I will say, I've never driven a "3 on a tree." God gave me the opportunity once, but I followed my head, not my heart.
Since this is the Random Thread of Randomness and it is a good story, I will share it. When I bought my first house, out in Oregon, a friend gave me his...1982? Nissan pickup, saying I'd need it for the renovation. Now there were two problems with this: The house had a 1 car garage, a 1 lane driveway, and a fence all the way around the property with a 1 car wide gate. So either the Nissan would have to be parked in the yard like a redneck (or on the street in front), I'd have to pull it out and put it back every time I wanted to take my car out of the garage, or the old pickup would be in the garage while my (at the time) relatively new Mustang sat out in the driveway. Secondly, it was missing a tooth or two on the starter motor, so there was about a 92% chance it would start fine. And an 8% chance it wouldn't start. So when I was done fixing up the house I got rid of it. Then the next time I needed to buy a sheet of plywood I realized that no matter how clever you are, it is impossible to fit one into a Ford Mustang. So when I decided to get into real estate investing, I needed a work vehicle. I got a van because I could use it for hauling hardware, I could haul my motorcycle in it, I could use it for in-town moves, and I could even use it for camping. Plus, I could make it look like the A-Team van. It took 2 years to find an appropriate A-Team van, but when I did, I wound up finding a 1988 GMC G1500 Vandura with a sliding door--the actual A-Team van (just 5 years newer). By this point I was in Kentucky and had a 2 car garage and a driveway with space for 2 cars.
When I was buying it, I was determined not to tip off the seller that he had an A-Team van. Once he had my money and I had a notarized title he mentioned he had a friend that did vinyl wraps and he'd thought about doing it up as the Mystery Machine. At that point I told him you needed a '67 Chevy van for the Mystery Machine, this was the A-Team van. He did try to trick me into mailing him the title a few days after that but I didn't bite on that. Anyway, I pointed out that there was no way you were ever going to find a '67 Chevy van in this day and age.
Fast forward a bit and I'm killing time on CraigsList and what do I find for sale in the town across the river? A goddamn '67 Chevy van (with 3 on a tree tranny)--for a very reasonable price. At the time I was buying my first rental property and there was a sign shop on the way to my Realtor's office. And what did they have parked out front? A van with a Mystery Machine vinyl wrap. I stopped in to swag what this would cost and it was sorely tempting. Technically I *could've* done it. But then I'd have had 2 vans and a car for a 3 car garage and no money to renovate my new house so I passed on it, but part of me is sad I didn't build a Mystery Machine. God clearly wanted me to. But I didn't listen.
