![In fall 2008, just as I was starting high school, my father stumbled across what would become my first car: a 1988 BMW 75ia, which he had never heard of. […]](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Cover-1200a-1-115x115.jpg "My First Car, 1988 BMW 735i — This 7 Series Had No Redeeming Qualities. I Wanted It Anyway")
![In the summer of 2006, my father went to look at a high-mileage 2002 BMW X5 that seemed like an unlikely candidate for our next family vehicle. At 12 years […]](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Close-Enough-1200-115x115.jpg "Our 2002 BMW X5 — I Thought SUVs Were Boring, Until An X5 Joined Our Family")
![In late 2002, my father sought to replace our beloved 1994 Ford Aerostar with something newer, more reliable, and large enough to carry our family of five. He settled on […]](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/51231501322_9335893d21_4k-115x115.jpg "Our 2002 Suzuki XL-7 Grand Vitara: A Perfectly Competent SUV That My Family Could Never Love")
![Throughout his life, my father had bought vehicles he could afford rather than the ones he truly wanted. That changed in the 1990s when he earned a master’s degree in […]](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/The-Actual-Truck-1-115x115.jpg "Our 1997 Ford F350 — The Dream Truck That Never Felt Right")
![I have always joked that I was my mother’s mid-life crisis. My parents married at 18, and did not have children until their early 30’s. They had only planned to […]](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/48369234452_d6fa5d25ff_6k-1-115x115.jpg "Our 1994 Ford Aerostar: The Minivan That Carried Our Family Through It All")
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