Why I Sold My Dream Car

Menu Home » Why I Sold My Dream Car Why I Sold My Dream Car By David Tracy October 8, 2026 7:38 am 131 Comments The 2021 Galvanic Gold BMW i3 Rex is the perfect version of what I considered the perfect car for me. As soon as I saw the vehicle for sale, I bought it for full price and shipped it cross-country, no questions asked. This was my Holy Grail of Holy Grails, a car I planned to keep for eternity. But recently, I sold it. Here’s why.

As a general rule, I like to learn from my mistakes, but when it comes to cars, I’ve made the same one four times now. That mistake is: When I find a car I really love, I buy the very best version of it, only to realize that, as strong as my love for the car is, it pales in comparison to my sentimentality and cheapness.

The first time this happened, the vehicle was a 1996 Jeep Cherokee XJ 5-speed. It was rust free, reasonably low-mileage, and it was the very first manual Jeep I had ever owned:

I bought it because it was cheap at $2,400 and, since I’d so loved my first Jeep — a 1992 Jeep Cherokee Laredo — I figured buying a “better” version would be smart. The issue was that I wasn’t able to let go of my first Jeep. It was the vehicle that had started it all, and I decided being able to hold onto my first vehicle outweighed the benefit of the rust-free rocker panels and 5-speed. Plus, someone offered me good money, which at the time was $3,750. So the 1996 XJ left, and my 1992 OG remains in the fleet.

Not much later, I managed to snag the true holy grail of XJs — a 1991 Jeep Cherokee Laredo 5-speed. Aside from a bad fender and a tweaked front axle, this Jeep was mint. It was basically a much cleaner, black version of my first Jeep, but with a 5-speed manual instead of a 4-speed automatic. It was the grail.

And yet, in the end, I once again couldn’t let go of my first car, and when the black XJ’s original owner offered me $7,000, I let the black beauty go.

Not long after buying that manual XJ, I bought a hyper-rare 5-speed 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ. I flew to Colorado with my buddy Brandon, we fixed the vehicle’s clutch, and then we drove all the way back to Detroit. I loved that Jeep so much that, when a reader emailed me about their low-mileage, minty-fresh manual Jeep ZJ for sale for a low $3000 figure, I couldn’t resist. I bought the ZJ, my colleague Brad drove it all thew way up from Reno, NV, and the Jeep was just fantastic.

But then I received two junk ZJs for about $1000 for the pair. They were both on their way to the scrapper — one due to rust and the other due to the previous owner having yanked out the manual transmission. I decided that, instead of keeping the minty ZJ, I’d turn the two junkers into one running ZJ, thereby helping keep one of these rare Holy Grails from the scrapyard. A $9,500 offer for the minty ZJ made this a no-brainer. (As shown in the image above, this owner has taken great care of it).

You would think that, after three examples of me deciding I preferred soul+cash over a minty fresh, Holy Grail version of a car I love, I would learn my lesson. But I’m afraid I did not.

In 2023, I moved to California and decided I wanted to drive an electric car. The only vehicle I was remotely interested in was the BMW i3, after Autopian contributor Thomas showed me its engineering geekery. I found the cheapest dealership-sold i3 in the country — a 2014 with 135,000 miles on the clock — and snagged it for $10,500. I received a free new high-voltage battery and compressor under warranty, and for a few years, I was absolutely in love with that gray, first-model-year i3.

I loved that gray i3 so much that…yep, you guessed it — I decided to look for the mintiest, ultimate version of the car. And I found it:

But this time was going to be different, I convinced myself. I was now a business owner and a married man with a serious daily commute in LA. I needed something reliable and efficient, and the i3 was perfect for the job. I made my affinity for this car clear many, many times to the point where I’m sure some of you, dear readers, were tired of hearing about Goldilocks:

Not too long after taking delivery of that amazing Galvanic Gold i3, my wife Elise (not her real name) and I were blessed to learn we’d be welcoming a baby into this world. At that moment, something in my brain changed. Especially with my wife’s company being absorbed and laying off much of its workforce, I began to feel an overwhelming responsibility for the wellbeing of this growing family. “Am I doing everything to ensure a great future for this family?” is a question that began cycling through my mind nonstop.

