Vikram has had a long and tortured history with cars. For the first year and a half that he was with us, Vikram owned cheap cars on the use and dispose model. What that meant was that every 6 months or so, Vikram would go out and buy a $400 car, and then get rid of it 6 months later when it stopped working. As an economic model it is hard to find fault with this M.O.
Our earliest experience with his car was back in 2003, soon after he had started. Our colo at the time was in San Francisco, and I needed Vikram to go with me and set up something on this new Linux server we were trying out at the time. I had taken the train in to work, so Vikram drove us back to the city. As soon as we got on the 101, it started raining. Of course, the wipers don't work so well on a $400 car. "Don't worry about that," Vikram said, "if we drive fast enough, the rain will slide right off." All the way, the windows barely hold up, and the howling wind with the rain make for a fine driving experience.
We drive to the city and fix the server and get back in the car. Vikram puts the key in the ignition, and I notice that it has gotten rather foggy very quickly. Vikram agreed. Then I pointed out that for fog, it smelled a little too much like burning car. We quickly got out of the car and opened the hood to see a steaming pile of car in front of us. We hung around for a while waiting for the car to cool off. Eventually, we got back in the car, and Vikram put it in drive. Except the car wouldn't move forward. He put it in reverse, and it moved backwards of course. Vikram pointed out that he could reverse his way back to Palo Alto, and was quite happy to do so. As a slightly responsible founder, I had to demur. So Vikram came up with an alternative idea, "I'll just leave my car parked here, surely eventually the city will just tow it away, and it won't be my problem any more," he said. That seemed more responsible to me and we moved forward on that plan. Eventually, Vikram had to tow his own car to a junkyard, pay the city about $500 in fines for leaving his car on the side of the street and buy a new car.
This new car ran well for a while but eventually reached the end of its lifetime also. Vikram took it in to the mechanic to find out what to do about it, and the mechanic asked him when the last time he put oil in the car. "Oil?" asked Vikram. Apparently, Vikram had had no idea that an engine needed to be kept lubricated. That was the end of that car. So Vikram left it parked in the office parking lot while he considered what to do with it. Except, a few days later the car was missing. Turns out our landlord decided the car was a blight on the landscape (we're talking east bayshore here, not the world's prettiest landscape) and had it towed. And the towing company charged Vikram a couple hundred bucks to have it junked.
The economics of the use and dispose method begins to break down if every time you dispose you give up as much as you spent getting the car in the first place. Having come to this reluctant conclusion himself, Vikram then proceeded to get himself a brand new Passat. It being a new car, the guys decided to drive down to Tahoe and go skiing over the weekend. We had Barker and Vesko in Barker's car in front, and Kevin and Vikram in Vikram's new Passat following them. It was snowing quite heavily, and of course Vikram had no chains, and of course Vikram drove as if it was sunny and dry. (If you've never sat in a car driven by Vikram, it is a well recommended experience. All the thrills of sky diving, none of the expense!). A car a few cars in front slid off the freeway and the others behind braked hard. Vikram braked hard too, only he was going a little too fast. The car spun out, Vikram turned the wheel, hit the brakes harder, and while he was at it, hit the gas as well for good measure. The car rotated through 3 or 4 turns, and came to a halt in front of Barker's car, in the meantime not having touched any other car or roadside object in the process. All the while, Kevin sat praying for his health, and also promised his personal God never to ride with Vikram again.
