Caffeine and Gasoline

Here’s the thing about caffeine:

Thanks to dictionary.com we know that one of the definitions of Ritual is “observance of set forms in public worship.” As car guys, we do this almost every weekend. I am talking about the ritual of combining caffeine and gasoline; I am talking about…Cars and Coffee.

 

When I was young, Saturday mornings were filled with cartoons, sports, and of course shows about cars. Numerous times, these shows would travel across the country and even around the world to different Cars and Coffee events.  Some of these events are even so large that they have become internationally famous, and a must stop is you are a car guy. I’m talking about places like cars and coffee Irvine, where normal car guys like us and rub elbows with celebrities such as Jay Leno and Tim Allen. But the great thing is that this is not just limited to long running events.

This past March, the long running Amelia Island concourse held it first cars and coffee. This allowed just normal run of the mill cars guys the opportunity to show off their pride and joys on the same plots of grass that would host some of the rarest and most expensive cars less than 24 hours later. And it let you rub elbows with some great people. People like Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann and Barry Meguiar.

I guess what I’m trying to say here in my rambling is that no matter how the auto industry changes through the years; and no matter how expensive a cup of Joe costs at that place with the green sign; no matter how many weird looks we get or the snarky comments made; we will always love to just stand in a parking lot and talk about what makes us smile. And we will stand there in the summer heat with an iced coffee of the cool fall weather up north with a hot chocolate.

And that the thing about cars. And coffee.

- Devlin

Into the Fire...

Here's the thing,

I'm a salesman who is also an automotive enthusiast. So enthusiastic, in fact, that I've recently decided to leave my cushy inside sales position for the wild world of car sales. It's a move that, I admit, makes me look a bit crazy. However, it's the right one for me for a couple reasons.


First off, I'm in sales already. I have been for the past year or so. As anyone can tell you, it's a messy business, doesn't matter what you're selling. For me, for the sake of professionalism, let's just say I sell "insurance". So why not use the opportunity to combine my passion of cars with my ongoing career field? I make sales, I work the prices, sometimes I even hold onto pricing that I could pass onto the customer. I don't always feel good about it, but it's part of the job. In retail, businesses do the same thing. People just get upset when salespeople do it because you can't get to the checkout in PetSmart and haggle over the price of cat cans.

Secondly, I just love cars. I've never, in the whole year that I've worked my current job, gotten fired up about the product I'm selling. It's probably because it's one of those things that could be considered a necessary evil. People hate talking about it. Even my prospects, who have the opportunity to make or save money with what I offer aren't excited to talk about it. Instead, cars make people happy. Even the people who see a car as simply a tool or means of transportation, even those people enjoy buying cars. Anyone who says they don't is a liar. I get it, everyone hate's spending money. But when you first open the door, smell that new car smell, and turn the key for the first time after signing the paperwork, it's an experience. To me, it's always felt like sliding into a bath that is just the right temperature. It's the home you never knew you missed.

I want to be a part of that for people.

So that brings us to the obvious. The hours can suck, and sometimes you have to make deals you're not comfortable with. Of course, that doesn't even begin to touch the 100's of different types of difficult buyers that are out there. But to me, that doesn't matter. I grew up in a car-loving family. I can't wait for the first time I get to sell someone a Christmas present for their daughter with the big red bow, or a graduation gift for themselves and put on the Alma-Matter tag bracket around the plates. To me, that's what it's all about. And I'll take that over a headset and a salary any day.

And that, that's the thing.

- Shawn

Vehicles We Often Overlook - Memorial Day Special

Editors Note - Happy Memorial Day to all of our veterans, active duty soldiers, and families of both. One of our writers, Jeremy, is currently in the Army, and wanted to do a military vehicle themed piece. Here it is, and thank you for your service Jeremy.

It’s Memorial day. And seeing as how I am in the military, I wanted to write something specific for the military, and the branch I serve in, the Army. Specifically, that thing is our wartime vehicles that help keep us soldiers alive. There are a lot of vehicles we have used, but there are 3 that have been used very consistently since their inception and the start of the war. Those vehicles are the MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle), the Stryker, and the Armored Security Vehicle. The last one, the ASV, is unique in the regards that only Military Police soldiers use it.

