My Car History

My first personal car was a 5 speed manual 2001 Toyota Celica. The car was absolutely brilliant, I could throw it into a turn at any speed with the revs wound out to over 7000 rpms, and still end up getting 30 miles to the gallon. After plenty of research I realized a could never get the straight line performance I desired out of the car, so I left it stock and enjoyed the car for a couple years. The Celica was certainly one of the best starter cars I could imagine, but I lusted after torque, something it could never reliably give me even with extensive modification. I had a buyer lined up with $5,500 cash to buy the car, when my parents surprised me with $6,000 to sell the car to them. This meant I would get a new one, and still occasionally get to drive my first ever car!

One day my friend called me and asked if I could go check on his dog because he hadn't been able to let him out all day. I got to his house and had the strange urge to get on his computer and check some local listings, and to my surprise I found the most beautiful Nissan 350z I had ever seen, and right in my price range! 3 days later I was driving it home, but not without problems. The car was by no means in perfect shape, it had been wrecked and cheaply fixed, something that haunted me for the next two years of ownership. The stock leather seats were ripped up, the previous owner had torqued on the wrong size lug nuts so the wheels weren't tightly fastened, it was missing a transmission mount, all four brake calipers were missing a mounting bolt, and man was it dirty, but it was mine.

Two years and 25,000 miles later, the time for another car was approaching quickly. I mentioned to my family that I wanted to sell the car, and promptly everything started going wrong with the vehicle. Transmission started grinding, radio went dead, exhaust broke, replacement exhaust broke, everything. It was officially time to get rid of the car. I met with a potential buyer, who test drove the car and absolutely loved it. His only request was "can I take it to auto zone to make sure there are no codes?" This wasn't a problem, after all, the car had never thrown a CEL for me in the time I owned it. Boy did I have another thing coming, six, yes SIX codes were thrown ON THE WAY TO THE AUTO ZONE. That knocked a grand off the selling price, but he still bought the car. 

A month or so later, I was still without a car, and still dead-set on a Z06 corvette. Every time I would find a good candidate, it would sell out from underneath me before I got to pull the trigger. I fell in love with the Speedway white corvette when I found one relatively close to me, but it was scooped up the day before I was scheduled to take a look. After a two hour drive to purchase a nice silver Z06 ended up a flop, I got a phone call from the dealership (coincidentally within 5 miles of the first one) with the Speedway white Z06 -- the financing had fallen through, and it was back available for me to buy! Within ten minutes I was at the dealership, and an hour later I was driving home in my brand new Corvette!

More details on each car to follow,

Happy motoring!