Even though the Saturn dealership turned out to have closed so extremely solidly that we couldn't get in, my brother, his father-in-law, and I figured we might go car-looking anyway. It wouldn't make sense to go all the way up there and come right back, particularly after all my best efforts to get up there early, and even getting up earlier than I figured on, I suffered that natural compression of events that forced me to start out late and go through really awful traffic including several accidents. While I went about the same way I went up to get my car fixed, it was actually longer early Saturday afternoon than it was during weekday rush hour.
And right next to the Saturn Ex-Dealership was an ongoing Toyota dealership from the same franchise name and still carrying on although I thought their salesfolk looked a bit downbeat. So we went next door into cars with no particular reason to expect they'd be on sale other than the whole President's Day thing, and with a bit of investigation determined that I did not in fact fit in the Scion ... uh ... the one that looks like a car, not like a Lego French bread truck. At this point a salesfolkling came in and tried to determine what I want in a car.
What I want in a car is that I should fit in it. So we had fine dialogue such as his, ``Do you want a four or six cylinder engine?'', with my answer, ``Oh, it doesn't matter'', and my brother's ``four''. My criteria did rule out a Prius, as the front seat doesn't go back far enough. But I do fit in a Camry and we took that for a test drive in which the salesperson didn't seem to have anything of interest to say about it other than that they have a maintenance center where people could wait, or wait while on their computers, or wait while drinking vending machine coffee. They even had about eight people waiting, proving the concepts. We ended the test drive with my admitting that while this was fine I didn't really know how much I wanted to spend and I'd be willing to think about a ``certified pre-owned'' car but didn't have any preconceptions about what age, make, or model. The sales person, not unwisely, left us in the parking lot behind the dealership and we didn't see him again.
Trivia: In 1925 General Motors introduced the K Model Chevrolet, with a closed body line, Duco finish, one-piece windshield with automatic wipers, a dome light, and a Klaxon horn. Hudson introduced the closed-body Essex coach, for $895. Ford's share of new car sales went from 54 to 45 percent. Source: Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920-1941, Michael E Parrish.
Currently Reading: The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring In Wartime Washington, Jennet Conant.