The MRAP family of vehicles came about because too many people were getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we didn't have a general purpose vehicle for everyone. ASV’s were for the MP’s, and Strykers belonged to the Stryker Brigades. Not every unit had Bradley’s. The local insurgencies realized they couldn’t really go toe to toe with a large, well equipped, and organized army, so they decided to resort to some hardcore guerilla tactics. There of course were other vehicles that we used, I mean we had the M1 Abrams tanks, and the Bradley Assault vehicle. But we had to take them out of Iraq because it caused too much collateral damage. So after the heavy armor left, we rolled with the MRAP, the Stryker, and the ASV.

I have the most experience with MRAPs. I rode in them a bunch of times, and there are a bunch of different designs for the MRAP and the Stryker’s. The most common I saw and rode in were the Maxxpro’s and MRAP Cougars. Let me tell you, these things are pretty nice rides. Of course they weigh in at around 14 tons, but the vast majority of that is from the armor it has on it. It also has a nice design on the bottom. It’s curved like the top of a roof so if something blows up undearneath it, it rolls the explosion off to the sides, instead of directly underneath it and destroying everything inside. They do their job and they do it well. According to Wikipedia, no service members died in 2004 in any of these. Even with more then 300 IED explosions. The insurgencies realized this though, so they got crafty and came up with something called an Explosively Formed Penetrator. It’s as nasty as it sounds and then some.

(Photo courtesy of http://laststandonzombieisland.com/2013/08/30/explosively-formed-penetrators-for-dummies/)

So, after they did this, we came up with the Duke System. The Duke System was pretty much a radio jamming system. It would jam every cell phone single and all of that, and it would also have something on the front of the truck that had wheels that would activate a pressure plate as well, looked something like this.

Shown at Right: An MRAP Cougar after getting hit by an IED, everyone on board lived

Even if they get hit, these things are designed for maximum survivability. Trust me, they work. I rarely hear about people getting hit in their trucks and dying, usually the one that gets killed is the turret gunner.

I know there is probably some stuff I missed or glossed over, I just wanted to remind everyone on this day that, you should observe everyone that has fallen, and be thankful for them. And also be thankful that we’ve got people who spend an absolute ton of money for our guys, to give them some of the best tech to make sure they survive. ~ Jeremy

Forbidden Fruit

 Here’s the thing about forbidden fruit:

There is always at least one; one car, one truck one bike that we can’t have. It doesn’t matter if it is a financial issue or a government issue.

As you may have seen from my introduction a few days ago, I am a very large fan of BMW and their silky smooth straight six motors.  In my relatively short driving career I have had the pleasure of owning and wrenching on both the M52 2.8l motor as well the M54 3.0l lump.  Both are amazing in their own right, and it’s great to see the advancements in technology from one generation to the next. My favorite is the advancement from single Vanos (BMW’s fancy variable timing system) on the M52 to the double Vanos on the newer M54.

But the one iteration which has eluded me thus far is the grandest of them all the 3.2l 333hp S54 in the E46 M3.  This smooth six makes over 100hp/liter without the help of any forced induction or witchcraft, just six individual throttle bodies and a screaming 8,000rpm redline.

Now some of you may say, “But Devlin, those are plentiful in the U.S. of A”, but in fact they are less rare than the 3 series I drive now. However, what we never got here was the final version, the mighty M3 CSL.

The CSL has the same 3.2l motor but modified to pump out out 360hp. And this newfound power is used to propel a car which is a few hundred pounds lighter than the standard M3, all thanks to a carbon fiber roof, and other weight saving items. These included thinner walled exhaust just to give you an idea of the engineering dedication that went into this car. And still no forced induction! Now that’s witchcraft.

So what is it about these cars that make them so desirable?  Is it simply the fact that we can’t have them, or is there more than that? Everyone has some sort of forbidden fruit, everyone from Bill Gates with his Porsche 959 to the numerous people who have already crossed into Canada to buy a 25 year old Nissan GT-R. So I ask you readers, what’s your forbidden fruit and why?

~ Devlin

Fanboyism-Ism

Here’s the thing,

I’ve been thinking about something off and on for about a year now, ever since I went out and bought my Porsche 944. And that is the state of being a fanboy of certain cars, certain manufacturers, what have you. Growing up, I wasn’t much of a fanboy. I of course defended the car I owned at the time because, well, it was my car. I didn’t want people talking crap about what I drove. However, everything changed once I decided to buy my 2007 Chrysler 300 Touring. It had a 3.5L V6, was RWD as well as big and roomy. What else could you want (besides more power of course, I still kick myself for not getting the HEMI)?

