I’m entering my sixth year of owning the ZN6, and that is cause for celebration… and probably a reconsideration of what this car really is.
I’ve never owned any car for this long. My panda AE86 coupe, which I bought and sold twice, and seems present in every single car life memory I possess… never spent this duration of time with me.
The fact that the ZN6 has survived so long might suggest that it is a better car than anything else I’ve owned. It’s certainly not that simple. But I have recently declined multiple offers (fair offers) to sell the car… and now the idea of keeping the car with me for life is starting to feel genuinely romantic. This is something that I’ve said before… but that idea was always contingent on things like quad throttles, close-ratio gearboxes and crushing Porsche-ophiles.
Now, much like an aging man learns to be content with his aging wife, I am learning to appreciate the car as a representation of a dream that will never quite come true.
It will probably spend the rest of its life in jeans and a hoodie, running errands or lounging on the couch…
But it’s what I’ve got, and it is mine to the core, not someone else’s.