Luggage Test Supplemental: Welcome to the team Green Bag

For those of you who didn't get a chance to check out the BMW i5 Luggage Test, or just didn't reach the end (oh, I'm soooooo sorry for boring you), you missed the sad news that there was a casualty in the luggage test ranks. 

It was with great sadness that I announced the passing of the Small Blue Roller Bag. I picked it up one day with the top handle and the plastic shell it's attached to broke/ripped apart from its connection at the extending walking handle thingy. It had been my main suitcase for nearly a decade and although I've replaced multiple wheel units over the years after they gave it their all after oh-so-many airport miles, this time the damage was terminal. Pun not intended.

As you can see, I did a bang-up job patching the damage with duct tape so I could take the bag on the press event I was literally about to leave for (it also let me use the bag for this and a few other luggage tests). That, however, was incredibly janky. I would need a new primary suitcase, and although I could certainly keep the small blue roller bag around to maintain continuity for luggage tests, that would mean keeping a bag in my garage ONLY for luggage tests. I rarely use one of the medium black bags as it is. 

Let me now underline that "maintain continuity for luggage tests" bit. Four years and 100+ luggage tests would suddenly no longer be applicable to future ones if I suddenly threw in a totally new variable. These things are unscientific enough as it is. I'm going for Mythbuster Lite here, and throwing in «good enough» just won't cut it. No, I would seek an exactly sized replacement. It would not be easy.

A half-hour trip to the Camarillo Outlet Mall's handful of luggage stores proved fruitless. I brought along the broken-down blue bag for comparison, but nothing I checked out in my price range (under $200) was lining up. Sure, there's a chance some fancy-pants thing could've been the Goldilocks choice, but I didn't bother to check cause I ain't dropping $600 on a suitcase («Neither am I,» added Autoblog Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore. Probably, I'm just assuming). I now dreaded driving and driving and driving throughout the greater L.A. area on a Quixotic endeavor for