"CodyVella" (codyvella)
11/20/2015 at 03:14 • Filed to: None
5
1|
"CodyVella" (codyvella)
11/20/2015 at 03:14 • Filed to: None | 5
| 1 |
My high school cars were all over the map. I started out in Grade 11 with a 1992 Pontiac Sunbird SE Coupe. The car was a hand-me-down from my dad, who claimed it was too bad on gas for his liking. It had GMs 3.1L LH0 V6 that managed to find its way into basically every 90s GM vehicle ever made , and that was mated to a 3 speed automatic that was optimal for just about nothing.
All things considered though, I absolutely loved the car. It was reasonably quick as long as you didn’t ask it to turn. I have a soft spot for the dash and instrument cluster on these cars. I loved the massive tach that swept from the 5 o’clock position up to 2 o’clock. It even had a volts and oil pressure gauges! Ultimately the head gasket and heater core simultaneously shit the bed at 220,000kms. So the only logical thing to do was rip all the body panels off and rally it through a field on my friends farm until one of us rolled it (which I did).
After the Sunbird parted ways with Ontario’s public roads, I had saved up $2500, and figured the best thing to do was purchase a Pontiac Fiero, because I assume this is what all sixteen year olds think is the smartest life choice they can make. Unfortunately, my parents had other plans. They told me whatever I bought had to have enough seats for me to take both my sisters to school with me. So what did I come up with for $2500? A 1984 Porsche 944 that was on a salvage title!
I picked it up from a local Porsche salvage yard in October of grade 12. It was beat up, the interior was destroyed it was covered in dents, and had four very bald Firestone Firehawk tires on it. But I didn’t care, it was a Porsche, and it was sold to me with a valid Safety Certificate (That was 100% done by a blind man). I learned how to respect cars,and their abilities in this leaky death trap. I managed to put a total of 45,000kms on this baby before the maintenance bill totaled a used Cayman, and thus it too left Ontario roads for good (But not until mu second year of university). However, this car is still around. She lives beside my garage where I harvest parts off of it for my other ‘84 944 that I picked up a year later for a whopping $900 (it needed a new DME. That’s it), which I still drive to this day. So 6 years on, and this car still lives in a bush, beside my garage.
There is one other car, one incredibly short lived car. Because of the hell that is a central Ontario snow-belt winter, I couldn’t drive my 944 from November-April of grade 12, so I was given a severely beat down 1998 Dodge Neon Sport from my dad. It had done 492,000kms, the heat was stuck on defrost, the a/c was shot, the high beams didn’t work, one rear shock was blown right through the strut tower, the SRS light was on, always, the piston rings were shot, and it puked blue smoke whenever you stood on the gas, you had to stand on the gas to accelerate, the speedo was busted, but if you smacked the dash really hard it would work, until you hit a bump, the gas gauge was stuck at half, the wipers only worked on intermittent, and the exhaust was falling off. BUT THE EMISSIONS TEST WAS STILL VALID FOR ANOTHER YEAR! So I got to roll it over half a million, and push that sucker right on up to 519,000kms. At which point my dad STILL MANAGED TO SELL THAT PIECE OF SHIT FOR $500. But because of this car, I firmly believe that the first generation Neon is one of the toughest little shitboxes to roam North American roads. I even put mine in a ditch.
Added Bonus: I was the only friend in my group who didn’t end up with a 240SX by graduation. Although I am the only one of us who still owns a sports car...
DoYouEvenShift
> CodyVella
11/20/2015 at 07:37 |
|
I also had a hand me down Sunbird. It was a convertible with a 2.0 sohc auto. I really didnt drive it much. It was a winter beater mainly. Thing was a tank, it would not die! A full tank of has would last forever. Best thing about it, it was unstopable in the snow, I couldnt believe it. I loved that thing, finally sold it to a friend that needed it more than I did. Miss that car, it was as awesome as much as it was terrible.