iRoadster
12-29-2011, 02:58 AM
The details of my Roadster life is quite inconsequential, and so is this build.
I wouldn't really call it a build anyways.
I do not have this car in my possession to get on trendy blogs or magazine covers.
I am not here to push the boundaries of what can be done to a car.
I am not a track god.
This is just my car.
I have a habit of running away with my words a bit, so bare with me if this becomes an expansively worded posts.
What had started as a way to just get back on the road after not having a car for four years has slowly become an addiction of which I hope there is no cure.
Previously in life I had been driving and for the most part, enjoying a decent 1986 VW Mk2 GTi which I got my senior year of high school. Many of my classmates had VW's as well.
It was the late 90's and everyone was bumping A Tribe Called Quest out of their Jettas like it was going out of style. Which was ironic because it was going out of style.
But I'll leave the downfall from the epicness of the 90's for another time.
This was the first car of my own after driving my brothers standard '86 Mk2 Golf and prior to that an 1981 (might have been '82, I can't recall) Toyota Tercel hatchback of which I first learned how to drive.
The GTi was something else to me though. It was teenage freedom in a red metal box with wheels under it.
I drove it to hell and back, and it drug me around during some of the craziest and most bittersweet times of my life.
As I had a car that had magazines solely devoted to them I started wanting to do things to it.
Part went on, parts came off. Some things were great, others were hideous examples of what not to do.
At one time I had a huge bandpass box with two 10" subs for cruising, which slowly turned into the car being completely stripped save for the driver's seat for back road bombing runs.
Some people I've known or read of go through a dozen cars a year. I would probably still have the thing if I hadn't moved to a place where I didn't need a car so I only had it for a short five years.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1010104-1.jpg
I still see it every year or so on the road so it's still nice to know it's still around. Seems to still be owned by the same person that it got sold to.
Around 2005 I moved down to Portland, OR and needed money and no real need for a car so I parted with it.
Skip ahead a few years and I've moved back home to Olympia. It's now 2007 and I'm in need of a new car.
Having the GTi opened up a world of Grassroots Motorsports, old format Top Gear, car shows, internet trends and a cacophony of other petrolheaded influences.
What it came down to for me was to have another best bang for the buck car. But what would that be?
As much as I liked the GTi I also had destroyed the thing and been exposed to all of the flaws those cars came with. From being impressed and starstruck in the beginning I had become rather jaded by VW over the years.
From their reliability to their followers to FWD cars in general. VW was out of the question for my next car.
I had wanted an Corolla GTS even before I first was introduced to Initial D back around 2001, but being that it was now 2007 that was out of the question.
All GTS had subsequently been bought up, wrecked, or were so overpriced due to the hype of the show that they had become unicorn cars.
I was still pretty unfamiliar with Nissan and didn't even think to consider them at the time so I passed up 240's and the like. EG Civic Si? No, that'll get stolen.
I didn't really have anywhere left to look but Mazda. M'eh, save the best for last I guess.
The Miata had always blown me away every since my Gran Turismo 2 days. They were more than affordable. They're a helluva lot more reliable than any Volkswagen. It's rear wheel drive, small and nerdy.
Of all the things I figured the internet should teach people, it should be that Miata are one of the best bang for the buck cars ever made. And unsurprisingly I was not alone.
Actually getting behind the wheel of one though ended up being one of my biggest and most regrettable auto related mistakes I've ever made.
In my haste to get a Miata I ended up with an unrepairable lemon of a car. Which was a real shame because it used to be a nice Laguna Blue NA with a flawless tan leather interior.
The catch was that it was wrecked, and the god dammed con artist I got it from lied about it's condition. Making it way over budget for myself to get it fixed.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030552.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030654.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030537.jpg
I had already started searching and acquiring parts for it, some of which would eventually be transferred to my current car.
The blue car sat and sat with no hope of being rescued be myself, and it would eventually be sold off to someone making a Locost racer. Who knows what happened to it after that.
Enough reminiscing already, let's get to the Miata that works already! It was December and Miatas were all over the market internet or otherwise.
Not wanting to give up on Mazda I found a Chaste White 1995 NA with a hardtop belonging to a retired Boeing employee.
He was getting on in age and it was getting hard for him to use a low slung sports car.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030799.jpg
So I now had this in place of the wrecked Laguna. Bog standard save for a silly style bar. Naturally that came off on the first day of owning the car.
The car bug which I had carried no symptoms of for numerous years came reeling back with the ferocity of a genital herpes outbreak.
