goodluckfox
07-16-2012, 02:24 PM
It was 2003. I was riding a bike to work. I didn't have a daily driver after the divorce. My only car was my 68 Pontiac Catalina, and it wasn't in drivable condition... huge quantities of beautiful white smoke indicated Something Was Seriously Wrong with my .30" over 455.
Then came Hurricane Elvis, aka "The Mid South Derecho of 2003". It's on Wikipedia. In addition to 100+ mile an hour straight line winds, it dumped a ton of rain... and one of my coworkers tried to drive his 89 LX-i hatchback through some deep water, and it stalled out.
He knew that I was a car guy, or at least that I worked on my 68 Pontiac. He asked for help. The symptoms were that the clutch would not disengage. I did some research and told him to just bump the ignition. He did, and it worked. But by that time, he had his heart set on a new car, and he came from a pretty wealthy family. Well, compared to me, at any rate. They lived in the nice part of Memphis.
He sold me the car for 900 bucks, and let me pay it off over 3 pay periods and drive it in the meantime.
I had a car.
It was low slung and pointy, and had lots of pep. I named it Zippy. The only thing wrong with it was no AC, and an exhaust leak that made it sound a bit more badass than it probably was. I really enjoyed driving Zippy.
Dad died unexpectedly the next year, and I wound up (a) inheriting his brand new paid-off 2003 Lesabre and (b) going to law school, because I was tired of being poor.
I've since graduated and got a VERY good job. It's embarrassing when I think about how hard Dad worked and how much he made compared to me. But for the fact that I've got six figures of student loans with payments more than most mortgages I would probably go mad with power.
The sanitation worker on my route saw that Zippy had been sitting for a while. I bet the sanitation crews know where all the best cars are. He told me he had a teenage son and was looking for a car for him. I sold him Zippy for four hundred bucks.
Four years have passed now. I'm still driving the Lesabre; it's PAID for, and did I mention six figures of student loans? Besides, I have a wonderful new wife now, and I splurged and bought her a new Honda Fit that I hope to get paid off in a year or so (I hate paying interest, I hate being poor). Thing is, I want something else. The Lesabre is big and comfy with its leather and power everything and functional AC... but I want something else. Something FUN.
Don't get me wrong, the 68 Catalina is a monstrous fire breathing dragon, and I love it dearly; when the secondaries on the carb open up she roars down the highway and I am the envy of most any guy over the age of about 30. :) But she's an automatic vehicle with a low-revving high-torque engine and "wide-trak" 60s era sales literature to the contrary, she doesn't exactly carve through the corners. Lately, she doesn't even do that; rust has gotten to her fuel tank and there are some electrical gremlins that need to be flushed out.
But I remember Zippy... 5-speed in a small light car. I was able to fit everything I owned in it, and it was sooo much fun to drive. I want another just like it, or as much like it as I can find, that I can then build up and modify to my hearts content.
That's when I found out that Zippy was special, since it was the end-of-generation LX-i model. CRAP! Oh well.
But as luck would have it, there's a lady at work who drives a third-gen Accord hatchback. It's only a DX, but it looks just like Zippy... and it has functional AC (critical here in the Deep South). It's a 86 Accord DX hatchback with a 5-speed transmission. Probably about as close to what I'm looking for as I'm going to get.
I sent the lady an email... and she responded that she had just been thinking about selling the car. Sweet!
Even if there's things wrong (it's probably due a timing chain, probably needs CV joints, that type of thing),. I"m pretty sure they can all be fixed.
I'm currently reading through the FAQs here, looking to see what sort of things are reasonably possible. I'd like to soup the car up some, but I really am not interested in doing an engine swap myself, and I don't know yet if the HP/'torque gains are worth it. Maybe I could find some SCCA autocross events, or I could troll the local police by not being what they expect when they pull me over for driving a "punk kid's" car. It'd also make a nice "toad" behind my RV, as soon as THAT projects gets completed (doesn't need much, just lipstick as they say in the real estate biz).
