I bought a car for $24. Best $24 ever spent.

Daniel Ferguson
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Okay, that title makes it sound like it’s a cheap piece of shit, and yes, it’s certainly cheap. But that was actually just the transfer fee.

My grandfather, too blind now to drive, moved when his wife passed away, and my dad must have been talking with him because the next thing I knew, I had a car with my name on it at mum & dad’s place, sitting in the car port.

With a little bit of saving, and a lot of Saturday afternoons with dad, replacing parts (bought from my car fund, from the money I was giving them for keeping) and the motivation of “your 17 year old cousin is eyeing it off” to spur me into action, we spent six months or so fixing it up, replacing stuff that had been sitting in a garage for ten years. It didn’t hurt that it had only been used for driving around in the country or outer suburbs before that, as well.

So, $24 doesn’t count the insurance, nor the thousand dollars or so in parts to be replaced, or the hours of manual labour on my, and my dad’s, part. Things like a fan belt, brakes, suspension and shock absorbers, windshield, radiator (hairline fracture) and air con (it works… sort of…) are what I can remember, right up.

But the experience has given me a deeper understanding of car parts, their names, and what they do, and how (I looked up how electricity works, because I wanted to, and because as a writer, I should probably know this. So when dad told me about the fan belt, and the torque that that uses to make power, I had a bit of an understanding. Not expert, sure, but much better than a year ago.)

It’s the simple things.

Being able to now drive my family to doctors appointments and the like when they need it, is also a good thing, for all of us. Especially my parents. They raised me. It’s a “parenting fee” I’m happy to pay.

The next major thing for me will definitely be a trip up the coast. I need a vacation.

Daniel Ferguson

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Author of Children of Fire, post-apocalyptic superhero novella set in Australia: http://bit.ly/COF3E-k