Had that experience yesterday with "Hazel Katherine" my almost 14 year old, ordered directly from the factory, Saturn SW2. We replaced her with a new Nissan Versa Hatchback. "She" will live in the driveway for the next few months until we deliver her to my eldest Grandson...on his way to college in June. I hate to banish her to the driveway as she has only known garage living since we "created her." She still gets 30mpg around town and 35mpg on the highway. I don´t think our Grandson will understand the "jewel" he is getting. Oh, the new Nissan´s name is "Uncle Versey" in honor of Jerry Clower´s Uncle Versey Ledbetter....

´93 Jeep Wrangler with a 3" lift kit. I left my Butchie in Vegas and didn´t feel the same until I got another one (this time a ´92) almost a year later.

Honk.

My Mom called her car "Matilda" when it wouldn´t start and would give it some love when it finally did. Now I have a car, a 96 Acura Integra that doesn´t look nearly as nice as it used to but it´s the family car when someone needs a temporary vehicle. An acquaintance of my husbands asked him if it was for sale and he said no way for whatever reason, my wife loves that car.

I´ll admit to having a ´53 Ford we named Lena in our early married days. Lena was usually unloved, however. Her ignition would lock up at very inopportune times, such as in a Yosemite National Park parking lot while attached to a loaded U-Haul. Since unlocking the ignition involved jumping up and down on a bumper, first the U-Haul had to be unhitched. I didn´t shed a tear when we finally could afford to replace Leapin´ Lena.

Never gave my vehicles names, but did have twinges of grieving when they were towed off to the yard. That´s the only way I get rid of them.

I´m over 60 and have owned well over 70 cars in my lifetime...I practically "lived" cars in my youth. But I guess that number pretty much indicates that I wasn´t "devoted" to any of them...I used to change them like underwear. I´ve had them all...antiques, muscle cars, classics, high end foreign cars, etc. Now I wish I had a lot of them back. But, to be honest, I don´t have much interest in them any more...they´ve lost their character.

Tuesday will mark the 10th year of driving the "Axles of Evil" ( Dakota Sport 4WD gas hog) . Hope to patch up the ´fringe´ along the bottom and drive it for another few years. Another fave was our 76 Buick " Best Western"- a 9 passenger Estate Wagon that had the factory installed´ still in the crate´ look woodgrain exterior. Heard it´s still on the road somewhere near Sioux Falls.

´70 chevelle ss 454 ls6. THOSE were the days.

Honk! Feb ´73 Toyota Land Cruiser(devotees will understand the necessity for the month designation). Took me all over Baja California and the deserts of the great Southwest and NEVER broke down. Rides like a buckboard but is the toughest thing on the trail. I still have her but more or less retired her to a barn on the ranch in ´90.

HONK. 99 Mitsubishi Montero. I loved that car. I actually cried at the dealer, trading it in after 10 years...

I agree. Medved is weird.

Still wish I had my first car -- a 1965 Olds F-85 four door.

Sadly, some drunk wiped it out while I had it parked on the street. Over 25 years later, I (twice) saw an exact duplicate in a mall parking lot. I kinda kick myself wishing I had put my business card on the windshield offering to buy it.

First car was a ´55 Turquoise/White Belaire Chevrolet 4-dr. I get nostalgic (warm and fuzzy too) whenever I see a picture of one just like it. So roomy, under-the-dash AC was very good, etc. Wish I still had it. Had just gotten my first job at a dollar an hour and had no trouble paying for it, without any outside help.

I´m with #6. Used to fix ´em for a living, changed them like sox. Its hard for me to see someone like medved doing the anthropomorphism thing with a car. Too weird.

#3, I had a "Matilda" also. It was a ´69 Chevy Camaro, white exterior with blue plastic seat covers. Lack of A/C in the Texas summers would leave the backside drenched with sweat.

Matilda and I went through the war together.

Cars have always meant "freedom" to me. Honk!

As a youngster, I couldn´t wait until my dad traded the old Plymouth, with its heinous tail fins. My first visit to a show room floor, I had my hopes set on the new Buick Riviera, with its cockpit-like dashboard, powered by the Super Wildcat 425 fed by dual 4-barrel carbs. We wound up with the vastly more pedestrian LeSabre, a life scarring experience.

I´m still driving my 1997 Jeep Cherokee, Black Beauty. It has over 275,000 miles and is still running fine, although beginning to show some age in scratches and puckers. The teenagers are appalled and my husband keeps telling me to get another car. I tell him he should be grateful that I´m not a high maintenance wife who needs a new car every few years.

A friend had a Pinto he named Cecelia, as in the song.

I don´t name my cars. I do get wistful and sad when I sell one that I´ve had a long time. When these cars go away, I think about the people, dogs, and things they carried. The memories of snowstorms, thunderstorms, happy sunrises, goodbyes both tender and bitter. The car was with you through all of that and stands as a tired companion.

People to whom a car is just an expensive, self-propelled household appliance are "missing something" [in two senses of the phrase].

Missing what? a. missing "something inside;" whatever it is that those who do "connect" both have as a part of who they are, and which is a necessary piece of ... I guess "all this" is the best that comes to me right now. Odd. Sometimes a "universal truth" is so basic it´s not within the reach of words. Hmmm.

b. and missing everything that is given to / is part of those who do "connect" through that / through those ephemeral, inexplicable mystical bits that underlie all that we´re discussing.

Sort of like the place great music or painting have for some of us: communicating things and in ways that conventional language cannot hope to.

