My $1Million 1994 Ford Taurus Is Gone....

In April 1995 I exercised 4,000 options at $4.45 a share (split adjusted) to purchase a fully loaded 1994 Ford Taurus.  Those 4,000 options gave me $17,800 to purchase the car and I took a little money out for some other minor things.  Most of the money went for the 1994 Ford Taurus.

Below is a picture of the Taurus before it was put on the trailer.  I gave it to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and they sell it. I guess they let me know how much they sold it for and it is a tax break or something like that.  I really don't care since I doubt I could have gotten $300 for it.   It failed only one test by .10% for CO% at 15mph.   I tried BG44K and that helped some, but not quite enough.  It would have required too much diagnostics and electrical work as well as fuel work that simply did not make sense with John and Mike at VT and Tim not yet driving.

It was a good car, good tires, good brakes, but no A/C, ripped interior and I had this cable you had to pull to get a better connection from the battery to the starter.  Both John and Michael (my sons) learned how to drive on the Taurus.  I once pulled a deer head out of my neighbor's trash and mounted it to the Taurus before John left for school his Senior year during the Holiday Season.  He was not as thrilled as I was :-)   When the A/C went Michael asked what he would do when it got hot out with no A/C.  I told Michael that growing up we had 455 A/C.  I told Michael that 455 A/C is open four windows and drive 55mph :-)

 Below is my custom tag that no one ever figured out, including Neil Groundwater :-)  My wife Julie said, "NO ONE WILL EVER GET YOUR LICENSE PLATE!".  I said, "you're wrong, Neil Groundwater will get it first try."  Neil is brilliant, but Julie was right about this one :-)   John and Michael HATED the fact that the Taurus had custom tags.  I remember John came home one day after driving the Taurus home as a Junior and said some Senior girl said to him, "hey John, the only custom tags you should have on your car is POS!"  I felt it was important for my boys to appreciate cars by starting out at the bottom - plus it was cheaper to insure :-)

Anyway, back to the story.  On August 28th, 2000 SUNW was trading for $255.62 a share (adjusted for splits).   Sooooo, my 1994 Ford Taurus was worth $1,022,480  (which was 4,000 * $255.62)

I told the story back at a Sun meeting and the funny part of it was  once (years later) I was at a large Sun meeting and this Sun VP gets up there and tells MY STORY.  I raise my hand and say, "I'm the guy.  I STILL OWN that Ford Taurus."


The Taurus was still worth $36,880 when I gave it away.  Do you think I can write it off on my taxes this year? :-)