I’ve made the call

I’ve been trying to sell my 1981 Parisienne lately to keep it out of the snow. I made up my mind last night that I would keep the Parisienne at least for another year. I figured I would put some snow tires on it and it will make the sacrifice so that my Roadmaster can stay garaged next winter. It was a tough decision that I’ve agonized over for months but at last it’s been made.

Of course, now that I’ve made up my mind, less than 12 hours later I got my first legitimate offer that wasn’t a lowball. That started the agonizing all over again. I was contacted by a fellow who was prepared to drive over an hour to come and look at the car with cash in hand. After 2 months of trying to sell the car and a lot of soul searching, I felt terrible having to explain to a prospective buyer that the car wasn’t for sale anymore.

NOTE: I spent a fair while chatting with the prospective buyer online. It turned out that he had an identical 1981 Parisienne Brougham in immaculate condition and was looking for another one. He was an absolute Pontiac fanatic and was doing everything in his power to keep his beloved car, “Paris” on the road. Looks like he was exactly the buyer I was looking for. On the other hand, given that I’ve made my decision to keep the Parisienne, I can take comfort in knowing that he most likely was going to use my Pontiac as a parts car and it would have been dismantled gradually over years.

Despite all that, it’s done, the decision has been made, and now I can get back to planning for repairs and cleaning. Man, I do love cleaning cars and making them look good again! Now, throughout the summer, I can work through some of the little things that need to be done and hunt for a good deal on some snow tires for the Parisienne. I was prowling around on StationWagonForums.com the other day and a user there was showing us some pictures of the Bias-Ply H70-14 Tornado tires that came on his 1972 Plymouth Satellite Regent wagon. He referred to the tires as “Meat Grinders” and he wasn’t kidding! I realize that they would probably handle like absolute crap on the road, but part of me thinks it would be pretty cool to have a set of these on the Parisienne next winter.