Poll
Page 1 - my current vehicle: 1996 Daihatsu Applause
Page 2 - my old ride: 1988 Honda CM200T TwinStar
Page 3 - pictures I've taken of cars
Page 4 - Lamborghini LM link/POLL RESULTS
Page 5 - Rambling about my dream cars.
Page 6 - La DÜrkopp & other tales of Querétaro
Page 7 - 2006 Models: Cars I Like
Page 8 - 2006 Models: Cars I Disike
Page 9 - The V-6 Page
Page 10 - Abandoned Dodge Coronet 440 - THE SORROW AND THE PROMISE
There is a Dodge Coronet 440 abandoned on the side of a road off Balmoral Avenue in Kingston, Jamaica. It has apparently been off the road for several years as the last license disc (which I still call a disc even though it’s now square) is from ’95. (P.S.: It was NOT on the road all this time. It was moved out of a yard for a party a few months ago and hasn't been moved back in yet.)
It is in amazingly good exterior condition for a car that has been abandoned for eight or nine years. Half the grille is gone, the tyres are flat (naturally) and the right wing mirror has been broken off. But all the glass and chrome are intact and the photos don’t show any rust or dents. The front seats are still in the car; I don’t know what the condition is, partly because the windows were rolled up.
The apparently good condition of the car after so many years makes me a bit suspicious. Why haven’t vandals taken the wheels, the remaining wing mirror, or the lights? Why hasn’t it been vandalized? Having not been vandalized, why has it not been snapped up by an enthusiast? Maybe it belongs to a local don now imprisoned and none dares touch it? Maybe the guy who broke the right wing mirror was himself broken as punishment?
Eganitis, the mental disease that compels one to bring home an old dead car and restore it to life, is stirring within me again. Last time, it compelled me to buy my employer’s old courier bike, try to make it roadworthy again, pay to make it roadworthy when I found I couldn’t do it myself, and pay to keep it going when any sane or rational person would realize that it wasn’t worth it.
This time it’s different, though. I could get away with a motorcycle because it was relatively inexpensive, didn’t use much gasoline, and could be hidden in the house during its “piece of junk” phase. This is a behemoth that is probably longer than any room in the house. A huge, dead automobile in the front yard is tacky enough to offend even my sensibilities, and I don’t normally think of myself as a snob (then again, most snobs don’t…). And then there’s that little matter of a 7.2 litre engine guaranteed to give single-digit mile-per-gallon fuel economy (or rather fuel lack-of-economy) and that huge car that I would have to manage with the steering wheel on the wrong side. Parking my Daihatsu is still an ordeal, much less parking THAT! 
(P.S.: I have since been told that the "Coronet 440" model name has nothing to do with the 440 engine, and that the car is likely to have a 318 and might just have a slant-6 in it! Worth a second look? I wonder...)
For these reasons, I do not think I will succumb to the siren song of this car. I hope someone does, though; preferably someone who can withstand the collision with the rocks of the financial drain caused by restoring and then maintaining the car. 
It's fun to dream, though. If I had the money and skill to get that car up again, would I restore it to stock? Or would I add a SuperBird nose (Superbirds were based on RoadRunners with Coronet front clips) and Super Bee rear fenders (no fake inlets!) and call it "The Birds & The Bees"? An earlier thought was to have put a pair of interlocking hearts in white as a logo on the rear fender, in honour of the old British movie "Kind Hearts and Coronets", in which Alec Guinness played eight different murder victims, all killed by the same man.
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