If anyone has advice on what sort of modifications are worthwhile, I'm all ears.
Then came Hurricane Elvis, aka "The Mid South Derecho of 2003". It's on Wikipedia. In addition to 100+ mile an hour straight line winds, it dumped a ton of rain... and one of my coworkers tried to drive his 89 LX-i hatchback through some deep water, and it stalled out.
He knew that I was a car guy, or at least that I worked on my 68 Pontiac. He asked for help. The symptoms were that the clutch would not disengage. I did some research and told him to just bump the ignition. He did, and it worked. But by that time, he had his heart set on a new car, and he came from a pretty wealthy family. Well, compared to me, at any rate. They lived in the nice part of Memphis.
He sold me the car for 900 bucks, and let me pay it off over 3 pay periods and drive it in the meantime.
I had a car.
It was low slung and pointy, and had lots of pep. I named it Zippy. The only thing wrong with it was no AC, and an exhaust leak that made it sound a bit more badass than it probably was. I really enjoyed driving Zippy.
Dad died unexpectedly the next year, and I wound up (a) inheriting his brand new paid-off 2003 Lesabre and (b) going to law school, because I was tired of being poor.
I've since graduated and got a VERY good job. It's embarrassing when I think about how hard Dad worked and how much he made compared to me. But for the fact that I've got six figures of student loans with payments more than most mortgages I would probably go mad with power.
The sanitation worker on my route saw that Zippy had been sitting for a while. I bet the sanitation crews know where all the best cars are. He told me he had a teenage son and was looking for a car for him. I sold him Zippy for four hundred bucks.
Four years have passed now. I'm still driving the Lesabre; it's PAID for, and did I mention six figures of student loans? Besides, I have a wonderful new wife now, and I splurged and bought her a new Honda Fit that I hope to get paid off in a year or so (I hate paying interest, I hate being poor). Thing is, I want something else. The Lesabre is big and comfy with its leather and power everything and functional AC... but I want something else. Something FUN.
Don't get me wrong, the 68 Catalina is a monstrous fire breathing dragon, and I love it dearly; when the secondaries on the carb open up she roars down the highway and I am the envy of most any guy over the age of about 30. :) But she's an automatic vehicle with a low-revving high-torque engine and "wide-trak" 60s era sales literature to the contrary, she doesn't exactly carve through the corners. Lately, she doesn't even do that; rust has gotten to her fuel tank and there are some electrical gremlins that need to be flushed out.
But I remember Zippy... 5-speed in a small light car. I was able to fit everything I owned in it, and it was sooo much fun to drive. I want another just like it, or as much like it as I can find, that I can then build up and modify to my hearts content.
That's when I found out that Zippy was special, since it was the end-of-generation LX-i model. CRAP! Oh well.
But as luck would have it, there's a lady at work who drives a third-gen Accord hatchback. It's only a DX, but it looks just like Zippy... and it has functional AC (critical here in the Deep South). It's a 86 Accord DX hatchback with a 5-speed transmission. Probably about as close to what I'm looking for as I'm going to get.
I sent the lady an email... and she responded that she had just been thinking about selling the car. Sweet!
Even if there's things wrong (it's probably due a timing chain, probably needs CV joints, that type of thing),. I"m pretty sure they can all be fixed.
I'm currently reading through the FAQs here, looking to see what sort of things are reasonably possible. I'd like to soup the car up some, but I really am not interested in doing an engine swap myself, and I don't know yet if the HP/'torque gains are worth it. Maybe I could find some SCCA autocross events, or I could troll the local police by not being what they expect when they pull me over for driving a "punk kid's" car. It'd also make a nice "toad" behind my RV, as soon as THAT projects gets completed (doesn't need much, just lipstick as they say in the real estate biz).
If anyone has advice on what sort of modifications are worthwhile, I'm all ears.