– By Andy Lindberg – Have I taken my last drive in an old car? On June 1, I was headed for St. Paul’s High Bridge and home after trading in $130.56 worth of coins at the US Bank on Grand Avenue. And then out of nowhere an old Subaru appeared inches in front of me. That wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been going the same direction as me, but she had run through a stop sign and was driving across the through road I was on, Smith Avenue. I braked but hit the rear passenger door of the rusty Subie. Her car ran okay but my poor Saab was belching antifreeze all over the road. Its hood was crumpled and it was barely moving.
Enough about the acky. What comes next? Well, I’m still waiting for a report from Hagerty. Do they think it can be rebuilt or will it be another total for the poor thing? When I was standing around at the accident scene, I was hoping it would be totaled and out of my life. No more worrying about how it was running and whether my deferred maintenance would disable it in the next mile. Since then, competing thoughts have arisen. How much fun it was freewheeling down Ramsey hill on my way to the accident. And that 4-speed on the column was a hoot too. Those thoughts were almost enough to make me forget about the twenty minutes I struggled to get the darn thing running that morning. Almost.
I have decided that the Saab is not crusher bait but it probably needs a more competent owner than me, much as I admire it and the whole Saab lineup from 1946 to 2011.