I’m facing a dilemma. Right now, my first car — a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ — sits in the woods in northern Michigan, abandoned, alone, and scared. Its owner ditched it and moved west to California, where he bought a bunch of rust-free cars and built a new family. Now it doesn’t know what to do, because it worries nobody can appreciate it like its former owner did, and that it is doomed to the scrapyard.
Right now I’m trying to decide what to do about my first car, a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ.
That’s this thing standing next to 19 year-old me:
Look at how nice that Jeep looked 15 years ago, and look at how fit I was! Alas, times have changed. I’m balder and fatter, and my Jeep’s rocker panels are filled with holes, the bottoms of the doors are rusty, and the flat suspension has been lifted.
I have to say: That was the best $1,400 I ever spent, even if the Jeep did have 218,000 miles on it at the time. Learning to fix this Jeep got my foot into the door at Cummins diesel company, which got my foot into the door at Chrysler, which got my foot into the door at Jalopnik, which led me here.
I owe this Jeep a lot, and the nostalgia of it all does tend to get to me.
It’s hard not to wax poetic about all those times I drove with my brother in the Shenandoah National Forest back in college:
And all those times I used that XJ to really hone my off-road skills.
That Jeep was the vehicle that took me to Detroit for the first time; I recall my mom road-tripping with me from Virginia. The Jeep had no AC, so we rolled with the windows down. Mom actually enjoyed that.
Then, when I got a full-time job after my Chrysler internship, that Jeep really took me to adulthood, and showed me the city of my dreams — Motor City.
I eventually lifted the Jeep:
What an absolute tank a stock XJ with a 3″ lift and 31s is:
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Anyway, Michigan winters and the stupidity of my youth did a bit of a number on my XJ. I hydrolocked the original engine, then I overheated the new engine and filled the rear axle with water during the off-road trip shown above (Drummond Island, the Mudfest of Michigan), toasting the bearings.
So now, after 30,000 miles and 15 years, here sits my first car — a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ — on a reader’s property in northern Michigan; it hasn’t moved in two years:
I want an XJ in my life, as XJs are what started it all for me, but I’m facing a dilemma.
Do I rescue my OG XJ and try to bring it back to life, fixing its body, restoring it, and eventually going through the considerable effort of a manual transmission swap, since I have no interest in driving an old auto Jeep? Or do I just pick up the two-door five-speed XJ below, which needs floorboards, carpeting, steering column trim, and a little bit of seat and rocker love, but otherwise seems great?
The reality is that finding an already-clean five-speed is a $10,000 affair, and I’m not about that. So that two-door above is tempting, though my original has my heart.
See, this is the trouble with first cars. There’s only one, and nostalgia’s powerful pull makes getting rid of it difficult, even when maybe that’s the most logical move. And so maybe the move is to just embrace that, and to get my OG XJ back and turn it into the ultimate.
All Images: Author
I’m voting neither. You have a kid now, and a 2 door XJ, while neat, doesn’t work as well. Hold off and find a clean 4 door XJ, buy that, and take some parts off your first jeep, or cut the nose off and hang it on a wall. 🙂
It’s already in northern Michigan? Donate it to OppoCross, or even better, bring it to OppoCross and drive it one last time, giving it the sendoff it deserves. If it doesn’t currently run or drive, come back to Michigan for a lower stakes “I have to fix this thing and drive it to a place” article, then you get Autopian content out of it too.
Nostaligia. Sentiment. Useless human emotions.
Nostalgia*
Let
It
Go.
Didn’t you just write about how 2-door cars are inconvenient for car seats?
I couldn’t vote because you didn’t have an option to do neither. You have too many beaters already. You have an offroader already, as well as several other cars you don’t need. You have a wife and child now. You don’t need an additional project.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but please consider being content with what you have.
I fixed the poll, FYI. Derp.
I’ve been a drummer for 42 years. Back in the late 90s/early Aughts, I bought a snare drum that was one of 33 in existence. I loved that damned thing, but years later, facing financial ruin, I sold it to pay bills, along with other boutique-level stuff.
I saw one online for sale last year for about 3 times what I paid for it new. I was momentarily tempted (I am a sentimental person, after all), but then I remembered that the gear I have now brings me plenty of joy and inspiration and kept my money in the bank.
I think the point I’m trying to make here is clear.
Don’t look back, David.
My first car was a beautiful Emerald Green ’94 Thunderbird. Best car I’ve ever owned. Drove like a million dollars; smooth, fast, great sound system. It gave me almost 100K trouble free miles… until the years of being a broke Chicago-area high school and college student caught up with it and it literally rotted the rockers off of the car straight through every layer of sheet metal. After taking me across the country to Texas, the land of rust-free cars for my new job the whole front end rotted through and it blew the brake lines. I can’t imagine I’d ever undo the rust damage that unibody had. It’s better to take what you’ve learned on your first car, and apply it to another great example, or find something like it that you’ll love even better.