I’d just bought the vehicle for $30 grand and shipped it for $2000 and paid taxes and fees; I was probably in it for $36 big-ones or so. But the market at the time yielded a top offer of $28,000, which I — anxious about my incoming new baby — planned to accept. Then, at the last moment, and at the urging of Elise, I decided to keep the car, but only because I was somehow able to find the exact same car — likely the only other one in the world — mere miles away from the prospective buyer in San Francisco. (He bought it and is very happy).Whew. Talk about luck!

Six months later my ’21 BMW i3S, which gets about 5mi/kWh in the city and 3.5 on the highway, remains one of the best cars I’ve EVER driven.

Why? Because of how beautifully it fulfills its intended function (be the ultimate city car) without being boring.

I remain obsessed. https://t.co/U2ap9GJQVn

— David Tracy (@davidntracy) December 9, 2024

I pulled the i3S off the market and drove it for two years, even taking my baby home from the hospital in it. I was in love. But as time trudged on, my love for the i3 changed. I found myself afraid to scratch the car while I daily drove it through LA’s treacherous streets, and I worried about Elise scratching the rims like she tends to with her Lexus RX. I also couldn’t help but ruminate on that question: “Am I doing everything to ensure a great future for this family?” Over and over again that question would pop up in my mind, scores of times a day. And though I was being responsible in many ways, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the gold i3 was serving me more than it was serving my family.

Yes, I needed a commuter vehicle, and yes, ideally it’d be one I like, but did I need the BMW i3? What was the opportunity cost associated with the car? And not just the car, in all of the decisions I was making in life; this is how I began to think once Delmar entered this world. Every decision I made bore scrutiny like never before. Before I knew it, these thoughts led me to see the i3 through a different lens. This was a car I was constantly worried about damaging, one that I wasn’t comfortable with my own wife and child borrowing, and one whose value may be too high for a cheap bastard like me to continue driving.

I feared that selling the Gold i3 would be a mistake — a decision I would regret for years to come, and so the process of letting it go took a while. I listed it for far too much money, then got some interest, was unwilling to negotiate to a reasonable price point, and ultimately denied offers for months. A couple of months ago, I finally changed my mind; I messaged the gentleman (Nathan) who had been interested in the car, accepted his reasonable offer, and boom: My dream car was gone.

It’s been a month since my i3 Holy Grail left me on its way to Colorado, and at no point have I ever felt even an ounce of regret. Why? Because, just prior to selling my beloved Gold i3S, I took the Amtrak Surfliner to San Diego…

I know, I know: It’s not Gold, it’s a 2014 and not a 2021 so its range is about half that of the gold car, and it’s got about 90,000 more miles on it. And yet, after purchasing the car I found myself driving up the 405 with a grin from ear to ear.

I adore this car, easily as much as I adored the gold car. I wasn’t expecting that.

A post shared by David Tracy (@davidntracy)

The 2014 BMW i3 is, on paper, a huge downgrade. It’s gray instead of the nice gold, it has less range, the exterior has some scratches and dings, it has much less time/mileage left on its extensive PZEV warranty, and overall it just doesn’t look as cool.

But from where I sat in the cabin, it felt exactly the same — possibly even nicer. The interior is in beautiful condition, and has brighter leather than the post-LCI i3(LCI means “mid-cycle refresh” in BMW-talk), whose brown is a bit dull. The gray i3 also has a compass in the mirror, netting at the back of the front seats, and a bunch of other nice features removed from the i3 as part of a clear cost-reduction exercise. What’s more, the 2014 feels better built, with better fitment of the panels and fewer squeaks:

Also, the ride is much less brutal than the i3S, the steering radius is tighter, and the car can go farther on a given amount of energy due to skinnier tires and efficiency-focused aerodynamics. Whereas the i3S tries to add sportiness to the i3 formula, this i3 Electronaut is as pure of a city car as it gets.

