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1986 Ford Festiva
(1992-1995)

This car was originally owned by a little old couple who towed it around behind their RV and used it on vacations. It had somewhere around 45,000 miles when I purchased it, and had around 160,000 when it finally died, so I certainly got my $3000 out of this puppy.

I added 2 Lanzar 12″s in a box, picked up a Coustic 180 amp to push them, and powered it all from the stock tape deck. Not bad for starters. In a car with such little airspace, the 12″s would rattle your brain pretty good. Of course in ’92, CD’s were getting pretty big, so I added a CD Walkman hooked up to the tape player.

That was an okay system, but there were some things I didn’t like. One, tape player. Two, CD Walkman would always skip if you turned it up too loud. 3, not enough power. These were all corrected in “system #2″ in the Festiva. Sold the Lanzar 12″s to a friend (mistake – those were great woofers) and bought 2 Crunch 15″s. I bought an isoberic box to put them in. Put in 4 6″ speakers for mids. Put in a Sony CDX-4040 CD player in the dash. Pushed the 15′s with a Fosgate Punch 100 amp bridged, and the 4 mids with the Coustic 180 amp.

This was the configuration when my car got BROKEN INTO. I lost everything – speakers, amps, tapes, cd’s … The police report said that the value of everything was around $1300. I also had a cheap car alarm on this car and somehow they stole it too.

I drove the Festiva for another couple of years. I put the stock tape player back into it, and hooked the stock speakers back up. One day while driving to work, the timing chain broke. It in turn broke the camshaft off in the came, and tore up the entire upper end of the engine. Estimated cost to fix was $1300, blue book value on car was $800. Sold the car as-is for $100 and a six-pack of tacos to a co-worker.

One time I wrecked this car while delivering a pizza. Knocked the transmission out of the engine. Turns out it pops back in, no tools needed. Took a week or so to figure this out though. Scott Bailey’s dad (who was a mechanic at the local Ford dealership) finally gave us the knowledge.

1985 Honda Sabre 700
Purchased Summer, 1995
Sold Summer, 2003

I bought this as a toy to ride around town, not as a primary vehicle. It always ran and drove good. It’s not the fastest 700 I ever drove, but it got me around and got good mileage too.

When Susan and I were living in our trailer, we had a high wind storm, and the bike got knocked over. It broke the windshield, blinker, and bent the clutch handle. I fixed the clutch handle and blinker, but was unable to fix the windshield, as it was for a Vedder fairing which was no longer made. I sold this motorcycle for a couple hundred bucks and an electric guitar.

1984 Buick Regal
Purchased Spring, 1990

Unfortunately at this time in my life, I was all into hot rods. Not that that’s a bad thing, but this was a really nice car and I just hated it because of it’s looks. This puppy had the 2.6 liter V6 along with the a turbo charger, so it would get up and scoot. Unfortunately it was tan and I just didn’t like the way it looked. Oh well. I didn’t do a single thing to this car while I owned it. I should have listened to my parents and kept this car for a long time.

1983 Monte Carlo
Purchased in 1992

Hmmmmm … You ever look back and wonder what you were thinking? For some reason, I ended up trading the Firebird (which admittedly was getting in bad shape) to a guy for a Monte Carlo (which was in worse shape). Although the Monte Carlo was originally white, the majority of the color scheme consisted of red primer, grey primer, and tan bondo … yeah, it was a beauty.

I had a lot of fun destroying this car. It turns out it’s not that expensive to have your muffler and pipes welded back on after spinning out of control on a dirt road, going backwards into a ditch, and having the entire exhaust system removed for you. At least it got decent mileage. I drove this car for a little while and was going to fix it up but never did. I drove it for a while but was disappointed with the perfomance and the mileage. I don’t even think this piece of crap had a radio.

One time, my friend (while riding in the passenger seat) asked how fast you can go down a dirt road before losing control. The answer was 47mph. At 48mph, we began spinning and I ended up dumping the car in a ditch backwards, completely removing the exhaust system. That’s how we determined the answer was 47mph.

After getting my Festiva, I sold this car for $200 to a pizza delivery driver I worked with. He drove it for about 6 months before it broke down in a Wal-Mart parking lot. They left it there.

1980 Yamaha Virago 750
Purchased Spring, 1990

This Yamaha was one bad little bike. It was pretty quick on the road, but not compared to Ninjas and Katanas. It had an electric starter and nice mags. I think I paid $400 for this bike, and it ran for quite a while. This bike was easy on the pocket book, and easy on the insurance (after the Mustang incident, I needed a break in the bills!). I sold this bike for $400 and the guy that bought it really fixed it up and make it look great, something I never did.

