I remember seeing the commercials for the VX way back in college (I was a junior in fall 99) and thinking that it was a pretty cool concept for a vehicle. Unfortunately I was 3/4 of the way towards about $72,000 in student loan debt, so a $30,000 truck was out of the question (I wouldn't have had a job to buy it until 2001 anyway). So I filed it away and completely forgot about it until 2004.

That year I passed a used car dealership in Fredericksburg VA that had a Foxfire VX for sale. It was a little rough - one of the headlight gaskets was coming off, the cargo area was dirty, etc. In the end I decided I didn't want to pay what they were asking, which now is hilarious because I think I paid only a little less than that when I eventually bought mine four years later. So again I filed it away for later.

In late 2007 I owned a 2003 Infiniti G35 coupe and a 1996 Chrysler Town and Country that I bought from my mother-in-law on the super-cheap. The van had finally given up the ghost (gas sprayed out the front grill the last time I ever started it) so I needed something new to transport the dog. I was determined to get an SUV this time around, so I narrowed my choices down to an Xterra, Wrangler Unlimited, and VX, all in their respective dark red colors. After about six months of searching I finally found a Foxfire VX to test drive in Alexandria VA. I drove up by myself and made the decision to buy it as soon as I finished the test drive. In retrospect it's probably good that I didn't take Sonya with me; she was resolutely in the 4-door camp, and I think was really hoping I would choose the Xterra (she was absolutely against the Jeep). Two weeks later we drove to Alexandria to pick it up and I had her look it over before I handed over the check. The first words out of her mouth were "This thing is REALLY small!" and that was not meant in a good way. But at the time it was okay because we were blissfully unaware that we would have a little one on the way only two months later. If that Foxfire hadn't come up for sale for another few months I likely would never have bought one. And I have often wondered whether I bought the same VX that I looked at years earlier.

I'm the fourth owner of my VX and it only had 24K on it the day I picked it up. The CarFax report showed that the first owner had it until around 2005 or 2006 (haven't look at the report in awhile) and only put 4K on it in all that time. The seller told me the story he was passed from the second owner: the first guy had a son who was a salesman at an Isuzu dealership in Pennsylvania. Apparently the son convinced the old man that it would be really rare someday so he bought it and promptly parked it in the garage for safekeeping. I don't know why he sold it, but the next two owners each put about 10K on her before selling. Like many former owners they were family men who simply could not keep justifying a car payment for a vehicle that was completely family unfriendly. Although I didn't get much in the way of service records for the first 24K miles, I did get ALL of the new owner paperwork, brochures, etc.

So that's it, like most non-original owners I had to really work to find what I wanted, but it's been worth every effort and every dollar.