The Geo affair

Many of you are aware of my blog in October called car poll. Well, there still isn't a new car in my driveway. I am still driving my Geo Prism, and this little car has led to the question; "Why my family loves a good Geo Prism?".

Before we take this question further, maybe a little history is in store. Around 1996, Dondavid Powell, the auto shop teacher at Ricks College, told my dad about getting good deals on wrecked cars to fix up. This idea sounded good to my Dad as a way for his kids to earn money. Well, buying these cars was easy, and we were pretty good at fixing them, but didn't do too well on selling them. Not really a bunch of salesmen. So, me and my brothers would drive them with for sale signs in them trying to get someone to bite.

As we were buying these cars, it became evident that there was a hierarchy to how easy a car was to sell. On the top of the list was Honda and Toyota vehicles. GM and Chrysler which we got were not. The problem was that even broken Honda and Toyota cars were more expensive then we we wanted. Then Dondavid told my Dad a Geo Prism wouldn't cost as much, and they were pretty easy to sell. So, we bought a Geo and the rest is history. In total we have fixed up six Prisms. Two were sold and we kept four for me and my brothers.

It is now 8 years after the last Prism was fixed, and only Kensey has sold his. We now come back to the question of why my family loves them? It might be that we know that we can embarrass kids (or Michaela) when they ride with us. Or, maybe the mechanical refresher courses we get. Maybe the answer is to show how strong we are to not succumb to buying a newer car.

This last week, my car was able to demonstrate all of these traits as I took co-workers to lunch. Normally they try to stay away from my Geo, as they try to show off there own cars. But this time the Geo didn't fail to impress. As we drove down the road, one mentioned it sounded like an airplane, and he liked it because he felt he was going fast. I laughed and all of a sudden a cup holder popped out (the latch broke) and I was able to show my ingenuity by jamming a piece of paper to keep it closed. In the end, they couldn't get out because the door handle was broken, and I had to show them "The Door Handle Knack". Sheesh, you wonder if they really are engineers. And when they got out, they looked so happy to have driven in the car. Maybe they will drive with me again.