If I had stuck to Thunderbirds I’d have never found my LTD wagon, which would have never led me to my Country Squire and Tracker.
I kept the Thunderbird’s OEM auto-dimming rearview mirror which now lives on in the Country Squire.
Having just gotten through helping an 83-year-old with Alzheimer’s sort through and deal with three large storage units collected over the last 60 years, I can safely say being worried about objects from your past is 100% a burden.
The person for whom my partner and I are caregivers has spent the last 10-15 years talking about what they were going to do with all of the things they had stored in three big storage units, and it has been a massive disruption in their ability to enjoy the present. Their concern with the objects they collected over the years while living across the country and Europe, while having one of the most amazing lives you can imagine, became a massive burden. Not just to them, but the people around them.
My partner and likely spent between 500 and 1000 hours sorting and managing all of the stuff, and then finding an auction house we could work with, marketing the auction, finding people interested in the stuff not sold at auction, and on and on and on. All of those hours could have been spent taking our friend to the museums and restaurants they love. That time can’t be replaced.
There isn’t a single hour you would spend dealing with your first car that wouldn’t be better spent napping on the couch with your kid or taking your partner to brunch. Your first car is incapable of providing you with anything you don’t already have. Your new family or new adventures have much more to offer.
Holding on to old stuff keeps you from embracing new possibilities.
That sounds like a terrible ordeal to go through, my sympathies in dealing with that massive stuff.
My mother went through one antique cabinet with me, showing me everything that was in it, and when she was done said “that’s anything I think is valuable for you to auction, just trash the rest of the house if you want.” and I intend to do the same with my kids.
Let it go, man. Rust never forgives.
But get someone to pull the steering wheel before the Jeep is sent to scrap. Make a pretend dashboard with some dummy switches and a painted-on speedo, then attach the wheel to it with a lazy suzan spinner.
Now it’s your kid’s first car.
Genius
As Elsa said (or so I’ve heard), “let it go”
My first car was a wonderful 1974 Super Beetle that gradually sacrificed its floorboards to the MN Rust Gods so that other cars may live.
I would love to have kept it, but it just wasn’t feasible given the extent of rot/cost to repair it.
My second car was an even more wonderful 1962 Bug with a thoroughly warmed over 1835 engine inherited from the 74, and electrical demons that only a total rewire (way outside the budget of a college student) could resolve.
I still regret saying goodbye to this one, but again…it just wasn’t feasible at the time given the rampant shorts as the wiring insulation cracked/failed.
Although my tastes have moved on, If I were so inclined today I now have the luxury to find/buy a decent representation of either of the above cars with none of the issues I dealt with back in the early 90s. Point being, don’t hold on to rusty crap for nostalgia’s sake – especially if you can find something that gives you that throwback thrill without committing yourself to endless repairs (which, I can promise as a father and newly ordained empty nester), you won’t have adequate time/resources to complete in the near future.
This is a tough one, and often the answer is both. It’s like the blessing that brings you pleasure but always reminds you that pleasure has a price. I’m a pretty sentimental person, which doesn’t help. I have two first cars – the Fiat Spider that my dad and I got as a father-son project when I was in 9th grade, and the Sentra SE-R that I got new when I graduated from high school. After 35 and 32 years, respectively, I still have both.
The Fiat is the easier answer. My dad died 20 years ago and it’s a very concrete and evocative connection to him. It spent two and a half years getting a body-and-paint resto and has spent the last two years waiting for me to make time to give it all the mechanical deferred maintenance it needs. It runs and drives, but isn’t truly roadworthy and isn’t registered. This is the car I’ll only ever sell if I have no other choice.
The SE-R is the harder answer. It’s probably the most reliable complex object I’ve owned, with only a starter failure and maintenance (and mods) in the first 190k. It has about 230k on it and now always has a small to medium list of things it needs. Biggest is a heavy PS fluid leak from a failing pump. I have boxes of spares, some NOS, so this isn’t major by itself but I have more old cars and projects that go with them than I have time for working on them. The SE-R ends up at the bottom of the priority list, and it’s sat in my garage undriven since maybe December. It is a joy to drive whenever I drive it, and my muscle memory is so attuned to the car that it’s like a glove. But with 25 years in the midwest it finally started rusting about ten years ago (from water leaks, ironically, not salt) and just isn’t really needed. I can only drive one car at a time and I rarely drive for my daily transport (and when I do, I drive my JSW). If storage didn’t cost me anything I wouldn’t think about keeping it, but it’s a bit of a burden to own six cars in Chicago and it costs money to garage them. I’ve been torn for years now between my sentimentality and the freedom that comes with owning fewer things that you don’t use much and which have fixed costs. I always thought that if I got rid of it I’d always regret it, so I haven’t, but I also wonder how I would feel if something happened to it, and suspect it would be a mixture of sadness and relief.