Once I started really driving it, getting used to it, cleaning it, and just in general getting close to my car, I noticed that I started developing a love for Mopar vehicles. I wouldn’t give any other kinds of cars the light of day, whether it be European or anything JDM. I wasn’t having it. I specifically remember telling my wife that I would never, ever, own another Asian car again. And I hadn’t even considered any European cars at all.

And then, of course everything change. It was not by my choice however. My wife had to go to school for two months, and I had to take my kid to daycare. So naturally, once my wife came back, my kid still wanted to go to daycare. And seeing as how I have to be up at the ass crack of dawn to go run and do pushups and stupid stuff like that, we needed a second car so my wife could drop her off.

I had a roommate at the time, a fellow car guy, and he had told me how he was looking at a Porsche 944. I just wanted to check it out, because I had my heart set on a (again, Mopar colored glasses) Dodge Stratus R/T. I saw the 944, absolutely loved the shape, and I immediately started seeing anything from the 80’s with rose colored glasses because of my first car. So, I decided while looking for a Stratus, to look at 944’s as well. I looked at 928’s, and 924’s, but I loved the 944. Eventually I found one I was happy with. Really, what caught my attention was the guy had bought a cup holder that would fit in the car and I saw it in the pictures. So I figured this guy had probably drove it a bit and showed it some love. And he did. He had replaced a laundry list of parts, but only drove it 200 miles in the past year. So I went to test drive it, and immediately fell in love. So I bought it, and paid 2900 all in twenties for the thing (good thing he worked at a bank).

I named her Rosie.

But at the same time it felt… strange. The 944 was the first car I had ever purchased solely with my money, solely for myself. Everything just clicked, everything felt right. Everything from how I sat in it, to how they designed the center console perfectly to have your arm rest on it when you weren’t shifting so that your hand didn’t rest on the shifter. My wife loved to remind me all the time how I used to say, “Mopar or no car huh?”, and I always felt like a dumbass. Because in all honesty, being a fanboy to a degree of shunning all other vehicles is kind of like being a bigot towards cars just because they aren’t a Chrysler, Ford, or Honda. All cars have something to offer, you just have to be willing to really look.

For example, let’s take a look at my 1986 Porsche 944. It was my first RWD car with a 5 speed attached to it, so I learned the amazing feeling of being able really control my car. It was really just meant as a car for me to drive, but I bought it before I really understood it. I didn’t know it had a transaxle, I didn’t know that transaxle was in the back, hell at the time I didn’t even know what a transaxle was. I had to look it up. I was still sort of in the mindset of “It’s not a Mopar, so it’s just some car I’ll drive.” It was just some car I drove, until I started driving it more, and more. Within a month it had over 1000 miles on it, I just loved driving the damn thing. Now, to get to my point, the clutch started screwing up. Eventually I found out the transmission was perfectly fine, great even. The clutch grabbed fine, granted it slipped a little at maximum torque, but the culprit was the pilot bearing. What I didn’t know, and what the previous owner didn’t know, was that the clutch in it was a good 20 years old. And whoever did the last job, only replaced the disc and pressure plate. Everything else was old and chewed up, and the flywheel had never been resurfaced. So my point here is even though I just bought it to be just another car, I ended up seeing it more for what it was. I saw it as a sports car, an amazingly balanced RWD car, and more importantly, a German car. When I was looking for a clutch kit, I realized that I wasn’t just messing with another car, I was messing with a Porsche. That’s because the clutch kit ran me 800 dollars. Ouch.

It wasn’t until after I dropped the transmission, the torque tube, struggled getting the bell housing off, and I bought the clutch kit that I realized: I cannot just jump into a car and hope for the best. I can’t just shrug off not knowing about a car before I buy it. And in order to really learn about a car, you can’t just write it off and not be interested in learning what makes it move. Honestly before I started working on my car, I didn’t know truly how a clutch truly operated. Now I do, along with knowing how it works with the rest of the car. I know exactly how the transmission works, including the gearbox, and how everything moves together. I didn’t know what an interference engine was, and honestly if I had when I was looking at a car to buy, I wouldn’t have bought my Porsche. Timing belt change every 30,000 miles? Come on, that is just sadistic.

