This isn't a BaT writeup or review- that'll come a bit later.

I woke up this morning, printed out the bill of sale, swung by a car wash with it for the last time, and stopped to fill the tank one last time. The whole process was kind of sobering and somber, if not a little saddening.

That's the last photo of it I took. It's odd, seeing the only constant over the past 6 years of your life drive away, but I'm happy for its future home.

Met the buyer at the airport, we spent some time going over the truck and some oddities of it, we grabbed lunch and chatted for a bit. I caught a train back home and he drove off to pick up some gear for his 4-day road trip back to California with it. He's a super great guy and I think he'll be an excellent caretaker for the truck in its next segment of life.

I'll definitely miss it. I already do.

It's over. Shopping for a car has made me consider hating cars alltogether.

I posted yesterday about a craigslist transaction out of frustration. I'd met with a seller to test drive a vehicle. He said that he hadn't anticipated it selling so quickly, so he didn't have all the accessories and things together. We agreed upon a price, I put $100 down on it, shook, and agreed to exchange the remainder in cash for the vehicle and title the following day.

The following morning, he calls and says his sister wants to buy it. He says he's returning my deposit and keeping it in the family. This was exceptionally infuriating as we'd already agreed to a price, a time, location, and I'd put a small amount of cash on it. On top of that, this isn't exactly a common car and they're very difficult to find in decent shape.

Around 6pm, the seller calls and says his sister is flaking out. Truthfully, I was so mad at this point that I'd considered telling him to get bent. I calmed down a bit, we agreed to pick up the previous agreement where we left off, pending that we complete the transaction this evening- no questions.

Enter: The new DD. It's a 1996 Volvo 850 wagon, 5cyl, 5spd. 132k miles, and a fat stack of nearly every service performed, all at a local dealer.

Seller included the Thule rack and cargo box as well as a set of studded tires mounted to OEM steelies with hubcaps.

Also includes the original sticker at an even $33k, which seems like a bunch of money for 1996.

The stack of papers also included the original 1996 brochures, accessory brochures, and manuals.

Arguably, this is my favorite photo:

Yes, this vehicle does have the rear jumpseat. I cannot wait to fill it with blonde-haired children, absent from motion sickness.

Current plans are to do some baselining and maintenance, including new shocks and tires, replacing some of the light bulbs, fixing the seat heaters and the driver side mirror heater, and trying to track down some interior rattles. Expect to see more posts about this guy soon.

So my partner's hand will look like this for a few more days, but it's back together. Everything went smoothly. Post-op recovery wasn't fun for either of us, but she's back on the mend and getting better!

This is Moki. She's office security, it says so on our website:

When security needs pets, security needs pets:

She took my chair for the rest of the afternoon yesterday as punishment for insufficient petting.

This past Saturday, a bunch of weirdos met up in a parking lot. They drove around, talked about a bunch of weird stuff, and called it a day.

Naw, just kidding. We had a solid and respectable turnout for the (first?) Colorado Oppositelock meetup. 9 (!!) people made it, representing a good chunk of the front range.

@Lanciere brought the Lancia
@Future-Next-Gen-S2000-Owner brought the Triumph Daytona triple
@MarquetteLa brought the R32 (MkIV)
@MUSASHI66 brought the 500 Abarth
@VincentMalamute brought the pinnacle of utility with his Transit (not pictured)
@fhrblig brought the Venue
@Grindintosecond brought the Flex, coming second with most cargo capacity + roof box
@2-Jeeps-and-a-Mustang-wants-a-Fiata brought the Mustang
and I brought the trusty 850 Estate.

Collectively, this made for 7 manual gearboxes, 2 auto gearboxes, two puppers, and 52 cylinders, with @VincentMalamute owning the most turbos (2.)

I've got a few photos below but check out others' including @MarquetteLa 's pics in this thread:
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/17626/thanks-to-all-the-colorado-oppos

Jealous? You should be! But fear not, there should be at least one more Colorado oppo meet before the end of this year. We discussed a late summer or early fall color cruise and briefly chatted about a potential 4x4 meet, as well as the possibility of a show and meet without a cruise.

There's also the AutoMezzi meet on July 18th if you'd like to see a special blue Lancia in person.
Thanks to everyone that made it out. It was awesome to see such great representation of Oppo and the eclectic mix of vehicles.

This is Fry. I haven't posted much about him, but he approves of the 850 wagon. More Fry to come in the future, if you're interested.

not pictured: an FZJ80, FJ40, International Scout, Hummer h1, and a few other rad machines.

Picked up this tig torch holder, figured that it would be a minor investment to help prevent potentially broken/dropped/damaged welding torches but it just felt... lacking. It felt like it was missing something really important but I couldn't quite peg it.

Ahh, that's better.

My partner was on her bicycle this past Friday. I got a call at work saying she'd been hit by a car. The driver made an illegal u-turn in an intersection and collided with the bike. We're fortunate that it was just a broken wrist- could've been significantly worse.

Truthfully, this is one of my worst fears as both a cyclist and a driver. I've been hit by a car before too, and it's a 0/10 bad time. Both sides- pay attention, be alert and stay safe out there.

Since we can't bike together for at least the next 4-6 weeks, we took Fry to the dog park. He seemed to really enjoy it.

@essextee what kind of terrain or ground do you have to drill through to get to a viable water source? how deep does that have to be?

@mark-tucker i'd think that's characteristic of many bigger cities in the US, not just yours. don't let the actions of a small handful of terrible people ruin the opinion of where you live.

@tripper said in This is the only new vehicle available at my local Subaru Dealer:

wouldn’t let me drive it without signing first

was it something fancy or rare?

@tripper said in This is the only new vehicle available at my local Subaru Dealer:

@highlander $20 says they don't actually have it

gray tag under the pic says it's in transit!

@just-jeepin said in Red Notice - A Poll:

just noise...

ah, but that's the difference between meaningless noise and totally useless meaningless noise.

@just-jeepin said in Red Notice - A Poll:

@hammerheadfistpunch we do need editable polls, will add that to my plugin wishlist

Yes, but what's to keep the options from being changed after votes? I'm guessing the non-editable polls are implemented to keep integrity.

Maybe editable until a vote gets cast?

@musashi66 sorry for causing such strife, it appears the design was the modification of a 260 coupe by bertone and it was approved by jan, the chief designer of volvo cars from 1950-1990.

@Huzer damn, was good knowing you pal.

With the design approved by Jan Wilsgaard and built by Bertone in Turin, Italy, the 262C was produced from 1977-1981. According to Hemmings, there were only 6,622 produced and about half of these went to the USA.
Wiki | Hemmings

And wouldn't you know, there's one on Phoenix Craigslist right now:


https://phoenix.craigslist.org/cph/cto/d/phoenix-1981-volvo-262c-bertone/7413821148.html

I'm obviously biased towards Volvo, particularly the older ones, but color me silly if I didn't say this is probably one of the ugliest coupes I've ever seen.

@the-crazy-kanuck oh, so that's where you've been