Everything looked good on closer inspection–paint was in good shape, though some sun fading/clearcoat hazing was apparent, mostly on the wheel arch flares on one side of the car. I met the seller at Starbucks and examined the car. I’ve never seen that Citroen again since, though it was wearing Virginia plates. I considered this chance encounter with a rare, desirable classic to be kind of a good omen about the car I was going to look at. I slowed down, hoping it would pass and allow for a good photo, but it only followed me for a few blocks and then disappeared onto another side street. To call that a rare sight is an understatement–I’d only ever seen a few of them “in the metal” and this was the only quad-lamp Series III I’d ever spotted. Nonetheless, as I was driving toward our meeting place, I glanced into my rearview mirror and noticed that, from a side street, a silver Citroen DS had pulled out and was now following me. And yet here I was thinking of buying another car, one that probably would need some work despite its apparent good condition, and I’d have to find street parking for it, plus I had nowhere to work on it. Plus, I had my old Malibu back at my parents’ house, which needed restoration. Keep in mind that, at this time, I lived in an apartment with no off-street parking. So I made an appointment to go take a look at the car. It wasn’t too expensive and she realized I’d like a change of pace from the daily driver Crown Vic. I brought the idea up to my wife, and rather surprisingly, it didn’t take much persuading. Just shy of 160K miles, which didn’t sound too bad in Volvo years. So I emailed the seller with some questions, and he maintained that it had no bad habits and many virtues, and had just passed its annual safety inspection the previous month. It was the V6 rather than the more desirable turbo four, but for a relatively rare car, beggars can’t be choosers. Located a craigslist ad for the car, with a lot of information about exactly what it was, and portrayed the condition to be very good. At the very least, I needed more info, and I started making a case for how I might sell the idea to my wife. I hadn’t been looking to add a car to my fleet, but this was perhaps my favorite Volvo model, at least top 5. It looked pretty sharp–no visible rust, straight body, a peek through the windows revealed a nice interior other than some cracking in the leather of the driver’s seat. Perhaps trouble is too strong a word, or at least I’m getting ahead of myself. And when I got there, there was a For Sale sign on the car. I’d always liked those, so I walked over thinking I’d snap a couple of photos of it. As I got out of my car to walk toward the entrance, a boxy, black shape caught my eye. I had gone to a local shopping center back in June of 2014 in search of office supplies of some sort, maybe printer cartridges. And it wasn’t premeditated – no, this happened quite without planning, almost by accident.
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