All of Sam’s Cars
I wanted to write a little something about my car journey. Here is all the cars I have owned, and a story or two about each. Not all the photos you see are ones that I have taken, especially early in this list as I wasn’t taking photos often back then, but I tried to find images that matched the specs as I remember them as closely as possible to give you all a visual of what I am talking about.
1989 Buick LeSabre
First car! Bought for $800, sold a couple years later for $800. I have to thank my parents for this as they paid for this car for me, they also kept the money after the sale so I guess fair is fair.
A couple of cool things about the 1989 LeSabre was the engine, it had the ever reliable GM 3800 in it. I bet I could have kept it around and it would still be running to this day. Another cool think my car had that all my friends cars did not was a hood that opened backwards - you would pop it, pull the hood forward, and then tilt it towards the front of the car. As a first car it was perfectly fine, nothing special and I guess at the time I wanted something more cool. If I was my parents, I would have bought this too. It was solid and reliable and cheap.
My mom and I installed a Sony CD player in this and we are far from wiring experts. We followed the instructions and somewhere along the way we still got wires crossed .. like we connected some wires and the wipers turned on. Even now with more experience and knowledge I cant explain how that happened, but I was there and my mom can testify to this as well.
This car was sold to a used car dealer friend of my dads.
1989 Cadillac Fleetwood
This is my first car with a payment! For whatever reason, I wanted this thing. It rode awesome, and it had space for all my friends. This one had an all digital everything. For a computer nerd like myself it was like a fucking space ship. My mom had an old Mercury Cougar that was like that also and I still remember how awesome that thing was at night.
One of my favorite stories with this one was I was driving my sister home from school and she asked me where my trash can was, because a luxury car like this has one built in obviously, and while I was looking and pointing down at the passenger footwell, my hand pulled on the wheel and we were driving in the park. I moved the car back into the road and just kept driving. I lost a hub cap in the process, but the thing I remember most about that was how much none of us felt hitting the curb - that car soaked up the bumps.
Another thing this car had was an INSANE horn - like one of those aftermarket train horns, but this was from the factory. I would scare kids walking home by sneaking behind them and blasting the horn. I am not saying I am proud of that, but it was pretty funny.
This was sold to that same car dealer friend of my dads.
1997 Chrysler LHS
We have moved up a bit! We are out of the 80s, and now in a Chrysler product. This car was owned by a coworker my dad worked with and they traded it in at a local dealership. My dad knew they had good luck with it, they knew it was maintained and looked after and he encouraged me to look at it. It wasn’t anything special I wasnt looking for yet another big car, but I do like change and cars and this was a change and a car .. so I bought it!
My biggest story with this one was my own mini version of the Cannonball. I lived in a town in South East South Dakota named Yankton, and the nearest city of any size was Sioux Falls. If you are following all the traffic laws, this trip takes you .. around an hour and 15 minutes. I am not sure what compelled me to do it, but I knew this car loved speeds above 90 and I thought .. if I take the back roads and gravel roads I have learned all my life, I bet I could avoid cops .. and I wonder how quickly I could make this trip.
I made this trip, I swear I am not joking, in just under 30 minutes. I never worked out my average speed, I was kind of afraid to. It was a dumb decision. However, the car was a champ and kept the cabin the right temp and the tunes rocking the whole time.
I am not sure what happened to this one. I don’t think I traded this in .. did my dad buy it from me? I think he maybe did.
2007 Cobalt
First brand new car. This car was a mistake, for a lot of reasons. The one thing I think people may not appreciate was how reliable this car was for me. Its just a cheap Cobalt, the interior was shit even for the time, but it was good to me. I dont have many stories from this one. It was a dumb car to buy at the time, but it did teach some lessons and it was a pretty blue!
This car was hailed out. After the insurance check, I sold it to a family in Minnesota that needed a first car for their daughter.
1981 Buick Riviera
This was a fun one. It was a diesel swapped to a 350 that was owned by one of my dad's friends. He drove it daily into work and and smoked every cigarette that has ever been made in it. $300. I spray painted it random colors and drove the wheels off it doing stupid stuff you do when in high school with a car you don't care about. Every time you drove the car for any amount of time, when parked it would make loud, long squeeeeeeeks from the gas cap. Since this once was a diesel, tank venting is different .. and the tank wasnt swapped. My sister HATED me when I picked her up in this one.
I parked this at my grandmother farm, and it was hauled away by my uncle. I am not sure where it ended up, but I bet it lived the rest of its days in a field.
