The Car That Made Me Realise Cars Can Make Money
Ten kilograms of rice, a bad knee, and about a kilometre of footpath between the Indian grocery and home. That was the moment I decided I needed a car.
I was in my first month in New Zealand and recovering from ACL surgery, which meant walking was a negotiation and cycling was out entirely. So I found a beater on TradeMe for $650 and bought it with almost no deliberation. Worst case, it lasts a few months. It lasted considerably longer than that.
Mostly what it was, was freedom. It was also, immediately, an education.
One afternoon I locked the keys in the ignition in the HIT Lab NZ car park where I was doing my masters. The AA quoted three hundred dollars to open it. I decided that was a lot of money for a closed door, read everything I could find, borrowed a few tools from the lab, and let myself in through the frameless window without marking the car. That was the first repair I ever did on anything. The same car park is where my Legacy was broken into a few months later, which felt less like coincidence than commentary.
The habit took from there. One Sunday I bought second hand oil change gear and a fifteen dollar toolbox from The Warehouse and serviced the car myself, without properly knowing where the jack points were or how to use them. Reckless in hindsight. Also the start of everything.
The Integra taught me what a Warrant of Fitness actually involves, how registration works, and what owning a vehicle really costs. When I sold it, I came away with about two hundred dollars more than I had paid.
Two hundred dollars is not money. It was a proof of concept, and I have been running the experiment ever since.