1980 Suzuki GSX 750
Purchased Summer, 1991

This bike was a piece of work. Apparently the guy that owned it before me used to drag race it all the time – it had been slightly lowered, stretched, and stripped of weight. This GSX would do 100mph in the blink of an eye, but I didn’t have the guts (or maybe I had the brains) to not try much faster. It also did 0-50 mph in about 3 1/2 seconds (with my friend on the back, counting!)

One day I was driving home from Grandy’s and heard this clunking noise. Then when I looked down a rod poked out of the engine. That’s not good. Turns out motorcycles need oil too. Learned another lesson that day.

1979 Mustang
Purchased Summer, 1989

This American icon was purchased for $1000 by my parents for me as my first car. This car had 2 problems, which led to it’s eventual demise. Problem number one, is that it had 160,000 miles when we bought it. Problem number 2, it had me as a driver.

With it’s bossy 302-V8 (5.0 liter) engine under the hood, I had *NO* problem getting into trouble in this baby. Just ask my friend Andy about the time I high centered it on a parking block behind Mazzio’s. Or about the time we lost all my hubcaps from doing doughnuts in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and had to buy one back from some bratty kid. Or the time we jumped it off of the Council Road interstate exit … Whee!

I think that one time when I jumped it, I messed up the oil pump, because I shortly afterwards lost oil pressure. Dad swapped out oil pumps for me, but to no avail. When the engine finally went, dad put a 351 Cleveland into this bad boy. That lasted about 2 days until I twisted the transmission while doing a power stall. Dad decided it was about time to get rid of the Mustang. Probably a good idea. The only custom things I did to this car was I replaced the stock stereo with a Jensen tape player, and added 2 Jensen 6×9′s in the back. This was really before my stereo craze. Oh, and dad and I painted a black stripe down the center of the hood. I can’t remember why.

No photo … yet!

1979 Formula Firebird
Purcahsed Fall, 1990

Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about! This lean, mean, racing machine was a LOT of fun to drive and destroy. Complete with the Formula Firebird sticker package and a lead foot supplied by me, this Pontiac tore up the streets and my driving record along with it.

This is the car that I started experimenting with car stereos in. I added a Jensen tape player, a Roadmaster amp (woo woo!), and 2 Pyramid 15′s in a box build to go behind a truck seat. Who cared, we just set it in the back seat! Even better, it was made of particle board, so it was always leaving chunks of wood and crap in my car. The woofers had no bass whatsoever and people used to call me the “Treble Rebel”. I also replaced the rear 6×9′s with some Sony’s I believe.

One day the engine started knocking — probably due to a complete lack of car care on my part, Anyway, I ended up trading it straight across for a piece of crap Monte Carlo that was so ugly you wouldn’t believe it (more on it later). The guy that got the Firebird sanded the whole thing down to restore it and blew the engine a month later. But that’s later in the story.

1972 VW Kit Car Dune Buggy
Purchased Fall, 1994

Bought this car for $2400 – actually it was $1800, and with 23% interest on my car loan, it boosted it to $2400 for 2 years – in other words, $100 a month. You know how people brag about how many options their cars have? Well this one had NONE. It had 2 gauges (fuel and speedometer) and 2 switches (headlights and wipers). That’s it. No roof, no windows, no doors … just a big blue plastic tub with a windshield and some 5 point seatbelts.

Had this car for a little over a month, when something blew in the engine. I had to go to work that night, so I left it by the side of the interstate. Came back the next day, and it was gone. No trace. Wasn’t impounded, wasn’t moved, just … gone.

The best part of this story is that I didn’t have insurance on it, so even though I only drove it for a month and a half, I got to make car payments on it for two years.

Yes, I have learned many lessons the hard way.

2006 Chevy Avalanche
Purchased November 28, 2005

Susan and I have been discussing buying a new vehicle for a while now. I decided on this, a Chevy Avalanche. The interior (from the bed forward) is the same as a Suburban, meaning full size seating for both front and rear passengers. The bed is 5’3″ long, but the rear seats fold down extending the bed into the cab, extending its length to 8’1″. Pretty cool.

It’s black, has the 5.3 liter engine (Chevy’s 327), and came with lots of neat little features (and a tow hitch). When I drove it off the lot Monday, it had 17 miles on it.

We are now planning on selling the Tracker and the Rodeo. The Tracker has 140,000 miles and the Rodeo has just under 100,000.