1995 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
Bought it with 230k miles and made it to over 250k before death. This was the only car I have ever had that left me on the side of the road. I knew the head gasket was going, but what I didn't know is the transmission was going faster. While visiting my parents, it made it all the way there and on the way back, around 30 miles outside of town it gave up, nothing above 2nd gear. I limped it back and borrowed a car. I owned this car as my only car after I sold the Cobalt, and I promise you it was not the right car to own without a backup, especially in areas where it snows.
I had to make trips in this thing around the faulty electrical systems as the headlights didn’t always work, and the head gaskets were gone to the point of the ALWAYS great sign of chocolate milk, but I didn’t have money to put into it at all. It made it as far as it could.
My dad bought this from me, and then sold it as a project.
1993 Honda Accord
I loved this thing. This was super reliable, but always needed something. I found a mechanic in the Lincoln, NE area that would treat me right. Classic good dude that would tell me like it is, tell me the cost if I wanted to use all OEM parts and do it all the right way .. or what he would do if he owned the car. I saved a lot of money working with him, and I will never forget it.
Doesn’t it look nice it the fall leaves? This whole car was dented, scratched, faded, etc. and I didn’t car at all. I would get in it and trust it to drive literally anywhere, and I did.
This was passed to my partner when I bought the Kia Soul and eventually traded in for the Nissan Cube.
2013 Kia Soul
First manual car. I don’t care what anyone says, the Kia Soul was a good car. Obviously, as time has gone on, things like the “Kia Boys” and some fatal flaws in the engine have tainted what had every promise to be a cheap practical car along the lines of the Honda Fit or the Yaris. Mine had the big-block 2.0 engine and a 6 speed manual transmission. It had all the comforts needed, including cruise (which at the time the Kia forums said was impossible to option like that) AND I bought it new for $13k due to an error made when posting it online - take screenshots folks, get shit in writing.
I should have never traded this in. This was, and might still be one of my favorite cars I have ever purchased.
I traded this in for the first Fiat 500 Abarth
2011 .. I think Nissan Cube
This car was not for me, so all my opinions didn’t really matter. What we need at the time was a car to replace the Accord which was in poor shape by this point. It wasn’t a great car. I appreciate the styling was different, and I like different, it had all sorts of headroom, etc. It wasn’t al bad, it served a purpose for us, but mechanically it was not great. The CVT failed on us shortly after we bought it, and the engine was gutless in general.
We traded this in for the Fiat 500x
2015 Fiat 500 Abarth
First turbo. I loved this thing, it was fun just all the time. In fact, I loved this car so much that when I sold it, I bought another one. When I sold that one, I bought another one.
This car is what my Caribou coffee lady referred to as “my little Ferrari”. If you have not had the chance to drive an Abarth, I recommend you do it.
I traded this in for my Focus ST
1992 Honda Civic
I lived in MN, so this was the winter beater while the Fiat had the Garage. What a legitimate pile of shit this was. It was in rough shape, ran rough, had some gremlins I never really sorted out. Its job was to start in the winter, and take the salt beating for the Fiat and it did that well. I had this for a single winter, and knew it was not worth keeping around for another.
I traded this in for the Fiat 500 Pop
2015 Fiat 500 Pop
This took over winter duties because .. cheap. I bought this at a time when you couldn’t give these little cars away, and since I still owned my Abarth I knew the car really well, I had relationships with dealers, etc. I knew that I liked the cars and I thought this would be a great second car. It was in a lot of ways, but in some others it was not. I liked the red roof and the red mirror caps, and the black headlights - all a part of the Ribelle package, but it was still a base car under those things and as such the just over 100hp engine struggled.
We took it on a trip to the Black Hills, and I would say it needed another 50hp and/or a 6th gear.
I sold this one to Car Max - We moved to California, and I just needed it gone.
2016 Ford Focus ST
Tangerine Scream is the best color and I will not be taking questions. I bought this car with the stripes package, hence why the mirrors are black. I took the stripes off early on in my ownership because, well .. I mean .. LOOK AT IT! What a sharp car. I miss it. Try buying this car again today and it would be a hard thing to do. It was the ST2 package with the yellow Recaros. The wheels grew on me over time. Everyone wanted the snowflakes, and I agree they were sharp, but I think these are just as sharp and more rare.
My favorite memory in this car was when I took it out to Utah to attend the Ford performance “ST Octane Academy”. I made stops along the way in the hills and just enjoyed the car for a week. FUN FACT - I was pulled over in this car multiple times
Was pulled over in the middle of nowhere MN at like 1 AM for speeding right after I got it. I think I was going maybe 10 over, not saying I was in the right but I am saying if I was not in a yellow car I think I wouldn’t have been pulled. There was no one around.
