:lol:

I have an architect friend who built a mid-rise building for his own house, just so he could use several underground levels for his car collection. His firm in on one floor. And his dwelling is the top two levels. Retail (wine bar) on the street level.

He hosts design lectures in the garage with the collection, followed by receptions/socializing in the penthouse.

Nice life!

Yes, exactly.

Not to get too nerdy with a bicycle analogy.. but it's relevant if you squint enough. A while back most bikes had a triple chainring on the front. Then it got trendy to simplify to a double. It is lighter and simpler and has nearly the same range. The problem is that you spend most
of the time in that awkward gap between gears, where you're cross chaining and need to shift every time the terrain changes slightly. You're rarely in the sweet spot.

The triple was simple: leave it in the middle ring most of the time, and you have a nice straight chainline. Come to a big hill and you shift down. Downhill or want to go super fast you shift up. Couldn't be simpler.

Conclusion: clearly you need 3 (or more) of everything in life to be happy. :lol::speechle:

I love my 1x bike drivetrain, never going back to multiple, guess that is why I only have one car :lol:

Both my road bikes are triples and I agree about usage. Probably faster folks can get away with doubles.

It's been a month and a couple weeks and I've been using the Mazdaspeed a lot. Like, drive it to work pretty much every day. I drove the Boxster today because well, it's not supposed to rain and it was gorgeous this morning and I'm not going to be hopping between facilities (I have a garage to park in at my office, but at our other buildings parking is pretty cramped so I park far away and have a long walk if I take the Boxster).

I priced out a clutch, flywheel, timing chain, guides and tensioners and came to about $1k. I figure I can knock that work out in a weekend once I have a weekend to actually work on something. $1k and a weekend's worth of work to have a reliable car that I'll use regularly seems like a bargain. If I'm sick of it next spring I'll let it go. But for now it stays.

Makes total sense to me

Hard to believe it's been three years since I posted this. I still have the Mazdaspeed, I drive it pretty much every day and it's about 300 miles away from rolling over 200,000 on the odometer. I replaced the clutch, the timing chain and all of the variable valve-timing parts, adjusted the valves, put new tires on it and fixed a couple of other niggling things. Oh, and added Bluetooth, which I should have done a long time ago.

We keep talking about selling the CX-5. We originally bought it because Marisa was always shuttling clients around. Well, those days are done, and she's WFH 100% of the time and probably will be for the foreseeable future. It's the only car payment we have left at this point and just seems to make no sense to keep around. So we'll see what happens there.

Awesome that the MS3 is still chugging along. What year is the Cx-5? My daughter may be looking for her first car in a few months.

It's a 2017 AWD Grand Touring (first year of the new body style). It's a pretty great vehicle and has been typical Mazda - dead nuts reliable, quiet, comfortable.

Not sure Marisa is ready to give it up and it's not my call but I'll keep you posted if she decides to.

What would she want to replace it with?