I suffer from an illness of which there is no known cure. I can’t say for sure that there is even a treatment for this disease.  You may not be familiar with it, so I would like to bring this to the public’s awareness, in hopes that dozens of sufferers like myself might find some relief and hope for our future. I have grandchildren who I would hate to see grow up with this same problem.  It’s called AAADD – or Adult Automotive Attention Deficit Disorder.
 
I believe I contracted it when I was sixteen or seventeen. My first car was a hand-me-down. It was a white ’55 Chevy Belair my dad gave to my brother. Back in those surf days of the mid-60’s in Southern California it was very cool to have a “surf blue” ’55 Chevy. This was achieved with an Earl “I’ll paint any car for $19.95” Scheib paint job, which my brother eagerly paid for as soon as the car became his.
 
It wasn’t long before he moved up in the automotive world and bought a red Chevy Corvair Spyder; which allowed me to slide right into the driver’s seat of my very own ’55 Chevy surf-rider Belair, complete with teardrop radio knobs and a compact 45 rpm record player in the glove compartment.
 
In my senior year of high school I grew restless with the Chevy Belair and began lusting after a ’68 Chevy Malibu SS. My guilt was punishable by a drunk driver slamming into the back of my parked Chevy Belair one night, totaling it on the spot. My replacement wasn’t the Malibu SS, but a Chevy Nova.
 
I was fickle. I soon forgot about the Malibu and my Nova, and my interests turned to matters of foreign affairs. The Mini Cooper, in particular. I became obsessed with all things Mini. I got a job right out of high school and bought my first Mini for $1050. It was a 1962 Austin 850. Not a Cooper and not fast; but a Mini nonetheless. It was the first of a total of 11 Mini’s I have owned.
 
In the midst of the Mini years there were also brief flings with American cars and trucks, a couple of Germans, an Italian, and a Japanese.  I was in denial that I had a problem. I never thought of myself as an addict. Then I look at the list of cars I’ve had over the years.
 
 
  A 1955 Chevy Belair, a 1963 Chevy Nova, a 1960 Austin Bugeye Sprite, a 1963 VW Baja bug, a 1974 Fiat 128, a 1995 Subaru Outback, a 1988 Mercury Cougar, a 1967 Toyota Hilux truck, two Porsche 911’s, two Chevy trucks, three Ford trucks, six Jeep’s, eleven Mini Coopers, and a 2004 PT Cruiser.
 
I began to notice a pattern. I was alternating between sports car and four-wheel drive about every three years. That seemed to be the maximum time I was willing to put into my automotive relationships. Then I would get that itch; that wanderlust to try something different.
 
I’m not sure if my AAADD is becoming milder with age, but I have actually lasted beyond that three-year cut-off with my current ride. It has been carrying me around for just over four years now. I still have thoughts of getting into something different, new and exciting, but I haven’t acted on it yet.  The current economical situation in this country has been holding me back.
 
I have been researching online for support groups for AAADD without much luck. I think I should start one. It could be an exchange group as well as offer emotional support. Every now and then each of the members could swap cars when the urge hit them. I suppose some people might argue the fact that it could be looked upon as a group that feeds its own addictions without actually seeking out a cure, and any monies raised for research are more likely than not being spent on a 2010 Ford Mustang coming out this spring. They have a really cool website that is enough to convince me that AAADD might not be such a bad thing to have after all. That is, until I wander over to Porsche’s website and start thinking about what color my next 911 Carrera will be.