My recent used-car searches reveal the depths of my depravity. I am finding it increasingly difficult to resist the louche allure of a late-’70s/early-’80s Corvette C3 Stingray, especially one in a doleful, period-correct color like dark bronze. A stick shift was always available, and the final-year C3s, from 1982, featured a bubble-backed rear hatch, which is almost as useful as a wagon's trunk. All-wheel drive was never an option, so I've been trying to persuade my boyfriend that with today's snow-tire technology, he'll be fine. He says he will not be fine.

Closer to our needs is an early-’90s Mercedes 300 TE wagon. These were the successors to the beloved and un-killable W123 Diesel wagons that Portland and Austin freegans all converted to run on used fryer grease back during the economic depression of the late aughties. The TE was more refined and less baroque and could be had without the clattery diesel engine, but with a third row of seats, allowing the wagon to carry seven passengers in stolid German luxury. No manual, though.

A Mercedes 300TE wagon in all its right-angle glory. Frank Wulfers The absolutely ludicrous AMC Eagle. Uber Bilder/Alamy

In the early ’80s, the American Motors Corporation presaged our current infatuation with the high-riding, car-based, four-wheel-drive vehicles now known as "crossovers" by introducing a high-riding, car-based, four-wheel-drive vehicle known as the Eagle. This Frankensteined conveyance was available as a coupe, a sedan, a convertible, and a wagon! Build quality was awful, interior materials were punitive, and the engines were wheezy, but a five-speed stick was available. Also, fake wood paneling. When I suggest this one to my boyfriend, he says that it reminds him of the pair of 1980s Jeep Grand Wagoneers we owned, "but shrunken and ugly." He does not need to remind me that those trucks were extremely problematic, a condition mitigated only by their cavernous size and handsome good looks. Fine. Pass.

The Volvo V70R even looks handsome in seafoam. Volvo

So I moved on to Volvo's V70R wagon of the mid-2000s. These Swedish long-roofs were the full package, with crisp and blocky styling, souped-up turbocharged engines, all-wheel drive, and weird "spaceball" manual transmission shifters—all backed by Scandinavian safety and dependability. The "R" version was one of the fastest wagons of the time, and the interior could be ordered in a plush, pebbled, pumpkin orange leather. I decided this would be the ideal solution. But when I show my boyfriend photos of one I found on eBay, he looks at it, nods, and calmly says, "That car is 13 years old."

Like all fantasies, vehicular fantasies are evanescent, best appreciated when they remain in the realm of the imaginary. I don't want to actually own a dune buggy or a bargain-basement Ferrari 308 any more than I want to actually marry Alden Ehrenreich. So I have to admit that my boyfriend is right. Now I'm back to cruising for new or pre-owned Alltracks at local, and not-so-local, dealerships. I'm in no rush—summer is the ideal time to enjoy my classic cars, all of which are (knock on wood) currently in running condition. In the meantime, I've decided to use some of the insurance money to build a new garage on our property. My boyfriend wants it to be subtle and two cars wide. I plan on abiding his wishes. But I am in secret conversations with the contractor to shore up the roof against trees. And to make the garage two cars deep.