I have had a bunch of cars over the years, some for months, others for years. My friends were like "damn" you've had more cars than anyone. Here are a few different cars I've owned an a little background on them.
1. 1984 Mazda 626
My first car, I bought this 4 door from my man Pandula for $1200 in 1995. I really liked this car, It was loaded (ha). It was silver with burgundy crushed velor interior, 5-speed, power windows, locks, power sunroof, 60-40 folddown rear seats. Although i didn't have this car for long, It was the only car I've had with a sunroof (until now).
2. 1980-? Dodge Aries K
This was my brother's car and I had it on loan when he was in college. Just a Plain Jane beater, a workhorse. These were the ubiquitous box cars that Chrysler stamped out in the 80's. It was light blue (same as pic), with a matching blue crushed velor interior, 4 speed auto trans, front wheel drive, six passenger (bench up front), front wheel drive, blah, blah, blah.
My favorite memory of this car was when I was racing to school one snowy day and I was whipping around this turn in the WB and I fishtailed the rear end right into a mailbox. It was so surreal, it was like a slow motion picture. It was a slight left turn and I felt the rear end start to slip out. I was going like 35, which was probably 15 mph faster than I should have been going. Anyways, I steered the wheels to counter the rear slipping out, but instead of bringing it back to square, the rear end just swung around like a baseball bat and blasted this mailbox, blam. Luckily for me, the car was front wheel drive, so i just drove out of the mail box rubble and went on my way to school.
3. 1981 Toyota Corolla
This car was awesome, I bought this whip for $100 from a tow yard. I got a good 6 months of beating out of it. I bought it in the spring of 1996, sight unseen. I go to pick this beauty up and I'm like, damn, for $100 this thing is sweet. One minor imperfection was the passenger door was screwed shut.
It was a 1.8 liter coupe, white, with a light blue vinyl interior (tastefully worn), slick four speed tranny, tilt up moonroof, rear wheel drive. I need to scan in the pictures I have of this whip, see, stock photo's don't do this car justice.
So I give the guy $100 and drive the car back to my parents house, which is only about 10 miles away. The thing ran good, started right up and shifted and stopped fine, I'm thinking: "aside from looking a little rough, this thing is all right". I get about a mile from my house and the thing starts overheating. I'm thinking, "damn, I'm not even going to get this thing home and it's going to shit the bed." I pull over and let it cool down. I theorize (pray) that it just needs a new thermostat, a $6 part. I was right and we were off to the race tracks.
I beat the hell out of this car: e-brake slides, peel outs, roll backs and countless surfing trips were endured by this car. I had this car for high school graduation and the summer of 1996. Unfortunately, in the fall of '96 she was retired and given a send off complete with a power line party, helmets and brush breaking. A great car, I barely spent any money on it for the whopping, six months I had it.
I remember one day, I was going to work and the clutch cable broke (no clutch) and somehow I made it to work, despite having to go on the highway and navigate a handful of stop signs. It's tough to really describe how amazing (I thought) the feat was, but it was like running the gauntlet, no stopping, cause you stop and you're done.
This car had three distinct identities in a half year.
1. Since the passenger door was screwed shut, whoever sat shotgun would have to pull a Dukes of Hazzard and enter through the window. I painted an 01 on the doors as a tribute to the General Lee. I should have nicknamed it the Corporal Lee.
2.Then one night a bunch of us were at a party at Barry Pinske's art gallery and I decided it would be a good idea, if Barry would paint the car, it would be a work of art. Mind you this was probably at midnight and I was probably 8 cans deep. I go get the car from my house and I'm back at the party in like 10 minutes, tops, I get there and there's like 15-20 revelers, all with spray paint cans. Pinske is nowhere in sight. They tagged the shit out of it and make it look like a clown car. Pinske did show up to sign the bumper, as if to give his seal of approval. The thing was wrecked, I knew I would have to repaint it before I could drive on the streets. This pic I found on the internet isn't too far off from what it looked like.
3. Brown tops and white sides, with a roller. I painted over the spray paint nonsense with a nice thick coat of chocolate brown (oil base) house paint on the hood, roof and trunk, then I gave the sides a nice overcoat of white wood primer. I did keep the Pinske signature on the bumper.
