Chet Parsons, Car Guy

My friend Rick and I met when we worked together at Tesla.  We found a number of common interests, including cars, music, and a love of writing.  While I whittle away at this blogging thing Rick has taken a bigger leap and is working full-time on his writing now, but while his take on the great American novel is in progress he also has a blog for his extraneous writings.  One of his recent posts about the one (car) that got away brought back memories of my "one."  ( click here for Rick's post ) I've written about my '87 M3 on these virtual pages before, and neither my passion for that car nor the regret I have from selling it have subsided.  Now that the market for the E30 M3 is approaching air-cooled Porsche levels of crazy prices, my chances of picking up another one any time soon are slim-to-none.  So it shall remain on my most-wanted list until such time as I can afford one again.  In the meantime, I've added it to my automotive bucket list. ...

It's been almost 25 years since I got my first car.  I've had over 20 cars since then, but I have two favorites.  The old Toyota 4Runner I have now is like the old family dog.  It's aging and it sort of lumbers along, but it's loyal and it's charming, and I can't bring myself to part with it.  As attached as I have become to the Toyota, though, my 1987 M3 will always be my absolute favorite, and it converted me into a full-on BMW M-car fan-boy. Since the introduction of the E92 M3, and maybe the E60 M5, fan-boys like me have cried and whined and moaned that M-cars aren't what they used to be.  Rants of BMW losing its way can be found all over the forums and enthusiast blogs, berating BMW for building overweight, overly complex, bloated machines to cater to the people who are actually buying them (gasp!) I'll admit that I hopped on the bandwagon.  I am a self-proclaimed automotive idealist, dreaming of pure drivers' cars with high-revving, nat...