I retreated from politics into autos yesterday, and got rid of what may be my last ragtop. That is sort of an abrupt introduction, I know, but this has been an issue percolating since the endless series of road trips to The Little Village By the Bay two or three years ago.

Both kinds of government were after me. The Westin Hotel next to our office building was hosting a campaign function for Veep Candidate Paul Ryan. We see the politicians a lot in Arlington; Hillary had her Presidential campaign HQ in an adjacent building, so we are accustomed to having Secret Service in the alley next door, but I thought it would be a good day to “work from home.”

I had been on tap to drive my pal Mac to the hospital for his radiation treatment, but he sent me a note in the morning that his neighbor at The Madison had to be at the hospital around the same time as his appointment, and they had arranged for independent transportation. The vast interior of the Ford Crown Vic P-71 Police Cruiser was perfect to handle Mac’s walker, or a wheelchair, if it came to that.

But with Mac’s transportation needs covered, there actually was no reason to go to the office at all, except for the promo check from my credit union that I discovered in my in-basket this week offering me an insultingly good offer of almost free money for a car loan at 1.9%.

The car thing was on The List in this year of lists: estate, business, health, all with little tick marks as I relentlessly moved down through them.

Bury parents. Check.

Settle and distribute estate. Check.

Have surgery to fix leg. Check.

Stat walking again. Check. 

Refinance properties. Check. 

Get rid of that wonderful expensive convertible. My pencil hovered above it. “Check,” I thought, or “Not to Check.”

I did my homework on Kelly Blue Books. The Hubrismobile was worth around $17k on the hoof, and that was a decent down-payment on whatever the follow-on was going to be.

I loved that last ragtop, just as I did the five before that; the ’67 Canary-yellow Ambassador; the ’72 Beetle, the ’99 champagne Sebring, and the three Mercs- the ’73 350SL, an SLK-320 and the CLK500.

I loved all of them, to one degree or another, and they all had their quirks and reasons for replacement. I gave the Sebring to my older boy when he graduated from college, smelled pungent gas fumes from the old 350SL, and trading up from the SLK-320 because it was too small. The CLK500 had seating for four, and was about the sweetest ride I ever saw- and at $56,000 to drive off the lot, the most expensive car, much less used car, I ever bought. It probably will be the most expensive one I ever owned- I think they listed new at over $80K for the 2004 model.

Replacing the Hubrismobile was on the list of things that passed through my days of recuperation. It was the year of lists, as you recall, following a year of lists: doing the books for Mom and Dad, paying off the contractors on the household reconstruction, paying the rental fees to the Hertz corporation for rentals to flog up the Turnpikes on the way to Michigan.

That, I think, is when I resolved that my ragtop days were done, at least for a while. I was driving into snow and ice, and needed storage room to haul crap. Owning the Bluesmobile convinced me I could be happy in a big piece of iron with a top that did not do anything but keep the rain off, and could absorb dings and dents with equanimity.

Of the rental cars, I liked the Caddy cross-over, and the Infinity, and the GLK350 from our German pals. So, that went on the list. The CLK500 was a 2004 model. I kept the miles off it pretty well- it had less than 40K in eight years of service, but we were sliding into Year Nine, and the belts and hoses were starting to get long in the tooth. I had replaced the tires- how do you go through a set of performance tires in 20,000 miles?

I wonder about who had the car when it was new and on lease. The big maintenance events were multi-thousand dollar encounters with the Service Department; I was always paranoid about getting dings and dents, and I was driving it the weekend of the accident at the farm, which left me barely able to crawl out to the ragtop and get myself into it for the drive back to medical attention.

It was flat impossible to get into once I had my leg encased in that brace, and as far as slinging the wheelchair or even the crutches into the back seat, forget about it. The other thing was that it completely sucked to drive it in the snow. Rear-wheel drive with a honking big German V8, it was sleek and powerful, and utterly worthless in the thick wet white stuff.

So, I had a bunch of money sunk in a vehicle that I drove only in the summer, and which was phenomenally expensive to maintain and was off warranty. As much as I loved it, it was becoming a burden that occupied the single only garage parking spot. I was on the American Service Center web page to get an appointment for the annual safety inspection, and the oil change, and all that, and idly clicked through the inventory of certified used SUVs.

There it was. A GLK350 4Matic all-wheel drive that will perform in the snow and ice. 2010, with an available extended warranty, good through 2016. This might be the last car. I dunno. Anyway, I took my paperwork to the office and hung out for a while, then drove the Cabriolet down to the dealer and got rid of it.

Sad. Last ragtop? Maybe. But as it fades in the rear-view of the SUV, I salute its muscular beauty.

The GLK350 is a beauty in its own right, and great for hauling crap around- which is just what I need for this next phase of life.

As I drove off the lot in the SUV, I opened the Panzerkampfwagen’s sun-roof and cranked up the satellite radio. A moderately-sized trash hauler, suitable for hauling around my junk.

The government provided another adventure when I got the new ride back to Big Pink. I won’t bore you with that, but the upshot was that I was not going to go for a swim, but rather head for a government facility to see a mysterious communication that could only be read on a Government machine.

Damn. I glanced at the clock and realized that if everything went well, I could get to the facility, badge myself in, find an unoccupied terminal and retrieve the message, which would have to be printed and if classified, double wrapped and packaged for removal.

Except that I knew my password would be expired, and something else undoubtedly would go wrong.

It did, but I was content with the rest of the day. I drove the Bluesmobile, to the Government site, unwilling to have the new car get dented in the employee lot.

Wait, I thought, have I been down this road before?

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com