week 22 - "test drive your dream car"

 

I drove this Explorer with 11 actual miles from Bloomington.

    I'm not sure I have a "dream car" but my part-time
job driving for Pilson Auto Center (the old Mooney Motors in Charleston) has enabled me to drive some pretty nice vehicles. Auto dealers have drivers to  pick up vehicles from other dealers that they buy or acquire in a trade. I know the manager of the Pilson dealership so when I retired I asked about driving for them. They have a dozen or so drivers so I don't get called regularly. I might go a couple weeks between assignments but I enjoy it and make a little extra money.
     Probably the best task I had was to pick up a 2006 red Mustang convertible from Pilson's Mattoon store and bring it to Charleston. It was a warm September afternoon and the top was down.

 I told them I might have to go back to Charleston by way of Champaign -- but I didn't. I took it back to the Charleston dealership but drove pretty slow.                                                                                               

I brought this 2011 Camaro back from Taylorville.



     My longest trip has been to Memphis, Tenn. I drove a 2012 Ford Fusion down there and traded it for an extended, no-frills, 15-passenger van. Whew! What a trade. Most of these nice cars, including that Fusion, have satellite radio so you can listen to anything you want ('50s and '60s tunes for me). But driving that empty, oversize van for six hours on the interstate was not fun.

    The nicest car I have driven was a red 2011 Chrysler 300 luxury car. It is like a Cadillac or Lincoln. Sometimes I go by myself but most times I ride with another guy, then one of us drives the original vehicle back and the other drives the car we are buying. Occasionally, I have gone with 3 or 4 others to pick up several cars. My trips all have been one day but some guys have gone to Pittsburgh, Buffalo, NY and Denver.  It's been interesting and I do get to drive some very nice, new cars, vans and trucks that cost up to $46,000. Just this week I went to St. Louis with another guy to pick up a car. It's a fun retirement part-time job!!