There’s still a lot more I need to do to get my new i3 up to snuff. It’s got some issues that need to be repaired (including lots of cracked rubber seals), and while I plan to address all those problems in a future story, the fact that I was able to snag this 2014 BMW i3 Electronaut Edition for $4,250 (after $1000 rebate from my power company), and still have $30,000 left over from my Goldilocks sale made this a total no-brainer.

I adore the gold i3 for its looks, range, the ability to precondition the cabin on a hot day via an app, and its minty shape, but there are so many attributes about the 2014 that I love, too. I love that each of the four wheels is unique (this means the wheels appear to be “pointing” in the same direction regardless of what side you’re looking at), I love that it’s the only model year with body-colored exterior mirrors, I love the brighter interior, I love the little niceties like the mirror-compass and behind-seat cargo netting, and I love the fact that this is the O.G. Electronaut Edition 2014 (Electronaut Edition i3s were the first i3s sold stateside, offered only to BMW owners who had driven the experimental ActiveE that BMW used to help develop the i3).

Today I got back home from work, and my wife — smile beaming across her beautiful face — told me all about how well our son had done in his ISR swimming class. These are classes that help babies as young as 6 months learn how to reach the edge of a pool or how to float on their backs in case they find themselves in water. Does my child absolutely need this? Probably not, and it is expensive. But it’s a skill, it helps Elise feel at ease, and Delmar is starting to like it more and more.

This is what I want to spend my money on: My child’s development. No, keeping the gold i3 wasn’t going to break us, but no matter what I did, I could never get around the realization that goldilocks was an unnecessary luxury that was more of a burden than it was a joy. I was overprotective of it, and I was always worried about it depreciating if I scratched it or drove it too much.

The delta in price between my i3s was $30,000. But if you factor in registration and insurance costs over the next 10 years, the Gold i3 was going to cost my family $45,000 more. (Investing some of the sales funds grows that 10-year delta even larger). To me, the benefits — extra range, a nice gold color, a longer warranty, nicer overall condition, a bit more reliability, a stiff suspension, and a preconditioning app — weren’t worth it, especially given that I plan to make some modifications to my Electronaut to make it feel less like a downgrade.

Says the owner of a Volvo S60 T8 Recharge.

1 Member Brock Landers 37 minutes ago It’s funny to read through all of the prior articles with the numerous “Holy Grails” and see how we car folk, or in this case, David, are masters at rationalizing buying and selling cars in our fleet.

What’s that saying about those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones? I’ve done the same and sold many cars that at the time of purchase were going to be “keepers,” and always for the legitimate reasons I created in my head. Good for David! A car is just a car, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we consider other options. I’m also lucky to have a great wife who just so happens to be a massive enabler (LOL) and always gives me the green light to get what makes me happy, so there’s that….

1 RAMbunctious 39 minutes ago Smart choice. I had forgotten you had gotten such a nice one, I can see wanting a less pristine one.

I just hit 13K miles on my 26 Ram this morning, and I absolutely love this truck. I also spend an inordinate amount of time on marketplace looking at beaters because I want to keep this truck nice.

The truck still nicely serves its function, so I shan’t be getting rid of it, however I do want to add some sort of beater SUV/Wheeling rig to the fleet.

Along the same lines, my dream squarebody Suburban popped up for sale semi-locally at a reasonable price. I thought like an adult, and let it pass because A) I don’t need to drop half my savings on that, and B) it’s too nice for what I’d want to use it for.

1991 3/4 ton 4×4 with barn doors and the 4L80, red over black two tone, red interior. Even had the original wheel covers on it.

0 Member JJ 40 minutes ago I’m surprised and at least a little impressed. I was lusting after the i3 for the better part of a decade. It’s met my expectations, but it’s severely compromised for driving with kids. Not enough for me to sell it, but if I needed to replace it, I’d buy something else.

0 Member No Kids, Lots of Cars, Waning Bikes 43 minutes ago $30k saved?!?!?! Total no-brainer. Good on you!

2 Member Boulevard_Yachtsman 52 minutes ago This is my i3. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Seems like a solid move. I remember when I bought my ’94 Fleetwood five years ago. I paid $5500 for it. There was another available in nicer condition for $10,000 at the time. The $10K one would have been fussed over, used sparingly and not as a road-trip machine for any and all family outings. I got the kind of car that looks good sitting at cars and coffee, I can comfortably munch on a brisket sandwich in a Buc-ees parking lot, and added miles are a badge of honor.

