Two Cars

Ignoring the fact that the situation with Vern and Grace is both highly unlikely and somewhat disturbing, I believe that the car Vern is driving is Vern’s Volvo. Even though the car he is driving is no longer the car that he bought 20 years ago, the car is still his Volvo, assuming that all of the new parts are Volvo parts. The individual parts are not the car, but all of them together make up Vern’s car. The car does not become something else just because one part is replaced. Even if one part is replaced hundreds of times, it still remains the same. As long as only the one part is changed, the car stays the same, because the one part that was replaced did not make up the car. This new vehicle is Vern’s car, or at least what Vern’s car has become.

The other car can’t be Vern’s Volvo because it is not actually a car. In the same way that a pile of boards is not a house, the other car is nothing more than a pile of parts that came from Vern’s car. It can’t even be considered Vern’s car because Vern can’t treat it like a car. Can Vern drive the heap of parts? Can he make insurance payments on it? Can he hold a title for it? Of course he can’t, partly because he doesn’t even know it exists, but mostly because it is not even enough of a car to be considered his Volvo.

The heap of parts may be the parts from the car Vern originally bought, but they no longer make up his car. While the car he drives now does not contain any original parts, to Vern, it is his car and the only car he has known for the past 20 years. If he were asked which his car was, he would most likely say that the car he is driving is his Volvo. After all, he has no memories with the pile of parts while the other car is special to him. It is the car he has driven everywhere, the car he filled with gas, and the car that he had to take to Grace’s Garage several times over the 20 years.