She's not driving the Aston unless I'm with her, nope, nu-uh. That's much more for her safety than me being worried about the car.
I get a truck and two car hauler and we go to Chattanooga to get the cars after the wife finished her morning class. We arrive and find where they're kept, I pay the people, and we're taken to the lot. The Caddie is fine, excellent shape, it just needs a full detail, basic service, and some new tires. No big thing. The Mini is trashed. Outside it looks okay aside from some scratches and a sizable dent, but the interior is a mess, likely deliberate since it was being repo'd. There's trash and this syrupy nasty crap all over the place, and it smelled like a pig had given birth in it. It doesn't turn over, has absolutely no fuel, and someone had taken a knife or box cutter to the seats and stabbed the dash. Instead of messing with it, I was irritated at this point, we pushed it out to the hauler and several dudes working there helped me get it loaded. The Caddie just started right up and I drove it right up the ramp, piece of cake.
We get it all secured and my wife is bummed over the Mini and starts the "blaming everyone else" game. I warned her about buying it sight unseen, she hadn't even looked at any interior photos and the ones that were on the site were blurry and poor, but she rushed right in. I just let her get it out of her system and bit my tongue. I love her with all my heart, but sometimes...
We grab some hibachi takeout and hop back on I-75 and head back to Knoxville and I call ahead to the service/detailing shop I know. So, when we get there we drop the cars off and I tell them to just do what they need to do, and if they can take them to NTB a half block down and get new shoes for them too, that would be great.
So we grab a taxi and head to the mall, watch a movie (Looper, it was good), walk around, shop, that kind of stuff, and the shop guys call. The Caddie is done; detailed, serviced, new Michelin Pilot SS tires, et al. and "they need to talk with me about it".
They did what they could with the Mini, but it needs more work; blown head gasket, new dash, some new upholstery, new battery, new brakes, and one of the wheels is warped (warped??).
We go back and the Caddie is gorgeous, looks like a brand new car, inside and out.
They'd even ran it on the dyno, they'd said they might, and they found out the car pulls 653bhp and 625 lb/ft of torque. That made them curious, heh, so they investigated and found out it had the Lingenfelter hardware and software upgrades!
I feel bad for the guy who lost this car. The poor Mini? It looks much, much better, but they need a couple days to finish it up. Not sure what it will tally up to with the repairs.
The guys said they'd take the truck and trailer back, which was nice of them, so we left the other car in their capable hands and drove the CTS-V home. I will say this, I've never in all my born days drove anything quite like it. It's composed, calm, and very comfortable. You can drive it around town and it behaves like a Caddie should, it even said we were getting 24MPG just cruising along. Then, you put it in Sport mode aaaaand it rips your head clean off. Its acceleration is brutal, savage, and absolutely destroys the old CTS-V I had... and everything else. It is without a doubt the fastest car I've ever driven, and it handles very well, surprisingly well, though not on the same level as the Carrera S. I'll take it out some more tomorrow and give it a good run in the daytime and then I'll have a better impression.
Edited by Magick Man - 10/11/12 at 3:01am
