So I ended up buying a Chevy this weekend. I walked up to the dealership at the mall, and they happened to have a brand-new metallic-tangerine-orange Aveo five-door on the backlot still wrapped up with the shipping tape they use to keep it from getting banged up in the shipping racks. I got what I think was a fairly good deal; after I took it out for a test-drive, I tried to get out the door in enough time to catch the 11:08 bus from the mall into town, go check out some other dealerships on North Atherton. He pulled the usual "what can I do to get you in this car" routine, and I said, wildly, "$1000 off the sale price" in an attempt to get away without offense. They coughed up, mostly, and it was a good enough price to make up for not being a Honda or Toyota. To be honest, most of my reasons for getting a car from the latter was tied up in maintenance and quality concerns, and multiple thousands of dollars less than I would have been paying otherwise tends to make up for the difference.

So, Aveo. My mother called it "cute" when she looked it up online while I was talking to her on the phone, and I can't deny it. I was greatly amused by the color, as my father has a golf cart in that exact color, which is supposedly the same color as the Charger he owned when my parents met. It's a small car, but remarkably high off the ground - the driver's seat is higher off the pavement than any previous car I've owned. We'll see how good it is in ice and slush; Saturday wasn't nearly foul enough to provide ideal crap-weather driving conditions for the test drive, and no tractor-trailers appeared conveniently on the stretch of I-99 we took for the highway test-drive, so we'll see just how much buffeting this little hatchback can take from the big trucks moving fast. I've never been much of a leadfoot, anyways, so it seems like enough car under the hood to get me where I need to go.

It's an automatic; sorry, Jessica. ^_^