The magical transformation of a 2013 Porsche Boxser into a 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee

So Robin and I were dead set on buying a new 2013 Porsche Boxster in the next 3-6 months, because owning a Porsche was always something, which I never thought would be possible to obtain for me.

Well about 3 days ago, I got hit on the freeway by another Car, which totaled my 1996 Pathfinder/Puppy Car and made it not safe to drive anymore.

damage after getting hit by 4800lbs F150 Pickup Truck, the frame seems to be bend to and it's not really safe to drive anymore

So Robin and I set down trying to figure out what we need and a sexy sports car, was not really a possibility, since we need a useful car to transport our puppies (which are getting bigger and bigger) and get stuff for our house.

what we wanted to buy ~55k$

So we decided to get instead a car, which fulfills the following criteria:

• AWD or 4WD to be able to drive in Snow and go camping in offsite campgrounds
• not more than 5 seats
• enough space for the dogs in the back and 2 people + stuff
• load capacity of around 1000 lbs for House supplies
• able to tow a small trailer or jet skies, if we ever require it
• possible to have a roof rack installed
• somewhat fuel efficient (no V8 for me... I guess I will never own one now, since car makers are stopping to produce them)
• not more than 400$ a month payment

Now after I started my research and pointed out a couple of car's to Robin:

1500 Dogde Ram Quad Cab Pickup ~22k

2013 Toyota 4-Runner 4WD ~40k

2013 Toyota Tacoma 4WD ~35k

2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee AWD ~30k

And we decided to go with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, since all the Toyotas used to much Gasoline and the Dogde was the worst by far with a estimate gas mileage of ~17l on 100km and the Grand Cherokee was the best with about ~12l on 100km. It was a bit more expensive than the Dogde, but had all the features we wanted and satellite radio.

Now this sounds a bit funny to choose a car by a feature called Satellite Radio, but after using it for 5 minutes and discovering a dozen of stations I loved, It was a must have for me and Robin just loved the look and features of the Grand Cherokee and considered the Ram 1500 Pickup just too big.

Robin: The grand cherokee is a boat, but the Dodge is a flipping Cruise Liner...

She also found this cute 2013 Jeep Compass, which was a nice litte SUV and was just great gas mileage wise, but it was just to small for me and optical as physical (I did not fit behind the wheel) and so it was never an option. It was 10k$ cheaper than the Grand Cherokee, but if I don't fit...

So we ended up with this beautiful 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which has all the features we wanted and needed, for an acceptable price and is able to tow up to 5000lbs, if we ever need to and install a Class IV Hitch to it.

from the front, in our Drive Way

from the side

next to our Pathfinder, I assume it's going to be picked up by the insurance company soonish. The Jeep is significant larger

Now we are just looking forward to our next camping trip, with the Jeep. After all, it's already Basil approved.

Basil seems to like the large rear window