{"id":12806,"date":"2025-06-12T15:39:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=12806"},"modified":"2025-06-12T15:39:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:39:58","slug":"changing-priorities-and-convertibles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/06\/12\/changing-priorities-and-convertibles\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Priorities and Convertibles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This new obsession didn\u2019t just appear out of nowhere. It\u2019s been building ever since I sold my 2nd Golf R on May 14th, 2022. I had just gotten married, I had bought a truck one year prior for hauling motorcycles around and I was about 6 months away from moving to Charlotte NC where I knew it would be necessary to trim down the amount of toys we had to make that move possible. The Golf R had unnecessarily been aged by our lack of a garage, being a daily driver all winter and I vowed to Heather and myself that I\u2019d wait to have a place to store a car out of UV light and I would be buying a sporty car that was not going to be driven in the rain or in the Winter. The Golf R had already been abused and needed to be replaced with a something more collectible. So at still high levels of COVID car-boom, I sold a car I paid $38,500 for in 2015 to someone in Virginia for $33,500. It went to an enthusiast but also someone who was going to drive it daily. I look at his CarFax data every 6 months and he still owns it and still daily drives it. I\u2019m glad it\u2019s been a reliable car for him. I sold at a good time as these models are now sitting around $25,000 and still depreciating for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale of the Golf R also came at a time where I was getting my speed fix from motorcycles so the truck was bought to carry bikes that went faster than my Golf R and we were about to move into a rental in NC and I\u2019m so glad we downsized by selling the Ford Escape, Hyundai Ioniq, BMW R18 and Golf R because insurance rates in NC were atrocious. Not an exaggeration that insurance was 3-4X higher in Charlotte than central New Hampshire. We were paying $2,000 a year for 5 cars and 4 bikes in NH. In NC, 2 cars and 2 bikes was $2400 a year with the same coverage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in New Hampshire and with a garage being built, it\u2019s time to fulfill my dreams of preserving a future or current classic. I have had my eyes set on the BMW Z4 M40i for 2 years. It gained a manual transmission in 2025 and will go out of production in March of 2026 and won\u2019t be replaced. I was also cross-shopping the Porsche 718 GTS 4.0 in a manual transmission but you can\u2019t just go buy one of these\u2026you\u2019re allocated one so that\u2019s out and the wait list exceeds the amount they\u2019ll build before they kill it off in October. The Z4 M40i was the last BMW with a manual transmission, non-electric, rear wheel drive roadster they offered and had the added benefit of not being screen-heavy like modern BMWs. It also comes equipped with an insanely reliable B58 motor and has the benefit of not being a full M-Car therefore very livable on your back on normal roads that aren\u2019t groomed race tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post is not about me buying a Z4. I\u2019ll get one one day but priorities have shifted with an 18 month old at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the state of New Hampshire, Vermont and many other states, a child cannot sit in a 2-seater convertible even if the airbag is disabled until they\u2019re 30 pounds and even then, it\u2019s highly recommended by experts that they be much larger and taller. Matilda is 28 pounds. I don\u2019t just want a fun sporty car for me but I want one for her as well. She\u2019s about 12 years away from being able to ride on the back of mine or heather\u2019s motorcycles and a similar age for sitting in a side-car. So we don\u2019t have a fun way to transport her around. Two seaters are also out for safety reasons. This narrowed me down to convertibles that seat 4 but I still wanted something for enthusiasts that I would enjoy that also would not depreciate much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I had been saving up to purchase a $74,000 BMW Z4 M40i, we\u2019re remodeling our house soon and I don\u2019t have a lot of clarity to how much my mortgage will be after that work is done. It\u2019ll be our only debt because we are good with money but it\u2019s $1600 a month now and could be $4,000 after we\u2019re done so not only is the Z4 an incompatible 4-seater, at $1300 a month at 5.5% interest, I didn\u2019t want to sign up for that payment being less than one year in my new job and an unknown future mortgage payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s recap on what we want:<\/p>\n\n\n\n