This week’s car donation features a 2001 Honda CR-V that was donated to WDET through the Car Talk Vehicle Donation Program. Car Talk works with local public radio stations across the nation. They ensure that each station gets the most from the proceeds of your donation. This enables your favorite programs to continue fostering thoughtful discussion, trustworthy information, and engaging entertainment. Your car donation helps keep your favorite public radio programming on air.
This donor shares their experience with their beloved vehicle:
This Honda CR-V belonged to my late mother. She was an extraordinary woman. She was a survivor of a drunk-driving automobile accident, a participant in the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, and, above all else, a devoted mother.She bought this car in the year 2001. The new millennium brought a lot of changes for our family. Recently divorced, she broke three generations of tradition by buying a Japanese car rather than a GM. Little did we know that this Honda would outlast every other car our family owned and become one of the most enduring pieces of our lives.I learned how to drive in this car. I had my first date in it, got into plenty of high school shenanigans, and shared countless adventures with my mother. It was simply there for everyday life. It was reliable transportation, a place to go, and, over time, almost a member of the family itself.
This car helped me move into my first apartment, and later helped me move across the country to the big city. I came out to some of my closest friends in this vehicle. I had meaningful conversations, difficult conversations, silly conversations, and all the conversations that come with growing up. In so many ways, this car became a backdrop to the person I was becoming.Some of my most treasured memories, though, are the quiet ones.I miss the special drives I used to take with my mother, things I never realized I would one day long for. The little talks. The wishes and dreams we shared. The stories she would tell me. Getting Ice Caps as a special treat. Christmas shopping together. Driving through Hines Park on a warm summer or fall day with the windows down, the picnic table in the back, and nowhere in particular we needed to be.My mom would tell me stories about the 1960s as we drove past “The Hill,” and we would laugh together about all the funny things that had happened back then. Sitting beside her in this car, I got to know my mother in a different way. I heard her stories of survival and learned about the strength it took for her to fight, heal, and keep moving forward after everything life had put her through.The Honda also gave my mother something especially important: independence.As a disabled person, she couldn’t always do everything she wanted to do, but this car gave her the freedom to get out and experience life on her own terms. She would take little day trips by herself, and those drives became something special. They reminded her that she was still independent and gave her the motivation to keep going. The car wasn’t just transportation for her it represented freedom.She was always generous about letting me borrow it whenever I needed it, sometimes for long stretches of time. Even after I went to college and bought my own Honda Civic, I continued to drive the CR-V all the time. It was the car I used when I needed to move something, transport something, or when my own car was in the shop. By then, I had grown deeply attached to it.As the years passed, my mother drove less and less, but the Honda remained.When my husband and I moved back to Michigan from Chicago to care for my mom during the final years of her life, the CR-V was still there. Its role in our lives had changed, though. The happy adventures gradually gave way to doctor’s appointments and trips to assisted living. Eventually, my mother gave the car to my husband when she moved, and once again it became a constant fixture in my life.It helped us move into our first home. It carried the things we needed as we built a new life together. I still used it to take my mom to appointments and run errands with her. And when she passed away, this was the car that took us to the hospital. It helped transport things for her funeral and, later, helped us move her possessions out of her apartment for the very last time.In those final chapters, the Honda became a workhorse. It carried us through grief, transition, and change, just as it had carried us through so many earlier chapters of our lives.It was there for our recent move to our current home. It has helped our loved ones as they started families of their own, and it has been there as we began planning to expand our household too. Through all of these changes, it remained that same familiar constant.Every once in a while, I would take the CR-V to visit an old childhood friend. Their reaction was almost always the same:
“Wow. You still have that car?”
And I loved it.
For a moment, we could relive a little piece of our childhood together. The car had somehow survived alongside us, carrying memories from one chapter of our lives into the next.Of course, after nearly twenty-five years, the Honda began to show its age. We kept up with the maintenance and repairs, and it continued to give us everything it had. But life has a way of bringing change, and sometimes we have to make difficult decisions about letting go. As we prepare for expanding our family and working through the changes of life, we decided it was time to get a newer vehicle that could better fit the life we are building. Saying goodbye to this car has been much harder than I expected.This CR-V has given my family a quarter century of service. It has carried us through first dates, high school adventures, road trips, moves, laughter, tears, family milestones, difficult days, and ordinary days that I now realize were anything but ordinary.Most importantly, it gave me time with my mother.It was there when I learned to drive, when I was growing up, when I was finding my way in the world, and when I came back home to help care for the woman who had given me so much. It carried her when she needed freedom, and it carried us when we needed each other.
There is so much more to a car than its mileage, its age, or the number of dents and scratches it has accumulated over the years. Sometimes a car becomes a little time capsule, a place where pieces of your life remain long after the moments themselves have passed.That is what this Honda is to me.I hope someone will see what I see in it and bring it back to life for another era. I hope its next owner will restore it, care for it, and create an entirely new collection of memories with it. It has been a loved car. It has been a faithful car. And for twenty-five years, it has been part of our family.
I can’t imagine a better ending for its story than for it to keep going.
The proceeds from this vehicle donation will allow WDET to continue creating content for its loyal listeners!
Does your car have a special story? We’d love to share it on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Email us your donor story and photos!
About the Car Talk Vehicle Donation Program
National Public Radio, known as NPR, is a nonprofit media organization whose mission is “to create a more informed public”. NPR reaches 120 million listeners and readers monthly through its network of member stations, website, social media, podcasts, and events.
Car Talk’s Vehicle Donation Program allows you to fund your favorite NPR station. Car Donation Wizard will return 75-80% of the gross proceeds from the sale of your car to the NPR station of your choice.
Ready to donate your car to your favorite NPR station? Turn cars into programs by donating your vehicle online or calling us at (877) 215-0227.