Plus I was able to buy a surprisingly nice Jaguar XK8 with the money I saved.

0 Member Who Knows 53 minutes ago Good work learning to not be a slave to your belongings. There is certainly a difference between dreams and reality. Dreams are certainly nice to have as goals in life, but it also seems to me that spending too much time chasing dreams can easily just turn into nightmares. Keep the dreams focused on what really matters.

Dream cars and houses and such aren’t the best, but reality cars and houses and such, things that match your reality in life. I’m always amused by people who decide to buy fancy luxury cars with little kids, and then are permanently stressed about damaging the cars. I’d rather have a vehicle where I can laugh about having to say “if you’re going to climb on the roof, at least take your ski boots off first”

1 Member Rectangle #3 56 minutes ago Also – if you haven’t already figured this out – rotating car seats are a god-send. In our i3, we have a Baby Jogger City Turn behind the passenger seat, and an Evenflo Revolve 360 behind the driver seat.

I turn the Evenflo one completely sideways when we don’t have the 2nd kid sitting behind me, and that even allows me to push / recline the seat all the way back that I’m fully comfortable (5’10”). The Baby Jogger has too bulky a mechanism to allow for that, so can’t store it sideways with the door closed.

0 Member Nlpnt 49 minutes ago Reply to  Rectangle #3 He did a “Will it Baby?” on the i3 a while ago.

0 Member Rectangle #3 1 hour ago Hey David – you can easily program one of the buttons of your remote to do preconditioning. The remote range is decent, so we’re able to actually get it going even from within the house.

We also reprogrammed our remotes to pop open the frunk, rather than the trunk hatch.

1 Member JJ 52 minutes ago Reply to  Rectangle #3 Do you have issues with unintended button presses for the frunk? I keep the key in my pocket. At least once a week my morning drive starts with me having to get out of the car to close it.

0 Member Shop-Teacher 1 hour ago For the same reason I painted my old Buick with spray paint, instead of paying for a real paint job. I can just use the car. I don’t care if one of my kids scratches it. And it cost like $42 instead of $10k+

0 Member Drive By Commenter 1 hour ago I kind of avoided buying a nice example of a Seadoo for the same reason. The one I have is a bit ratty in appearance and I have zero cares about keeping it looking nice as a result. Whatever. It goes like stink and does tow duty without complaining. The occasional dock bash can be waved away too.

0 Joke #119! 1 hour ago You know what I hate about some sit-com’s? The annual clip show.

2 Member Get an E-bike 1 hour ago My formula has been to buy a new 2013 GTI and let the rims get trashed, do maintenance, and in 13 years IDGAF. Still a great car.

Paid cash, so no interest and no transaction fees makes the 13 year average cost pretty reasonable. My wife sat in the dealership for hours saying no until we got the deal we wanted.

2 Member Jdoubledub 1 hour ago There is nothing more freeing than the first little ding on something that is brand new. These days I get mad for a second and then feel a lifetime of relief. The seal is broken and I can use the object for it’s intended purpose without care or worry.

5 Member KennyB 1 hour ago Reply to  Jdoubledub Truth. I have a Jeep Wrangler for the trails that we’ve had for 10+ years and was paid for long ago, and I also have a year old Gladiator. Six months ago the trail Jeep popped its radiator while preparing for the Badlands off road park and Redbird SRA in Indiana. Put the 6 month old Gladiator to work and it came back with fresh pinstriping.

0 Member Angel “the Cobra” Martin 2 hours ago Be a car enthusiast and get what you want. Don’t let the car own you and don’t worry about every scratch. If Delmar has to go into the work force instead of college because you blew all the money on cars, then no surprise.

