[speaker001:] Okay well,
[speaker002:] There we are.
[speaker001:] All right. Um, um, well, uh, tell me about the car that you've got.
[speaker002:] [Throat clearing] Well, I have a Honda, um, hatchback, nineteen eighty-four.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And I had a hatchback, a nineteen seventy-eight version before this one.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And, uh, I'll be honest with you. I have never found any automobile that has been more conscientiously constructed and, and, uh, put together and it, it does its job. All I have to do on my Honda is change the oil and the filter every thirty-five hundred miles, and I, I did have to put two, two new front tires on at fifty thousand miles, but that car just purrs like the day it was built. I get forty-two miles per gallon on the highway and uh, twen-, twenty-eight to thirty driving around in town. It's a five speed straight stick machine.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And, I can carry more in that, uh, that trunk area in my little Honda than I can in the big cars, and I have a large, um, Pontiac, and I have a sixty-nine Cougar, which really is, I'm saving because it's, it's old, but it's in beautiful shape.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] But I can carry as much in my Honda or more than I can in, in those other bigger cars.
[speaker001:] Well, that's very interesting. I've had, I've had exactly the same experience with the one that I've got. It's a, and surprisingly it's also an eighty-four
[speaker002:] Oh, oh.
[speaker001:] [Throat clearing] and, uh,
[speaker002:] [Throat clearing] L X?
[speaker001:] [Throat clearing] Yeah, I'm still here. Um, I'm sorry what?
[speaker002:] It was an L X?
[speaker001:] Yes, it's an L X, it's not a hatchback, but it's, um, it's, uh,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh, yours is a four door.
[speaker001:] Four door, yeah
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and very, very comfortable car. Big roomy trunk
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] uh, and, uh, and very happy with it, and I must admit it's, you know, if, if, if, uh, my only consideration were, were, you know, buying another car just to tool around town in and make, you know, brief trips and things like that, I would very, very seriously consider buying one. Uh, I think they're extraordinarily reliable cars.
[speaker002:] Yes, they are.
[speaker001:] Um, my, my real concern with, uh, uh, why I'm not sure I want to buy a Honda, is because I have to make a kind of a, a steady, um, trip down the road about once a month, because I'm divorced and I have a daughter that lives down in North Carolina
[speaker002:] Um, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and, uh, I drive,
[speaker002:] [Cough].
[speaker001:] down Interstate Ninety-five, and it's just an absolutely wild highway.
[speaker002:] Ninety-five is wild in any car. There's no doubt about that
[speaker001:] Yeah and,
[speaker002:] because I, I, I run over to Crystal City, or used to, I'm retiring the end of this month
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] but I'm very much aware of the crazy driving that goes on over there.
[speaker001:] And, you, well, you've got it, and, uh, so having precious cargo in the car with me [LAUGHTER], as you can well imagine, it's very hard for me to imagine that, that, uh, a Honda's going to be as safe a car as, as the one that I've got my eye on, which is a Volvo.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] In, in fact, quite frankly I've owned a Volvo in the past, and
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] uh, I've, I've, they're expensive cars to keep up when they need service, but, uh, [sniffing] I've found that I've had a lot of luck with them. Uh, course I'm a mechanically inclined kind of person, and I always wind up getting under the hood and finding out all the things that, you know, need to be taken care of, and so forth. And I guess that's one thing that, that recommends the Honda to a lot of people, is is there's just very little that you have to do under the hood, and, uh,
[speaker002:] Yes, it just, just sits there and purrs, and you, all you got to do is the main major thing of changing that oil and that filter. I get six hundred miles on a tank of gas.
[speaker001:] Oh, I know. It's really amazing.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] It's, uh, [LAUGHTER],
[speaker002:] Beautiful, beautiful machine.
[speaker001:] Absolutely,
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] incredible [LAUGHTER]. So, um, yeah, anyway, I've been looking at the prices of these cars and, and so forth, and I think that it's, it's very surprising some of these very expensive Volvos can be gotten for a lot less money than you would think if you're
[speaker002:] Is that right, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] willing to buy ones that are about,
[speaker002:] [Throat clearing].
[speaker001:] the vintage of the cars that you and I currently own
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and, um,
[speaker002:] Well, a brand new Volvo costs, what, thirty thousand dollars?
[speaker001:] Well, certainly some of the top end ones. You can still get, get, uh, even the, the low end wagons, um, for less than twenty thousand dollars
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and, uh, we get, you know, in the Washington area, of course, being as affluent as it is, there are lots and lots of Volvo dealerships down here
[speaker002:] Um, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] so there're lots and lots of them available in the paper at any, any week, and I sort of, you know, scan the paper and look at them, and so forth {C and
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] so, } um, [sniffing] anyway, and that's, that's the other thing is that I've, I've never really been too terribly much of a new car person. I think I've bought one or two new cars in my life, and I've tended to, um, to, uh, buy cars that are, you know, two or three, and sometimes even four and five or six years old. This Honda that I have I bought used, and, in fact, it had an extraordinarily low amount of mileage on it. I've just rolled seventy thousand miles, and it's a seventy-four, I mean, an eighty-four. So [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] Well, my, my eighty-four just has seventy-seven on it
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] and I've made many trips to Washington and down to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where my mother lives, and things like that, and I drive it,