Along with me trying to figure out exactly how everything worked, because there was a lot of mystery to the car, I ended up getting a few vehicle reports. Through these reports I had found out my car was originally built in West Germany (just think about it, my car was built in Germany during the cold war, that’s just crazy cool. Even with all that stuff going on they still managed to build amazing cars). It was also sold in California, had a ton of miles put on it quick, then sold at auction in Arizona. And then through the years it eventually made its way to me, in Virginia.

I would say that my refusal to really allow myself to be interested in cars, other than the ones I was all obsessed with, led me to arrogantly purchasing a car I knew nothing about. And I paid for it in more than one way. But, because of this car I learned how to do a clutch job, rebuild an entire brake system, take apart a fuel system, drop a transmission safely, and even drop a rear suspension. So even though I bought it for the wrong reasons, I’m keeping it for the right ones. I’m going to fix it up right, throw it around a track, and keep it in great fighting shape. If there is one thing buying the wrong car taught me, it’s to always keep an open mind, and allow yourself to like a car outside of your comfort zone. You might be surprised, and you might have quite a unique story to tell.

And, that’s the thing that’s been on my mind.

~ Jeremy

Tin Cans

Here's the thing -

Starting in the next model year, the Ford F-150 is going to be 700 lbs. lighter thanks to a liberal application of aluminum. It's a good thing in many regards. In fact, all facets of performance will be enhanced, braking, handling, and speed. And yet some people are concerned about the changes. It's mostly because that aluminum is still semi-costly and not perceived to be rugged enough for every day truck duty.

Ford doesn't feel as though it's a problem. In fact, they've been working for over a year to make sure that the support systems are in place to take care of any future F-150 customers are taken care of. However they could be doing more. What is that more, you ask? Well, it's a little thing called economy of scales. Right now, as the F-150 is waiting for launch, Ford is undoubtedly designing the next Focus, Fiesta, and Fusion. And if those designs do not incorporate the same troublesome material, then Ford is wasting their time and their dealers'.

It's called economy of scales, and it's a production trick as old as time. Basically it means the more you use a material, design, or process in the production of your product line, the cheaper it becomes. This is due to things like buying in bulk, process standardization, and the ability to use the same tools for multiple different jobs. There's no reason why the aluminum materials and production processes that have made such a big to-do out of the next F-150 shouldn't be applied to the whole line. Even if it's not as thorough of an inclusion as they have in the US's best selling vehicle, there's no reason why essential pieces such as the hood, roof, or trunks of these cars shouldn't be made from the stuff.

I know what you're saying though: "Shawn, that will cause the price of these cars to skyrocket!" But this is not true. That's where the economy of scales comes in. Case in point, the Fiesta currenly has 3 different engine choices here in the States. Instead of offering both the naturally aspirated 1.6, and the 1.0 turbo 3-cylinder, simply offer the smaller turbo engine. After all, it's not found in any other Ford product. This would greatly reduce the cost of the vehicle across the line, certainly enough to cover the cost of the upgraded body panels. It would also give the Fiesta class-leading braking, handling, and speed.

There's no reason that we, in today's modern society, should only concern ourselves with the advancement of engine technology. It's time for body and frame technology to take their next steps forward as well. If Ford is willing to stick its neck out and take a risk on more than just their best seller, there's bound to be a huge return, and at the same time a huge savings. Now that's a weighty proposition.

And that, that's the thing.

-Shawn

Introducing Guest Writer: Ray Mas

How is everyone this evening? My name is  Ray, and I'm addicted to Volkswagen and Audis. I live in Northern Virginia, and I'm in my early/mid 20's. Let's take a look at the cars, shall we?

 I've always loved cars, and it all started with one of these:

It was a 1997 Volkswagen Jetta GT (Not mine pictured). ​It was slow, unrefined and smelled like something had died inside of it. Growing up in rural Mississippi, I wasn't exactly the most popular guy for having the only German car in the school lot. If car hell was a thing, that car would have lived through it.

​After keeping the Jetta for much longer than I probably should have, My family and I moved to Northern Virginia. It was here that I accidentally murdered my Jetta, and was forced to drive a relatives automatic, light green Beetle. Wonderful.

After that ordeal, I impulsively made the decision to buy a used 2.0T A4. Not exactly my best decision ever. Quite a lot went wrong with it, some of which was under warranty. Some of which ended up out of my pockets. Everything involving oil went wrong. I carried around a cardboard box filled to the top with oil bottles in my trunk at all times.

