Fred buys a new car

When the economy began to go to shit last month, I started to think about buying a new car. My reasons for this were threefold. First, I believe in saving when lots of people are spending, and spending when lots of people are saving. (I'm like a poor man's Warren Buffett.) Second, I knew that my credit was solid, and I thought I could get a good deal. Third, my sensible 2001 Santa Fe (pictured, left) was approaching 120,000 miles and another New England winter might have been too much for it.

I brought my mom with me to go car shopping, because she's a tough negotiator and because I figured that any car salesman with a shred of decency would hesitate before blatantly screwing a kid sitting there with his mommy. I also wrote down the MSRP and invoice prices for the three cars I knew I could live with: the Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic. (Yes, I know, three super-cool choices.) I'd done enough research to know that car dealers always give people a horrible price first, and I needed a benchmark value to compare their horseshit with. And then I went out.

My first stop was the Hyundai dealer. The Elantra was rated as Consumer Reports' 2009 best small sedan, and as a return Hyundai customer I figured I'd get a good deal. To be honest, I was pretty certain this place would be my only stop. The problem was, the credit crunch hit me here -- hard. Like, 7.5% interest rate hard. There was no way I was buying an Elantra at those numbers, and I walked out the door before I received my second offer from the salesman.

Like you, I'd heard dozens of those annoying Toyota ads on TV over the past month. You know, "Saved by zero..." I thought I could live with driving a Corolla, even though it's not exactly sleek-looking and has the engine of a sub-compact. I started talking myself into the Corolla as I drove to the Toyota dealership next, as if it were the ugly girl at the bar. "It gets 31 mpg overall," I said to myself. "It goes over bumps in the road really well. It's actually HANDSOME in white!" I almost bought it, and if the salesmen at the Toyota dealer weren't huge douchenozzles, I probably would have.

My mom and I spent two hours at the Toyota dealer, haggling, negotiating, turning down offers left and right. I was throwing heat at the salesmen and the sales manager, and they kept fouling me off. Neither of us were budging, and we ended up walking out after being screamed at (believe me, I screamed back), tired and hungry. I just knew I didn't want that Corolla; I knew it didn't make sense to me.

So how did I end up with the sexy car pictured below and to the right? First, let's take a step back to 1996. The era of grunge music was in its death throes, AOL disks were everywhere, and "Independence Day" ushered in a new era of CGI (and scary-ass TV commercials). In the market for a new car that year, my mom visited the local Honda dealership on her lunch break. She ended up being chased out by a frenzied salesman, scared to death. Needless to say, it was not easy convincing my mom to go back to that same Honda dealership, but we did and everything turned out... surprisingly OK.

No, seriously. I got a fair offer -- $250 above invoice -- and excellent financing. I'll be paying off this car until the end of time, but even that's OK (since, once I get my Ph.D., I'll immediately trade up to the Acura TL). The car is a coupe, black, has a spoiler and better-than-average acceleration. It sips fuel. I can make it from NJ to Boston on a half tank of gas. I look good in it (or so I'm told). All is right with the world, and I don't even mind the impending New England winter.

Stay classy.