Full disclosure: I have never "named" a car [or bike] I´ve owned. Cars aren´t appliances, or pets either.

As for Medved -- egads! I´ve seen him wrong, wildly wrong, on many things, but [setting aside the lack of real insight in the piece], the factual errors are almost physically painful. A "V6" ´53 Plymouth? A guy [his father] with a recent physics Ph.D. saying a 100 horsepower car has power equal to 100 [real] horses? If [if] his father said that -- dead wrong. [Setting aside lots of variables, one oat-powered horse has about 15 horsepower.]

Still have my 1998 Honda Accord. Named him Mr. Spiffy because he was the first decent car I had ever own. Used to drive all the family rejects which broke down if you sneezed, so when I went out and chose this car without any help from my hubby, I chose that name because he has always been reliable for me.

I am stealing ´Axles of Evil´ as my hubby has a gobbler too.

Have always gotten attached to my cars, we´re currently in possession of a ´98 Vette convertible, an ´03 Ford Lightning and the wifes ´10 Caddy CTS Wagon. They´ll have to really break before they´re let go!

In high school in the early 80s I drove my father´s handmedown 1979 Buick Special (2-door), a car he used quite heavily to answer fires (he was a volunteer fireman) so it always had that faint tinge of smoke to it. No matter how much my Dad worked on it, it always seemed to have a habit of dying right when I needed power the most (acceleration into a busy street, turning corners etc). So I named it the Millennium Falcon. It was essentially a piece of junk, but I talked about it so much that I soon had the entire family referring to it as the Falcon.

Yeah, but not at the end of a lease, I mean me and the car signed a prenup, just leave the papers on the dresser, Mike.

Ah! Old car memories. I got attached to a cream puff Delta 88 - a big, roomy road car that I took several trips in, alone. It was such a dependable car, but my big mouth got me in trouble when I had to sell it. My brother called one day & gave me a sad story about a friend of his who was going through a divorce & needed a cheaper car. I´d had the Olds for a few years, but I carelessly said that I would sell mine for exactly what I paid for it. Never thinking the guy would go for it, sight unseen, I kept my word & he came & got it that night & paid my price for it. I look at it this way - I drove the car for almost nothing for several years & I´ve learned to make my own car deals just like a man!

Down on the Farm whilst a Ward of the State, the Good Reverend who looked after us, put together a 1936 Ford, so we could take it to school an in Town on Sat Nites. Loved that Car, until one nite we hit a Cow. The Car was made in the same year I was Born.

My mom cried when she had to give up her 1976 Ford Pinto, cherry red with white vinyl roof and white pinstriping, and plaid interior. We all learned to drive in that tank, good times. She really loved that car.

Recently I traded my 1996 Nissan Pathfinder for a brand new 2012 Ford F150 4x4. Owned the Pathfinder since new and put on 148k miles. It still looked almost brand new, had no body rattles, the seats/carpet were pristine and the engine purred like the day I took delivery. It never gave me a minute´s trouble. The Ford is nice, but I shoulda kept the Pathfinder.

"The Hot Stocker" is the name of our ´57 Nomad we´ve had since September 24, 1958 when Dad paid $2,495.00 for it used. It was our only car until March´67 when it was replaced. Because it was Dad´s favorite car he´d ever owned, it was also the only car he didn´t trade in when it was replaced. It was given to me as my first car in ´74 and I´ve never turned loose of it. There are so many memories in this car going back to when we got it when I was 2 years old. As a little kid, a car means security, adventure, "family", and friends and relatives who have ridden in it over the years. My son will one day have the car, and it will mean the same to him, plus it will be a connection to his Grandfather who passed away long before he was born.

It´s also not just a "Guy Thing". when showing this car now, it´s the women who usually come out of the woodwork with stories about their family car they remember as little kids.

My first car was a 1964 Rambler Classic, purchased in 1972 for $300. I still miss ´ol ´Bessie´, with the horseshoe I wired to her grille. I´ve had six cars since, but never cared about any of them enough to give them a name.

When, as a young mother of 3 boys, they came to tow my 1977 Camaro out of my driveway, I cried like a baby. I was literally waving goodbye to my carefree youth.

365 GTB-4 12 cyl quad OHC

1969 \\

Broke my heart to have to sell her.....

....yes....the IRS was involved.

My first was a ´63 Chevy Malibu. #12, I lost mine to a drunk driver as well. And yes, I cried.

Our first car together after we were married was an early ´70´s Impalla. A maroon tank with a dark grey, cloth top. (I think at one point it used to be black.) We had to sell it because we needed a pick up truck to haul tools and materials when he started working as a contractor. I think we were both crying but I can´t say for sure because neither of us would look at the other.

Honk, honk.

We grew up in the, ´´Happy Days,´´ and have always loved cars. Our first new car was a ´63 Plymouth Fury convertible, white exterior & red interior, ...GORGEOUS! Hubby had 3 jobs at the time and I also worked so we could afford the car we wanted. -It is the only one we wish we still had.

Next came several station wagons for our growing family, -plus also a Gremlin, (-for commuting during Carter´s dem years of gas shortages & general, ´mailaise!´ UGH!), small Toyota & later Nissan trucks, (-gotta have a truck in So. Texas!), a couple of foreign cars and then we absolutely loved our Ford Explorer & later a Mountaineer.

But the most wonderfully fun car was the fulfillment of our youthful dreams a few years ago, a Torch Red ´55 ´Baby´ Thunderbird. -HONK!!

God bless the USA!!!

´68 Porsche 912. Wish I had it back, but I was younger then.

Now...do trucks count?