The car would never be the same.
I wouldn't really call it a build anyways.
I do not have this car in my possession to get on trendy blogs or magazine covers.
I am not here to push the boundaries of what can be done to a car.
I am not a track god.
This is just my car.
I have a habit of running away with my words a bit, so bare with me if this becomes an expansively worded posts.
What had started as a way to just get back on the road after not having a car for four years has slowly become an addiction of which I hope there is no cure.
Previously in life I had been driving and for the most part, enjoying a decent 1986 VW Mk2 GTi which I got my senior year of high school. Many of my classmates had VW's as well.
It was the late 90's and everyone was bumping A Tribe Called Quest out of their Jettas like it was going out of style. Which was ironic because it was going out of style.
But I'll leave the downfall from the epicness of the 90's for another time.
This was the first car of my own after driving my brothers standard '86 Mk2 Golf and prior to that an 1981 (might have been '82, I can't recall) Toyota Tercel hatchback of which I first learned how to drive.
The GTi was something else to me though. It was teenage freedom in a red metal box with wheels under it.
I drove it to hell and back, and it drug me around during some of the craziest and most bittersweet times of my life.
As I had a car that had magazines solely devoted to them I started wanting to do things to it.
Part went on, parts came off. Some things were great, others were hideous examples of what not to do.
At one time I had a huge bandpass box with two 10" subs for cruising, which slowly turned into the car being completely stripped save for the driver's seat for back road bombing runs.
Some people I've known or read of go through a dozen cars a year. I would probably still have the thing if I hadn't moved to a place where I didn't need a car so I only had it for a short five years.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1010104-1.jpg
I still see it every year or so on the road so it's still nice to know it's still around. Seems to still be owned by the same person that it got sold to.
Around 2005 I moved down to Portland, OR and needed money and no real need for a car so I parted with it.
Skip ahead a few years and I've moved back home to Olympia. It's now 2007 and I'm in need of a new car.
Having the GTi opened up a world of Grassroots Motorsports, old format Top Gear, car shows, internet trends and a cacophony of other petrolheaded influences.
What it came down to for me was to have another best bang for the buck car. But what would that be?
As much as I liked the GTi I also had destroyed the thing and been exposed to all of the flaws those cars came with. From being impressed and starstruck in the beginning I had become rather jaded by VW over the years.
From their reliability to their followers to FWD cars in general. VW was out of the question for my next car.
I had wanted an Corolla GTS even before I first was introduced to Initial D back around 2001, but being that it was now 2007 that was out of the question.
All GTS had subsequently been bought up, wrecked, or were so overpriced due to the hype of the show that they had become unicorn cars.
I was still pretty unfamiliar with Nissan and didn't even think to consider them at the time so I passed up 240's and the like. EG Civic Si? No, that'll get stolen.
I didn't really have anywhere left to look but Mazda. M'eh, save the best for last I guess.
The Miata had always blown me away every since my Gran Turismo 2 days. They were more than affordable. They're a helluva lot more reliable than any Volkswagen. It's rear wheel drive, small and nerdy.
Of all the things I figured the internet should teach people, it should be that Miata are one of the best bang for the buck cars ever made. And unsurprisingly I was not alone.
Actually getting behind the wheel of one though ended up being one of my biggest and most regrettable auto related mistakes I've ever made.
In my haste to get a Miata I ended up with an unrepairable lemon of a car. Which was a real shame because it used to be a nice Laguna Blue NA with a flawless tan leather interior.
The catch was that it was wrecked, and the god dammed con artist I got it from lied about it's condition. Making it way over budget for myself to get it fixed.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030552.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030654.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030537.jpg
I had already started searching and acquiring parts for it, some of which would eventually be transferred to my current car.
The blue car sat and sat with no hope of being rescued be myself, and it would eventually be sold off to someone making a Locost racer. Who knows what happened to it after that.
Enough reminiscing already, let's get to the Miata that works already! It was December and Miatas were all over the market internet or otherwise.
Not wanting to give up on Mazda I found a Chaste White 1995 NA with a hardtop belonging to a retired Boeing employee.
He was getting on in age and it was getting hard for him to use a low slung sports car.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh279/iRoadster/My%20Photography/Cars/P1030799.jpg
So I now had this in place of the wrecked Laguna. Bog standard save for a silly style bar. Naturally that came off on the first day of owning the car.
The car bug which I had carried no symptoms of for numerous years came reeling back with the ferocity of a genital herpes outbreak.
The car would never be the same.