The $400 Ford

The podcast features Eugene, discussing his early car-buying experience. Eugene begins by sharing how he saved his $200 monthly research assistant stipend at Lehigh University to buy his first vehicle after nine months of walking 30 minutes to campus. He purchased a used Ford sedan at a Philadelphia "as is" auto auction for roughly $300 to $400, leading to a challenging drive home where he had to pull over every twenty minutes due to a boiling radiator. After paying nearly $400 to fix the mechanical issues, he successfully drove the Ford throughout graduate school and eventually took it to his first job in New York City. The interview concludes with the story of Eugene eventually upgrading to a brand-new, fully loaded white Plymouth Valiant for $2,000, which he bought by flying directly to the factory in Detroit