2025 – 10 – 08 sayonara to my beloved Corvette

              It’s funny how attached us humans get to things. People closest to us make sense. But what about people further away? Take strangers we never knew, animals even though we eat them, and the oddest to me, things. Why do we get so attached to our favourite cup, or a seat in class, or a building in the skyscape that you’ve grown fond of? It’s just stuff, right?

              But for whatever reason, stuff makes us happy. Take my beloved Corvette – a black ’85 C4, automatic, targa top with louvres. It’s just some vehicle I bought for $8500 a few years ago. Yet, selling it today via a phone call with my dad back at home, it brought me into a sombre, yet sentimental mood.

              It’s not that the car itself was the greatest. Sure, it was always pretty reliable for a 30+ year old car. Insurance at Hagerty was cheap and did a great job. I got it on a 2.49% loan during Covid, which is literally less than inflation. And man, was it straight-up sexy as hell. Seriously the coolest looking car on the road imho, nailing that 80s aesthetic whilst being modelled after literally my favourite jet of all time, the F-14. But fitting in it was awkward, and I had to lean to the side in the driver’s seat. I always had to baby it as best as I could, but it still got its fair share of scratches and dings on it. Two seats severely limits its utility compared to a 4-door sedan. It wasn’t a smooth ride, and it got loud in the highway inside the cabin. Simply put, the comfort of a car that old simply pales in comparison to even a basic modern car.

              But it’s much more than the sum of its faults. My car before that, my beloved Panzer, was in a state of disrepair. It didn’t start reliably and I just couldn’t count on it anymore. But I still had to work, and things came to a head with the Panzer more than five years ago, during a particularly rough two-week long part of my life where so much happened – I switched jobs, I enlisted in the Army, I moved apartments, and among a couple other things, my grandma died. RIP Grandma Karmis. That week was so tumultuous, I gave it the nickname, “The Siege of Beningrad.” Finding that Corvette on such a daunting week was one of the highlights that reminded me that everything was going to be okay.

              Since then, that car and I have been through a lot. I had a full Army career, from start to finish. I had it exclusively as my only vehicle as I slugged through EBOLC, some of the hardest days of my life. I drove it when things were incredible in the Army, and when that same Army betrayed my passion and made me miserable. It met most of the girls I dated in that time. It saw most of the places the Army took me. It went on roadtrips, all across America. And when things got really rough, I at least knew that I had it to look forward. Cleaning it, even working on it became fun, something that seemed like a good use of my time that I could learn from. I enjoyed the hell out of that car, and it became part of me. I’ve said for years, if you had to put five objects in a pentagram to summon me, my Corvette would probably be #2, right after my glasses. I fucking loved that car.

              So when it sold today, for $8700 to a Marine about to head to his first duty station (the car has actually appreciated in value since I got it, believe it or not), it felt like I lost a part of me. I wouldn’t be able to come home and drive it like I used to look forward to during springtime after I’d leave it in my parents’ garage for the winter. Life was changing.

              But this phase of my life, the post-Soldier era, I’m focused on changing myself into who I want to be next. Part of that is hard goodbyes to some of the old things I cherished. A car worth that much just sitting in America when I don’t even want to live there isn’t helping me achieve what I want to in my life. Besides, it deserves someone who will treat her right. And unfortunately, that person isn’t me.

              Still, though, it’s okay to feel sentimental over letting that part of me move on, so I walked down the Tokyo streets at around 3AM local time with my earbuds in, playing a few of the songs that I recall so fondly jamming out to in that car.

              I’ll sure miss you, my Sundown, the F-14.

 

SOTD – “1987” by Lucy in Disguise, because of all the lowfi electronic I played when I got her as a staple of the 80s throwback I’ve been in.

 

Close runner ups are “Go$ha” by $not and “Akina Speed Star” by Xavier Wulf, two songs that got lots of airtime during Engineer school, when I treasured the car the most