Weekly Sightings

Well hello again everyone. I apologize for the lag in service, but believe me, I have been plenty busy with school and other things. On this Sunday morning I'd like to introduce something new. From now on, I'll have a weekly series highlighting the interesting cars and car-related things I see on a daily basis. Due to the nature of modern technology and my own personality, I usually end up taking pictures of many automotive things that catch my eye. Here are a few of them.

You need not be too keen of a viewer to recognize this gem. It is of course a second generation Mazda RX-7; a car that I've always been rather fond of. Sadly, however, many of these Mazdas (produced from 1987 to 1992) have fallen into disrepair. This one is no exception. It makes me happy to see that it's still out and about though

Next up is another classic. I spotted this one in front of YourPie and had to snap a couple of pictures for my dad. From the time period that brought us Journey and the cassette tape, we also have the Honda Civic. Obviously, this was not the first generation, but it's old enough to be a rare sight in any condition.

In addition to interesting cars, I also like to capture interesting vanity plates. Here in Georgia they call them "prestige" plates and for an extra $55 a year, whatever fits within the seven character limit, isn't already taken, and is deemed acceptable by the government is free to display on the back of your car. With that information it is certainly easy to see why most vanity plates either end up as something only the owner can understand or something that is blindly obvious or mind-numbingly stupid. That being said, every now and then, a truly clever vanity plate pops up. It took me a minute to get this one, but once I did, I congratulated the owner on his thoughtfulness.

Taking a step back to the uncommon, I just had to get a picture of this. Second only to the Honda Civic (probably) in the super-modified-import-tuner-whatever-you-want-to-call-it category has always been the Nissan 240SX. Highly uncommon are those occasions where you do come across a stock one in nice condition, and this car was one of those exceptions.

Way back in the day Chevrolet used to be synonymous with the muscle car movement. Chevelles, Novas, and Camaros blasted down the drag strips and desolate streets of sleeping towns, and most of these aforementioned models carried the coveted SS badge. SS is of course a Chevrolet staple and was once used to denote only its most highly-coveted models. Nowadays, though, the SS badge, along with some big alloys and different bumpers, can be slapped on any Chevrolet vehicle. Case and point, this Malibu SS I discovered. At first I thought it was someone's homemade attempt at an SS, but no. Apparently this was in fact a production model. Oh the shame.

This brings us to today, which was absolutely beautiful. Sunny, 75, and slightly breezy; the perfect day for a convertible. And sure enough, I came across a very nice example of a proper roadster. This S2000 was not only finished in the appropriate Grand Prix White, but it also sat lowered on some lovely wheels.

My last sighting of the week is one that is not all that exciting, however I do believe it's pretty rare. Of all the new BMWs I see on the roads, I have only ever seen a few wagons. This is one of those few, a black 3 series with an impressive roof rack.

Well that appears to be all for this week. If you enjoyed this, be sure to tune in next week. You are also welcomed to send in some of your own street sightings if you so wish; I would really appreciate it and it would be included in my next blog post!

The Illustrious Life of a Painfully Average Japanese Compact Sedan

I've never been one to keep a diary. That's not to say I haven't tried, of course. But the common trend when it comes to things like these in my life is to end up failing to see the point in continuing and, soon after, giving up. You see keeping a diary, to me, seems like a brilliant idea. Give a fairly detailed summary of your daily life so that years on you're able to flip straight to a page and suddenly have all those memories rush back to you. But like I said, I've never been able to keep up with such a thing.

Luckily, though, I have something that's been able to keep record of some of my best high school memories (through pictures mostly). You've probably seen several of these trusty eco-friendly machines from Honda today alone, but this one holds more sentimental value for me then any other car I've owned since. Okay, so I've only owned one other car since; that's not the point. The point is, this was the car that saw me through those tough and in my case, sometimes crazy, teenage years of driving.

I'm honestly very thankful my parents didn't let me pick out my first car, because, if we're being honest, I had some very questionable dream cars run through my head for those first few years of driving. Chevy Tahoe, BMW 528i, and Mazda RX-7 are just a few examples. I'm also thankful they gave me a car whose performance figures were working hard to keep me out of trouble. Mind you, that didn't always end up being the case.

These early pictures take me back to when I first got my driver's license. Being a teenager, I didn't really have anywhere to go, but that certainly didn't stop me from going places. I had my little blue Honda and I was going to make the best of it. One the first things I did was venture to the Honda forums and soon after I was attempting my first mod, if you can even call it that: VHT Niteshades. For those of you who don't recognize the name, it's basically special spray paint you buy to black-out your tail lights. Yep, I certainly fell victim to that trend.

Logically, the next thing to come along were the stickers, a few of which still remain on the car today. My next biggest step though were the wheels, which changed colors more often than I changed clothing styles. These wheels were very cheap and a year or so down the line, it became apparent why they had been priced so low. For one thing, they were heavier than the car itself, causing a notable drop in its already-limited performance. Another realization, which was quite a bit more shocking, was that one of them had a crack running along the inside lip. We finally got rid of them about a year ago and have been running the stock wheels since.

As the visual mods started piling on, I was soon eager to see if I could replicate some things I'd seen on YouTube. Chief among these was tray sliding. Since I was cursed with the menace known as front wheel drive, I decided I needed to find some way to have fun, aside from doing burnouts, of course. Naturally, I went back to YouTube, where I happily found many of my fellow FWD commrades who had been much more inventive than I. By that, I mean they had gone to McDonalds, stolen a couple plastic trays, then put them under their rear wheels and locked the handbrake, effectively making something that in no way resembled a rear wheel drive car. But I loved the idea.

Luckily I already had a venue in mind. It was an old drag strip that had been closed down for years, but was still open from the street if you knew where to look. So I gathered some friends, carried out an interesting tray heist, and headed to the drag strip. The day was filled with automotive shenanigans including, of course, tray sliding, but also drag racing against a Honda Odyssey, letting friends who didn't know how to drive stick drive the Civic, and slaloming through some stolen traffic cones.

During its last stage of regular usage by me, the Civic was used for pizza delivery. Papa Johns had hired me when I was seventeen, meaning I had the miserable task of "insider" for a whole year before I could work solely as a part-time delivery driver. Finally, the day had come and I was ready. About 20,000 miles later, the Honda had permanently retained the smell of "(mostly) Better Ingredients, (mostly) Better Pizza." It was an excellent job though and a 1998 Honda Civic with 290,000 miles was really the only car you could sensibly do it in.

Throughout my life I've always been attached to cars. Whether it be my dad's 1969 Camaro, my 1998 Civic, or the car I have now. Some people keep diaries, some keep photo albums, but I keep my memories in a car. In fact, in every car. And I believe that every car holds memories for people. At least, I hope so.