2 RAMbunctious 38 minutes ago Reply to  Angel “the Cobra” Martin I mean, that’s Delmar’s problem, amirite??

0 Member Manwich Sandwich 2 hours ago Yeah I understand this move. Small kids wreck things.

And that means you don’t want to use a Holy Grail for daily hauling that includes kids.

When you have kids, the stuff you want is stuff that is ‘good enough’ and ‘nice enough’, but not so good/nice that you’ll lose sleep if it gets scratched or damaged.

This is another reason why I’ve alreadys gravitated to used cars… and with only one exception, used cars from non-premium/non-luxury brands.

2 Member ClutchAbuse 2 hours ago Reply to  Manwich Sandwich My kids have trashed the furniture in the living room. We got all new stuff when we moved into our house five years ago. My wife is constantly bitching about how shabby everything looks and want to …checks notes… Buy all new furniture again despite the fact that they treat our living room like a carnival and our couch like a bouncy house.

3 Member Manwich Sandwich 2 hours ago Reply to  ClutchAbuse Do what some Italian families I knew did when I grew up… put the old furniture in the basement, buy new furniture for upstairs and keep the nice/new furniture all covered in plastic to keep it ‘nice’. Only take the plastic off if someone like The Pope comes to visit.

And forbid the kids from playing upstairs as well…

So you’ll have nice furniture you won’t be able to use or enjoy. But at least it’ll stay nice!!!

5 Member Ishkabibbel 2 hours ago Reply to  ClutchAbuse Going through that same thing.

My wife bought some absurdly expensive furniture and a rug for our family room, despite us having young kids. I immediately accepted the fact these would get scratched, dinged, and stained relatively quickly, but she still gets upset when new damage shows up.

Ironically she was the first one to scratch the coffee table because she couldn’t be bothered to put a pad under something with a sharp corner.

I just shake my head (when she’s not looking).

2 Eric Gonzalez 1 hour ago Reply to  Manwich Sandwich It’s weird because my kids have never wrecked anything. Maybe because they’re girls (10 and 1) but they respect adult stuff.

All of my cars are still pristine and other than some crumbs and glitter here and there, there’s no tears from sharp toys, no sticky messes from drinks and no sharpie drawings anywhere. Our house is the same thing as is the furniture.

I’ve made worse messes in our cars than my kids. I once forgot I was carrying a plant pot full of watery dirt in the passenger seat well and I braked hard. I spent days cleaning my own mess.

So when people say “oh sweet summer child, with kids you can’t keep anything pristine, especially a car” I just don’t buy it. It hasn’t been my case at all.

0 Member LTDScott 2 hours ago I saw a gold i3 like yours in San Diego last week and wondered if it was you. Apparently not.

I love having a commuter car that’s reliable but I kinda don’t care about. My 2015 Mazda 3 has some dents and scratches but it’s kinda freeing to not care much.

1 Member ClutchAbuse 2 hours ago I’m good friends with an engineer who helped design these. He worked on the cooling system. I tried to get him to reach out to you but he isn’t really interested.

Being married and having a family changes everything. I think you made the right decision.

6 Admin David Tracy 2 hours ago Reply to  ClutchAbuse Wow, I’ve been REJECTED.

10 Member ClutchAbuse 2 hours ago Reply to  David Tracy Haha. He’s a very down to earth baverian dude. And doesn’t like attention. Next time I see him I’ll bring it up again and show him some of your articles. I think you two could have a great conversation.

4 Admin David Tracy 2 hours ago Reply to  ClutchAbuse Tell him I’m speak German. (In reality, my German is too rusty to know cooling-system engineering terms).

3 Member 4moremazdas 1 hour ago Reply to  David Tracy Even your German is rusty? Wow, you really are committed to the rust life.

11 Joke #119! 1 hour ago Reply to  David Tracy I know a little German…. he’s right over there!

3 RataTejas 16 minutes ago Reply to  David Tracy Two engineers talking cooling in EV’s?

Hold onto your panties ladies, cause it’s in German!

0 Member TheDrunkenWrench 2 hours ago Financially, a great move. That alone makes the i3 moving on make more sense. I’d sell the Mini tomorrow if I had that much in my pocket after.