I was pulled over crossing the boarding into Wyoming on my way to Utah on I80. It was really early in the morning, and we are in Wyoming so again I was the only car on the road. I was pulled for going 5 over. I just about freaked out. It was bullshit, he knew it was, and again I think the yellow car had something to do with it.
I was pulled in CA along the PCH for a number of things - speeding, no front plate, my plate still said Minnesota, my license was still a Minnesota one, etc. I should have had the book thrown at me, but he kept it at speeding and told me to get home and fix it.
I was pulled in South Dakota for driving on a revoked plate. Apparently, if you move out of California they revoke your plate. I didn’t know that, so I was driving around on what I thought was a valid plate and was told in South Dakota it is an “arrest on sight offence”. The officer let me off with a warning, but demanded I remove the plate.
I traded this in for the 2020 STi
2016 Fiat 500x
It was not for me .. but it was in my name. It did have remote start, so that was nice. Really how we landed on this was we were looking at the Renegade to replace the Cube, and I knew that the 500x was built in the same factory on the same platform. Price wise, the Fiat was more affordable and I think looked better. I suggested that if we buy one or the other, we get the one that looks better and is cheaper.
This was traded in after we split, I think on a Civic.
2015 Fiat 500 Abarth
White with the Auto. This was me getting my second car back. When we moved to South Dakota, I had a need for a winter car again. I decided that I needed another Abarth. This one was an auto because the idea was we would share this one. I dont have a lot of stories in this one, it was a solid car and I loved it!
I sold this to my aunt. She asked what I was going to do with this car when I moved to North Carolina, and I said I am not sure .. probably just park it somewhere in South Dakota and then fly back for it at some point, and she said “I will buy it”. She still has it.
2020 Subaru WRX STi
Lapis Blue .. really great color, but not the right color. This car was awesome, and at the time I was happy with the trade of the ST for the STi. Over time, I think I realized that this car was a car I liked more than a car I loved. I own an STi today, so obviously I like these things, but it was never a dream car for me.
I sold this car to Carvana at the peak of Covid prices for the same amount I bought it for over a year before then. It was hard to be mad about that.
2007 Saab 9-3 Sportcombi Aero
LOVED this thing, but the repair bills were insane. This photo was it the day after it came off the trailer. It needed a lot of work, and I bought it off of Cars and Bids. A lot of things were not disclosed. That said, it ran really well and cruised awesome. We took this thing to Disney World and it was the perfect car for it.
I traded this in for my black Focus RS
2016 Ford Focus RS
First car purchase that was "dream car" level. I know its just a Focus, and I owned the STi .. but there was always something I loved about the RS and I had one. Black was not my first color choice, but it was pretty awesome for flying under the radar. This was the first car I took to the Tail of the Dragon. I loved this thing. I love this car.
I traded this in for the Acura TLX
2022 Acura TLX TypeS
It was nice, but there were gremlins in it that made me not trust it. This car is sexy. It is one of the sexiest sedans ever made IMHO. I got attention everywhere I drove it. I sold it for the same amount I had in it, so it was hard to be mad.
I sold this one to the local Acura dealership.
2017 Ford Focus RS
Nitrous Blue is the correct color, so I had to make the exchange. This car is a weapon, and its sexy. I love this car and will baby it for the entirety of my ownership, which I dont see ending any time soon.
I still own it!
2021 Subaru WRX STi
Insane daily. Was the last time I was going to be able to own one under warranty. so I did it. As soon as I am not covered anymore that thing is OUT. This car will forever be special to me as we took that epic trip this year in it. The memories will last my lifetime even if I think the car may not.
I still own it!
Conclusion
Looking back at this list, every car taught me something.
The LeSabre and the Riviera taught me that even a cheap car can create priceless memories. The Cadillac taught me the allure of comfort, while the Camaro taught me the painful cost of unreliability. The '93 Accord showed me the profound value of a single, trustworthy mechanic. The Fiats proved that "fun" isn't measured in horsepower, and the Focus ST taught me that the right color can make you an instant target for every cop in a five-state radius.
All of these lessons, frustrations, and moments of joy have been distilled into one simple idea: Clutsh.
Our mission isn't just a corporate slogan; it's the culmination of every one of these experiences. It's about building a resource that provides the peace of mind I found with that one honest mechanic in Nebraska, the transparency I wish I'd had when buying that Cobalt, and a community that shares the passion I felt on that one perfect drive to Utah.
This is my car story so far.