​After whatever previously happened with my 2.0T A4, for some reason I decided to buy an even older one. It was a 12v, 2.8, 5 Speed manual,  with 150,000 on the clock. But it still has Quattro. It meant more money, and less stuff that I don't understand. This less to a noticeably larger motorcycle budget and deeper modification pockets. It's seemingly reliable from first impressions. It leaks a bit of oil, and has different sized mirrors on each side. Yes, the drivers side mirror is bigger than the other. The Germans say deal with it.

As you can probably see, I'm addicted. The third Volkswagen brand product draws the line, I'm at the point of no return, and so is my wallet. Which highly concerns me about my decision making process. Either way, I'll keep you guys posted.

~ Ray

Introducing Guest Writer: Devlin Munion

Here’s the thing,

I'm Devlin, and simply put, I love cars. I have loved cars for as long as I can remember. It started very early, and most of my childhood was spent playing with my dad’s old Matchbox cars. I can also remember playing in my grandfather’s back yard while he told me every type of plane that flew over just by the sound.

My true passion came out in high school when I purchased my first car, an E36. This is the car that started and ended it all.  I immediately fell in love with motorsports and and my love for cars only grew. This also led to the eventual purchase of an E46.

See I said it was all over. I’m addicted…

After graduating with a marketing degree I served a brief, yet eye opening stint as an Audi Brand Specialist… which is a fancy way of saying car salesman. I am now on to my next career, although my heart truly still lies with the automotive industry. In the future I hope to work in the industry again, but for now I would just love to share my enthusiasm with other enthusiasts.

I'm looking forward to sharing my stories,opinions, and passions with all of you.

-Devlin

Introducing Guest Writer: Greg Tully

Hi guys, Greg here. So I grew up with a dad who loved Ford. When I was born my dad had a 1989 Ford Mustang GT, despite his having two boys. He kept that Mustang until I was 3, and bought a brand new 1999 Ford F-250 Powerstroke, which we still own. When gas first became $4 a gallon, my dad bought a 2003 MINI Cooper S to go along with the truck.

My mom had a Pathfinder when I was born. She sold it, and bought a used 1998 Infiniti i30. Later, she sold that too and bought a brand new Honda Pilot so she could have seating for 8 people. Then my mom bought a 2009 Mazda 3 to save money on fuel, and eventually replaced that with a 2012 TDI.

My love of cars started when I was in elementary school, when I started collecting hot wheels. One of my best friends at the time loved hot wheels, and he taught me to love them too. In 2005 when my mom was looking for cars to replace her Infiniti, I helped her research. Even though I still wasn’t anywhere close to driving, I still loved looking up all the specs and reviews of all the cars that my mom was test driving. Ever since then, I have loved researching, reading about, and talking about all different kinds of cars.

When I turned 15, I got my permit. At the time my dad had his truck and his MINI, and my mom had her Honda and the Mazda. I learned how to drive stick in both the Mazda and MINI, at the same time. No easy feat, considering the clutches acted so differently. When I got my license, I inherited the Pilot from my brother, and drove that for 2 years until we sold it.

My current car is a 2007 Subaru Outback 2.5i. Don’t worry, it’s a stick shift. It isn’t anything like any of the other cars that I have driven, but it is also my favorite. That’s probably because it’s my first car that I got to pick out my self. I count it as my first car, even though the Pilot was technically my first. But if I had an unlimited budget, I would buy a Shelby Raptor and find some way to swap a manual transmission in it.

Blame my dad for that, he is the one who taught me to love ford trucks.

~ Greg

Introducing: Jeremy Hampson

Here’s the thing –

 I like to think of myself as a car guy, up until something breaks on one of my cars. Then, there I am wondering why in the hell there is half a gallon of coolant on the ground. And then I finally figure it out, asking myself why I didn’t think of that, and commit it to memory so it doesn’t happen again. Then, some other new thing I’ve never seen happens. Such is the vicious cycle of trying to keep a 30 year old car running.

For those that didn’t read the title, my name is Jeremy, and how I became a gearhead is a little strange. Allow me to explain. So I grew up mainly with just my dad, and he was (yes, was, not so much anymore, more of an armchair gear head then a ratcheting one these days) a pretty huge gear head while I was growing up. He took me around sometimes in his ’57 Chevy Sedan Delivery. It had a 454 big block, was fully restored, and done up for one of the stories in the magazine he worked for, Super Chevy. I grew up just looking at that thing, and also being hauled around in his ’95 Chevy Silverado. A Silverado that he put on coil overs and threw a supercharger on, just for the giggles. I’m pretty sure it was around that time he had the truck that I developed an unhealthy affinity for speed.