That being said, and I mean this earnestly: Therapy to explore your fixation with feeling that you don’t deserve nice things, or that nice things need to be kept in a hermetic bubble to keep them nice, may be beneficial to you.

Self-deprecation, in all it’s forms, can have effects on our children that see us as role models.

11 Admin David Tracy 2 hours ago Reply to  TheDrunkenWrench It’s not really about me not deserving nice things. I’d argue that I have the nicest things a man could ever ask for.

6 Member Tbird 2 hours ago Reply to  David Tracy Hear, hear. I would not trade my daughter for anything.

5 RataTejas 15 minutes ago Reply to  Tbird “How much for ze women?”

1 Member TheDrunkenWrench 1 hour ago Reply to  David Tracy Just remember that you exist as a person beyond your family, and that person needs caring for as well.

I live for my wife and daughter, but I also jokingly/not jokingly say I need one personal road trip a year to feed the beast inside me. Normally it’s in the form of a 3-day weekend to a car event or a friend’s cottage.

Feed the metaphorical beast inside you occasionally. It’s like a reptile, and can go for months between meals. But if it dies, that rot spreads and grabs hold of those you love.

3 Member No Kids, Lots of Cars, Waning Bikes 38 minutes ago Reply to  TheDrunkenWrench Underrated comment. I’ve watched so many people lose their whole identity as they rear offspring. Some always wanted that life and it was fine, while others did it because they thought that was the next logical life step and are miserable.

I am stoked when good parents raise kids. I am REALLY STOKED to have no kids.

0 Member TheDrunkenWrench 10 minutes ago Reply to  No Kids, Lots of Cars, Waning Bikes There’s a reason “Empty Nest Syndrome” is a thing, and why so many couples have separated after the kids were gone.

If you make your entire life revolve around your kids, what do you have when they leave?

Self care is family care. Being your best self for them means doing things for yourself occasionally.

Everything must be done in moderation, including moderation.

0 Member Manwich Sandwich 2 hours ago Reply to  TheDrunkenWrench “Therapy to explore your fixation with feeling that you don’t deserve nice things”

Interestly, I’ve explored that very thing for myself because I spent so many years being frugal out of necessity. When I got to the point that I could afford nicer things (like a good quality/high end TV or the mint-condition/loaded C-Max Energi Titanium), emotionally it made me feel out-of-sorts.

But I like my TV and I mostly like the C-Max (though some features are more of a nuicance than a true benefit… but outweighed by the features I do like such as the great fuel economy and kick ass stereo).

And I’ve concluded that the main reason why I felt out of sorts splurging a bit was because being frugal became a way of life and almost a game of “How frugal can I be?”… which can have its own hilarity… like the time I repaired some dollar store sunglasses instead of just buying another pair for $1. It was absurd. And that kind of absurdity appeals to me.

2 Member TheDrunkenWrench 1 hour ago Reply to  Manwich Sandwich If that’s the hobby, and it’s healthy (I.E. not an obsession), then live your life!

I try to fix things when they break just to see if I can. Regardless of whether or not it’s actually worth my time.

2 Member Fourmotioneer 41 minutes ago Reply to  TheDrunkenWrench Agree here and intended as gently as possible

1 Member Tbird 2 hours ago In ’02 I was in my mid 20’s, single, engineer – had a near pristine southern ’94 5speed SHO and a clean ’96 V8 T-bird in the fleet. I bought beat up old ’89 XJ Cherokee for $1000 as a winter beater. I soon began driving it damn near everywhere, everytime. I had forgotten the freedom of driving a car you just don’t give a F*** about. Parking lot dent – it’s just character. I lavished more love and attention on that old heap in the 2 years I owned it than the other 2 cars to be honest.

I’ve come to realize cars come and go, they have a place in our lives just like people. Sometimes one has to let go, and they cannot be treated too preciously. You own them, they can’t own you.

4 Member Tim Cougar 3 hours ago Galpin can probably hook you up with a high-quality wrap if you want to change the color.

7 Fix It Again Tony 14 minutes ago Reply to  Tim Cougar They still have xpel as sponsor right?