I’m pretty sure my brother cried when he drove his clapped out, rusty, overheating, suspension falling off Sentra to the junkyard to end its useful life. He’d bought it new and had it for years, but it was time to let it go. Great Plains salty winter roads did it in. He genuinely drove it ‘till the wheels fell off.
My personal advice is that sometimes it’s gotta go.
I certainly miss my van, but it was more trouble than it was worth at the time, and had also lost its purpose as I’d been seeing friends less often and stopped being a DJ or band sound technician.
And I know that even if/when I do get another conversion van, at least this time I can aim higher–specifically for one with a high roof.
Neither and purge what you have. You’re not going to have the time for these projects and there’s no guarantee that Delmar will even be into cars. Cut to ONE project car if you must but know that you’ll mostly be watching it rot in front of you for the next 3 years.
If you don’t rescue your car, it’ll haunt you the rest of your life. Fix it. up, then give/sell it to someone who could use it. Don’t ask them what they do with it. Imagine it’s out on a farm a happy jeep forever.
Just give the jeep to someone you think will appreciate it. You don’t need any more rust buckets. Enjoy what you have and if a nice 4 door, 5 speed shows up, go ahead and buy it.
If I could find my first car in just about any condition I would jump on it. ’73 Chevy half ton with a 454, silver and white two tone. I loved that truck. My parents made me sell it because it was a gas hog. The replacement truck wasn’t bad either, ’79 with a 350, red and maroon two tone. I’d take that one as well. Those were the first and last years of the square bodies with the round headlights as I recall.
The poll doesn’t seem to be recording votes.
And in my own case, keeping my first car (a 1990 Ford Festiva) would have been a burden. I would have had to find somewhere to store it… which would have cost me money. I would have had to maintain it to prevent it from going completely to shit. And because of these two reasons alone, it would have been a source of stress.
And given that you have newborn child, I predict that getting another project vehicle will be a source of stress. Instead, maintain what you have. Maybe when your child is older and can do things, you can get a project vehicle to use as a learning/teaching tool.
Junk the original and do not buy another.
I’m voting neither for this Shitbox Showdown.
You have a running Jeep to keep on (and get off) the road and a wife and kid to make memories with in it. Consider the fact it’s an open air Wrangler and not another Cherokee a bonus.
Sell it, forget you ever saw that green one, and finish the ZJ that I assume is still taking up space in the Galpin lot. That car is an official conduit of the Cat Distribution System, and it deserves your attention.
You’re still figuring out what your life is and will be. As someone about 4 years (and a second kid) further down this particular road I’m confident in saying that your next 4 years should not be about 4 different project Jeeps in the Galpin parking lot, regardless of how long you’ve had them.
Your interests are still important; there’s just a much smaller slice of life for them now. Anything that’s not about your family will likely proceed VERY slowly and learning to be comfortable with that will be its own project. Any more than ONE project will probably rot/rust/ sublimate/not fit in your life faster than you can complete it. Only you can decide what that one is.
Cars are things, and things only hold sentimental value in the memories you have of them. Your memories are independent of the thing, so I would sell the first Jeep and not buy another one until your kid is old enough to go on rides with you in a rattly deathtrap. Don’t forget you already have plenty of cars to fart around with you don’t need another while you have a new babby.
There’s only one first car, and for a true enthusiast and car guy that’s something I think you’d always regret selling. At this point it would net you next to nothing. Yes, it’ll cost more than it’s worth and hours and hours of your time. Yes, you’ve got a kid now and adulting is looking more and more tiring. However, if it’s not costing you much (or anything) in storage, then I think the time will come you want to revive that XJ and give it the love I can tell your heart has for it.
We’re similar in age first car isn’t the nicest and I could definitely afford a nicer ride but the memories can’t be replaced in the first.
Counterpoint. That thing is the Jeep of Theseus. It probably needs a third engine, and a bunch of the sheet metal is beyond repair and needs replacing altogether. When all is said and done, is it still David’s first car? And what are the odds David will have time to work on this thing that’s been rotting away in Michigan when he doesn’t have time to work on the holy grails in the parking lot at work?
Sell it, and do not buy another headache right now. As many others have mentioned you have plenty on your plate at the moment. Far more now than when you were struggling to get the CJ in wedding shape, and that seemed like way less of a basket case than either of these two XJs. There will be another XJ that comes up for you to wrench on later.
Then again my better half always is surprised at how little nostalgia I have, so perhaps I’m biased. I have no desire to hold on to a car for nostalgia’s sake. It’s a tool. It can be fun, and I can love it, but at the end of the day it’s there to provide me some kind of utility. When it becomes a burden move on.