Let’s fast forward to my first car. While he may have been a gear head, and I learned car spotting from him, he never even taught me how to change my oil. But he did buy me my first car, a 1989 Honda Civic DX. It was one of those 3 door hatch backs, with a 5-speed, and power nothing. At first I thought he was crazy, no power steering or anything like that. But then I came to realize that it ended up making me a more cognizant driver, seeing as how I have to turn the wheels and all that before I stop moving. It helped me pay attention more. Anywho. So I blew the clutch in that thing, and he had it replaced for me for my birthday. That is when I learned the glory of a 5 speed, that is, being able to spin the wheels while changing gears, it was glorious.

Then, I joined the Army. After I got to my duty station, first thing I did was talk to my dad about getting my car. He said that it needed more work then was worth, had been sitting for roughly a year, and apparently the entire brake system needing replacing. Oh well. For a while I drove my wife’s Cavalier, but the gear head in me came out when I picked up a 2007 Chrysler 300 Touring with 27,000 miles on the clock. What had happened was the dreaded pink thingy problem, and after researching I found that I wasn’t going to pay a dealership several hundred dollars just to put in a new shifting column. Not when it was just going to happen again. So I took matters into my own hands, borrowed a tool set from a friend, and ripped my center console apart. It was right then that I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I ended up driving it around for a few days by sticking my finger against the pink thingy and getting it into gear that way. I ended up getting the replacement part, and it even came with instructions.

So, I ended up putting the new part in and putting everything back together. Everything was fine, except for the fact that tiptronic didn’t work anymore. Luckily that stuff doesn’t matter much to me anyways. It was like a light switch flipped in my head. All of a sudden, I had successfully fixed something that would have normally cost me hundreds of dollars to get fixed. It was an amazing feeling, and I had to do it again. I started getting tools, and workshop manuals, looking for something to fix. But nothing really came up on the 300.

So, I did what any sane person would do, I went out and bought a 1986 Porsche 944. Something I knew needed a bit of work. It soon came up that it needed a new clutch, and I’m in the process of doing that now. But that is a story for a different time. Sometimes, you may not even know that you are a gear head until fate forces you to do something, and all of a sudden it’s like a whole new world has opened up to you. You don’t even really have to know anything, you just have to be willing to learn, and that is what I did. Now, I have screwed up plenty of fixes, botched repairs just because I forgot one simple thing, and narrowly avoided dismemberment. I really don’t care when it happens though, I just look at it as a learning experience. It’s just one that hurts the wallet really bad sometimes, so it pays to remember.

~ Jeremy

Introducing: Garrett Davis

My first real interest in cars began in 1999 when I was 10 years old and was told to pick out a magazine off the rack for a long road trip we were about to embark on. Motor Trend's 50th Anniversary issue caught my eye immediately with a bright red 911, a gorgeous Jag, and a black Lamborghini Diablo -- my favorite car of all time, in the most menacing color available. After that I was hooked on anything car related. I would memorize different models and brands and have my mom quiz me on every car we saw on the road. If there was a car out there, I had to know everything about it. The number one item on my Christmas list that year was a Motor Trend subscription, and I read every issue cover to cover multiple times, though none as many as that original 50th anniversary issue.

Pictured: 17 year old me with my truck after a thorough test of 4WD. I was hooked. Still wear that shirt too.

Fast forward to my 16th birthday and my mom is handing me the keys to a 1994 Ford Ranger. It was a 4.0L V6, 5-speed manual (skull shifter of course), and four wheel drive. I was in love. Not just with my lovely new-to-me truck, but with driving in general. I would always volunteer to drive places, or just to get out and hit some back roads for no other reason than to just enjoy the open road. After high school I was infected with the Jeep bug, leaving my best friend and I to dump every minimum wage dollar we earned into our not so shiny Jeeps. We became the only members of our Jeep club under 20 years old, and joined them for as many trails as we could. We swapped axles, did deep engine and suspension work, and any other repair we could reasonably scrape our knuckles on in our own Jeeps. I also helped my family swap engines and transmissions, and do some body work on stock cars. This is where I learned how to work on cars. 

