We never know who we might see when we glance out our windows toward the Oysterville Church. The other day it was a street full of Prowlers. Not the bad kind. These were Chrysler products, about 30 of them parked in front of the church and about as far north and south as the eye could see. Their owners were exploring Oysterville by foot, walking tour brochures in hand,
I didn’t know anything about Prowlers so I went out and mingled for a while. What great people! I talked with folks from British Columbia and from Seattle and from as far south as Medford. They belong to a car club and once a month during the summer they go on an ‘outing’. Last weekend their destination was the Long Beach Peninsula and they were staying at the Super 8 in Long Beach.
They learned that the ‘tsako-te-hsash-eetl’ sign over our house is Chinook jargon for “place of the red-topped grass” and I learned that Prowlers were manufactured in 1997 and 1999-2002 only. I thought of our no-longer-manufactured P.T. Cruiser and whined about that a bit. Their take on the short time-frame for the Prowlers is that it makes them highly collectible.
That reasoning never has entered my head with regard to our Cruiser. It seems as though there are way too many of them to consider them collectible. (But then I think of all those ‘57 Chevys and how collectible they’ve become…) We love our Cruiser, don’t get me wrong. But we aren’t into collectibles; we’re into practicalities.
Now that we are rolling on toward the 300,000-mile mark, we’re thinking a new car is in order. We’d buy a new Cruiser in a heartbeat, but… Chrysler no longer makes them. It seems to be a habit with Chrysler and is definitely one more discouragement to our desire to “buy American” if we can.
I suppose we could join a Cruiser Club and go cruising like the members of that Prowler Club go prowling. But while we were out and about, think what we’d be missing right here in Oysterville!
Your Cruiser and my Neon have the same chassie and Chrysler has stopped making the Neon as well. I am happy to hear that yours is that high milage. Mine is over 160,000 and I’ve started thinking of what I might replace it with should it start to become a money pit. We just spent a little under $900 on a radiator and some misc. stuff so it may have begun. Why they would stop producing what were two very popular cars (expecially the Cruiser) is beyond me. They haven’t replaced it with anything I want. Actually, if things begin to fall apart I’m leaning toward a Honda CRV.