"I'm sure it's a very rare car. You're probably the first man on earth who ever wanted to own one."
(This cartoon has hung on our fridge for years.)
It's a bittersweet thing. Being the South Plains Electric Eco Dork (SPEED) that I am, I have waited for this moment for five years. That is how long I have wanted to see a Mitsubishi MiEV at the Lubbock Mitsubishi dealer. It's fairly well documented on this blog. Egg car this and egg car the other and more and more about the egg car until the final egg car post (Dec 2015) where I gave up completely because Mitsubishi had discontinued the ill-fated egg of my miniscule electric dreams.
I really do think it's Roswell-invader cute!
Until that point, I had rubber necked each time I passed any Mitsubishi dealer. I spotted one several years ago in Waco, but I was in too big of a hurry to truly check it out.
So, I moved on. I now dream of used Leafs and dust-covered Citicars just waiting to be resurrected.
So there I was cruising past Reagor/Dykes Mitsubishi today - it's in a part of town that I seldom visit. I noticed a Viper and a couple of Mitsubishi Mirages and a....HOLY TOFU, BATMAN! It's a MiEV!
Holy Tofu, indeed!
So, I swung the junky Dodge pickup into a tire-squalling u-turn and slid right into RDM. There it was - gloriously radiant in pearl white (and just as ugly on the outside as my wife thinks they are.) A 2016 Mitsubishi MiEV. I thought of a rare sighting of a doomed species on Animal Planet. This was like that.
A young salesman walked over, asked if he could show me any cars, making a sweeping gesture at all the gas-powered cars on the lot. I said I was there there to see the little white beast hunkering by the door. He asked, "So, you're into the smart cars, are you?"
I gave him a quick education about the car, its capabilities, the stunningness of seeing it there, the $7500 tax break. (I felt great empathy for a 7-year-old I know who loves to educate people on locks, oblivious to the fact that most of us have absolutely no interest in locks.)
He offered to let me drive it. I told him I would love to but that I was not actually in the market. He did not say anything else about driving it, but he was kind, let me sit in it, let me open all of the doors and such. He let me read all the info on the window (including the staggeringly high window sticker of $26,000).
A banner at the ill-fated bike store
That's it. That's the whole story. I left there, went to the bike store and bought a 70% off tire for my cobbled together electric bike.
May you get to live your dreams while they are still dreams.
(If you go by to check it out {yes, I know the chances of that - you don't have to make those rude noises} talk to Gage - he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.)
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