I Just Sold My Coolest Car Because Marriage And Fatherhood Are No Joke (And Also I Have 8 Other Cars)

Of all the cars I own, there’s one that seems to stop people in their tracks: My 1954 Willys CJ-3B. It’s unusual. Its tall hood — there because Willys-Overland decided to shove a more powerful overhead valve engine into a vehicle designed for a flathead, and didn’t want to do a full redesign — just looks bizarre and gives the Jeep a tall, narrow feel. It’s utilitarian, tough, but also friendly thanks to big, dopey round headlines. Everyone stops me at darn near every gas station to talk about this Jeep. But I just sold it — without question my most interesting car in the eyes of the masses. Here’s why.

I’m the happiest I’ve ever been thanks to a wonderful wife and baby boy, and yet, that happiness has required a shift away from something that has brought me years of happiness: having a double-digit collection of cars.

The one standout thing I’m learning about fatherhood is that there is no replacement for time. My baby boy sits there in his bouncy-chair looking at me with loving eyes. He kicks his legs, bounces back and forth, and just stares, waiting for me to make some funny face or to pick him up and fly him like an airplane through the air. I reach for my phone to reply to a work text, and I know he’s still looking at me. Every second I stare into the abyss that is my cellular device, I’m pained to know that my baby boy — a blessing by all measures, and someone whose formative infant years will fly by in no time — is there, desperate for my attention. It’s like this for 16 hours a day, with the other eight luckily going to a nice, healthy, trouble-free night of sleep each night. (A miracle to most parents, I know).

Luckily, my loving wife looks after Delmar when I’m working, but my return to my house — upon which he looks at me entering the door and smiles an enormous smile — reminds me daily of how much my presence means. It pains me to leave everyday. But it’s life; duty calls, and our setup is better than most; I’m grateful for that.

Time has become more precious than ever, and the way I see money has also shifted. Not only does our old house need some work (plumbing, most notably. It’d also be nice to have a fence to keep coyotes away; last night my wife took the trash out — something that I’ve tried insisting that only I do — and almost walked into one of two coyotes hanging out in our front yard), but I’ve got to provide for a family now in a way that single-me never had to, and then there’s the 529 college savings plan for my child’s future, health care costs, schooling and various club fees and on and on.

This, you can probably understand, represents a monumental shift in my obligations. Whereas before I literally bought any car I wanted, even on the modest Gawker Media Salary (thanks largely to the fact that I just bought broken versions of the already-cheap cars I liked, and fixed them up myself), now years later I cannot just buy a car. Doing so has significant effects on other people.

To be clear, my wife, Elise, has never told me not to buy a car. In fact, I think she’s promoted me buying cars because she sees the joy they bring me. But that joy can only exist without significant opportunity costs. I can’t have $9000 tied up in a 1954 Willys CJ-3B that I only occasionally drive (since its top speed is about 45 mph, it’s not a great daily driver for freeway-centric LA), and only by myself since it’s a deathtrap not suitable for a child seat. It’s pretty much impossible to justify when there are other needs here beyond my own desire to own cool old cars.

And so the Willys is now sold:

Will I ever own another Willys CJ-3B? Probably not. They’re too rare, and beyond that, I think if I own another flatfender it will be one that I off-road frequently. And for that job, I’d really prefer the lower-hood, more-easily-serviceable Willys M38. But not anytime soon.

A few days after the sale, I feel no regret. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted selling a car, and I think that owes itself to the fact that I have plenty of others to love. I’m whittling my collection down according to the plan I laid out last month in my article “Here Are The Six Cars I’m Keeping In My Collection, And Why.” As a reminder, here are the vehicles that made the cut:

2021 BMW i3S — The Futuristic Daily Driver

1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ — The California Convertible (And Also My Wedding Jeep)

1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ — My First Car (To Eventually Be Restored)

1985 Jeep J10 — The Truck’s Truck

1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ 5Spd — The Rare Holy Grail Overland Vehicle

My Brother’s 1966 Ford Mustang

Six cars is still a lot of cars! Four of them are projects, two can be reliably daily-driven (the i3S and YJ). This now leaves only the old Nash Metropolitan and the 1989 Chevy K1500 as the vehicles I need to offload.

I could see myself maybe holding onto the K1500 if there’s not enough demand on the marketplace. No reason to give away a perfectly good truck that could offer me utility in the short term, especially since I’m about to take on my hardest vehicle project yet.

Yes, I’m getting rid of some cars and hopefully bring the count down to six (plus my wife’s Lexus RX 350), but The Autopian just signed a business deal with an epic partner, and that deal is going to have me wrenching harder than I’ve ever wrenched, and against the clock. How I’ll pull this off with a child and while running a car website is… not something I’m 100% sure of, but I’ve got to figure it out. Maybe he can help me reach the tight spots. More on that soon.

For now, I’m glad my CJ-3B has a new home; the buyer, from India, was specifically looking for a CJ-3B, since it’s the Willys Jeep most common where he’s from given that Willys-Overland allowed Mahindra to build them in India under license for decades. He’s going to love my old machine in a way that, right now, I just can’t.