Someone must have loved our car. Whoever put that sticker saying „Bulli“ on the hood over the headlight – they must have had a heart for this big yellow hard working vehicle.
What are your criteria, when you buy a car? Not so easy these days with the ever changing technology.
What are you attracted to? Electric car? Photovoltaic car? Hybrid? Or stick with a combustion engine?
It must suit your lifestyle and do it’s job, that’s for sure.
For us, wanting to travel the spontaneous, less organizational and individualistic way, off the beaten track, we rather care about an accountable infrastructure and easy repair just in case.
Also, we are not so fond anymore of sleeping in a tent during rainstorms at a temperature of 6 degrees Celsius (we happily used to do that in Canada when we were so much younger).
So, we were looking for what in Germany we call an „oviparous wool-milk-pig“ – something that fits every wish and need:
A sturdy car with high mileage, agile enough to handle in any traffic, on any street or forest road and large enough to sleep, sit, eat and work in it.
And we wanted a good price.
A lot of research and recommendations later, we ended up with „Deutsche Post“ – and got completely overwhelmed.
There were hundreds of used vans, typically in gorse yellow color, in the backyard of one dealer alone. And then the next dealer and the next.
Most of the cars were pretty run down. Scratches and dents by the dozen, some very rusty, some leaking some dubious liquid from an unidentifyable source. And no guarantee, of course … OMG!
The dealer would just smirk: „They come like that. If you don’t like this one, just pick another one.“
Eventually, one of the less bruised vehicles gave us a kind of a smile. My partner took a deeper look.
We checked it outside and inside. Both of us hopped behind the steering wheel for an individual test drive. Nothing much to complain about.
Deal done.
Back home, we thought about what had attracted us und why – from the flock of all yellow lookalikes – we had chosen this one over the others.
Of course, the relatively decent physical and technical status of the car made a difference. Also, the price seemed okay.
But from our marketing experience we knew, all choices have a strong emotional aspect, too. Ours was the „Bulli“ sticker. All other cars only had some leftovers of the formal „Deutsche Post“ sign.
I remember one of my dowsing teachers (a long time ago) once said: „If you call your washing machine Emma, it will have a longer life.“
I admit, I never gave my washing machine a name. But I found this effect true of all my cars. The nameless went fast.
The ones with a name though were close to my heart and I always cherished and praised them after long, exhausting Autobahn rides, because they had taken me home safely and comfortably.
These cars lasted almost forever and eventually would die of rust.
I guess, our „Bulli“, now named „Der Dicke Paul“, has a good survival chance after all.
We’ll see what happens when the mechanic puts it on the maintenance pit next week.
2 thoughts on “Any Machine with a Name has a longer Life”
Der Dicke Paul means “Fat Paul”?
It rather means “Big Paul”. “Fat Paul” would translate into “Der fette Paul”.