of 1988, he and my step-mom bring home a new family car...a 1989 Toyota Tercel 3-door hatchback. A complete stripper, it had a 4-speed trans. and radio delete. Only option on it was a rear wiper - t was the cheapest Toyota on the lot they could get. This was to be the family car for a family of 6. I'm not kidding.
I immediately went after my father about how this was going to work as a family car - we just didn't all fit. He countered that we didn't all go out as a family together that often, and when we had to, we would just have to make it work.
I was very vocal about what a poor choice this was, and explained there were lots of options that would work better than this in the price range...I think I used a Cavalier wagon as an example. This brought my dad to the boil, and I got an angry lecture on what junk American cars were, and how I just didn't understand that we needed a reliable car, and nothing was as reliable as a Toyota...etc...
Well, we lived with that as a family car for 5 years until he passed from cancer in late 1994. I will give it that it was reliable, even survived dropping all the oil after a bothched oil change and being driven around like that for a full day! I did some of my driver training on it, and it was a good little car to drive. Unfortunately, my step-mom wrecked it about a year after my dad passed with about 80k on it.
I still contend it was a silly, stubborn purchase choice by my dad...ah well!
Any of you have stories about family car purchases that just didn't make sense, either then or now?
At that time, we had a 1978 Chev Malibu wagon that was on its last legs. It has been a lemon from day 1, and my dad had just gotten angrier and angrier with it over the years to the point where he DESPISED all domestic cars, and thought they were all junk.
My dad thought Toyota's were the best cars, and had wanted a 4WD Tercel wagon when they came out really badly. However, money was tight, so he had to wait until the Chev. basically died to replace it.
So, in December of 1988, he and my step-mom bring home a new family car...a 1989 Toyota Tercel 3-door hatchback. A complete stripper, it had a 4-speed trans. and radio delete. Only option on it was a rear wiper - t was the cheapest Toyota on the lot they could get. This was to be the family car for a family of 6. I'm not kidding.
I immediately went after my father about how this was going to work as a family car - we just didn't all fit. He countered that we didn't all go out as a family together that often, and when we had to, we would just have to make it work.
I was very vocal about what a poor choice this was, and explained there were lots of options that would work better than this in the price range...I think I used a Cavalier wagon as an example. This brought my dad to the boil, and I got an angry lecture on what junk American cars were, and how I just didn't understand that we needed a reliable car, and nothing was as reliable as a Toyota...etc...
Well, we lived with that as a family car for 5 years until he passed from cancer in late 1994. I will give it that it was reliable, even survived dropping all the oil after a bothched oil change and being driven around like that for a full day! I did some of my driver training on it, and it was a good little car to drive. Unfortunately, my step-mom wrecked it about a year after my dad passed with about 80k on it.
I still contend it was a silly, stubborn purchase choice by my dad...ah well!
Any of you have stories about family car purchases that just didn't make sense, either then or now?