But, after getting stuck, lost, and breaking down a few too many times, we finally decided that this was not a hobby college kids could reasonably afford, and hung up the towel. Since, I've had a few intermediate vehicles, ranging from Japanese trucks to German hatchbacks. I have finally settled into a 2014 Focus ST, and couldn't be happier. It's the first car I've ever bought new, and also the first car I've owned that was newer than the 1990's. Nearly 10 years of driving and I still can't help but take back roads home when ever possible, or volunteering to drive anywhere. I just seem to belong in the driver's seat. The 2,000+ miles and 60 hours of drive time that I've put into my car since buying it seems to confirm that. For reference that's barely even a month ago.

Today I work as an RF Test Engineer for a major tech corporation, and writing about the very cars I've lusted over for so many years is my new hobby. Let's hope this one sticks.

~ Garrett

Corvettes, Integras, and Blazers. Oh My!

Here's the thing,

I was born in a small town into a GM family. Growing up, the first two cars I remember were my dad's Bonneville and my mom's two-door Blazer. The first memories I have of speed were of asking my dad to go faster down this hilly side road near the house because it "made my tummy feel funny". We had no idea then, but that experience was the clear sign of car junkie in the making.

Being raised in a GM family, my Holy grail growing up was the Corvette. My parents often joke that Corvette was my first word. And it's a love that has carried over into my adult life, so much so that I now sport a "Jake" tattoo on my left calf. For those of you that don't know, Jake is the Corvette Racing Team mascot. Yeah, it runs that deep for me.

However, my true car 'aha' moment didn't come until I was about 15 years old. My brother had gone away to college. And in an attempt to show my dad how independent he had become, he bought a 1989 Acura Integra RS for $700. My father, being the good American car buyer that he was, called it my brother's "700 dollar mistake". But I loved the thing. Even with more than 200,000 miles and a clutch that had seen much better days, I loved driving it even just up and down the driveway. And after watching my brother put it through constant trips up and down the highway to school, running a paper route every night, and just the all around abuse a car receives from a 21 year old owner, it earned my father's respect too. Needless to say, I ended up with a 1994 Integra GS-R of my own a few years later. I'm still addicted to 8000 rpm redlines.

The second big car move for me was taking a porter job at a local car lot at 21. It was the second job I ever had, but after throwing freight at a local pet store for 5 years, I was in heaven. For those that don't know, a porter's job is to drive cars. There's other stuff too, like cleaning them or assisting the sales team with presentation, but at the end of the day we drive cars. Thanks to my borderline OCD and constant need for organization, I was assigned lot organization duties. Most days were spent on the lot with a box of keys driving every car we had in stock from one spot to another. Like I said, heaven. My secondary responsibility was as a DX Driver, or doing dealer exchanges. It was through this function that I got a chance to drive my first real sports car, a 2013 Chevy Camaro ZL1. For those that don't know, that car is everything they say it is. It's brash, angry, raw, and most importantly, face-metlingly face. Why they let me drive it, I still to this day have no idea.

And that pretty much brings us to today. I'm no longer working at a car lot, though I wish I was, and I'm currently daily driving a 2008 Civic Si. For those of you that don't know, it's the grandson of that poor Integra I tortured through my first 3 driving years. The Civic has the same 8000 rpm redline and can-do attitude, albeit with a better working air conditioner. Most of you know my writing style by now, and you've seen some of my opinions on the different facets of the industry, but I hope this gives you a little bit better insight into your Editor-In-Chief. I'm excited for the things we have in store, and I can't wait to get the wheels turning the way I always knew HTTA could.

And that, that's the thing.
- Shawn

New Model Year

Note from the editor:

Here’s the thing -

Hi guys! For those of you still coming around even though I haven’t been updating very much, thank you. For those of you who used to frequent the site, and tapered off as I did, thank you too. I have a surprise for all of you, however I’m about to ruin it.

I’m relaunching the blog.

We’re adding some new writers, and we’ll soon have a brand new look. I’ll of course be writing my usual Here’s The Thing pieces, but we’re adding some new flavor as well. The guys will be introduced in their own features this week, starting with mine tomorrow, and we’ll be getting the ball rolling from there.

We’ll also be having some guest writers to periodically drop an article here or there to break up the usual crew. If you’re interested in being one of those writers, let me know. Good ideas won’t be turned down (however, I might edit it a bit though).

I’m excited. It’s a new day at Here’s The Thing. I can’t wait to get ramped up and rolling the way I knew this thing always could.

And that, that’s the thing