We Never Took It Back

In mid-1996, Annette and I learned we were expecting another baby, due in April 1997. At the time, we owned a 1989 Ford Probe. Jamie and Tanner's car seats completely filled the tiny back seat. There literally was not room for a third child.

Early that fall, we began talking about buying a larger car before the baby arrived. As we later discovered, fitting three car seats into a larger car would still be tight, but at least it would be possible.

On Saturday, October 5, 1996, we went to our church building to watch the Saturday morning session of General Conference by satellite broadcast. In those days, conference was not streamed into our homes. Members gathered at local church buildings to watch it together.

When the session ended, we grabbed a quick lunch of sandwiches and decided to spend the time before the afternoon session looking at cars.

Our plan was simple. Conference gave us a built-in deadline. We could shop for an hour or two, then head back to the church in time for the afternoon session.

We drove to Tallahassee Ford, parked, and started walking through the lot. A salesman greeted us and asked what we were looking for. We told him we were interested in a Ford Taurus, although we knew buying one was probably beyond our budget. We wondered if leasing might make it affordable.

It did not take long to discover that even leasing a Taurus was not going to work.

The salesman suggested we look at a brand-new 1996 Ford Contour instead. It was finished in Ford's "Champagne" color, a light champagne beige that looked pretty sharp. The car only had 283 miles on it. It also had a five-speed manual transmission, which made the decision even easier for me.

Our brand-new 1996 Ford Contour
in Ford's "Champagne" color.

He asked if we would like to take it for a test drive.

We looked at our watches and explained that we needed to be back at church in about fifteen minutes.

His response surprised us.

"Tell you what," he said. "We're closed tomorrow anyway. Why don't you just drive it to your church meeting, keep it for the weekend, and bring it back Monday? If you don't like it, just return it. If you do, we'll work out the paperwork then."

All he asked for was my driver's license.

Looking back, it is hard to imagine a dealership doing that today.

We drove the Contour to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. On Sunday, we drove it to both conference sessions and then took it out for a Sunday evening drive.

By the end of the weekend, we already knew how we felt.

We never took it back.

On Monday, I called the salesman and told him we wanted to buy it. We made an appointment for that evening and drove the Contour back to the dealership, along with our Probe to trade in.

The salesman had all the paperwork prepared when we arrived.

It was pouring rain. We gathered Jamie and Tanner and rushed inside, signed the paperwork, and officially became the owners of our new family car. Before we left, the dealership even gave us an umbrella so we could make it back through the rain.

Our growing family with the new Contour.

That little Contour carried our family for the next fourteen years. By the time we retired it in 2010, it had more than 123,000 miles on it.

How the Contour finally died is a much longer story, but that is a story for another day.