As most of you know, I have a passing addiction to all things automotive. By passing I mean that one of my wife's more common exasperations is "You smell like car". To this end I have usually maintained a "toy car", a car that doesn't cost much to feed and shoe, and that I can drive back and forth to work...at the expense of the truck which occasionally threatens to grow cobwebs to it's parking spot. My lovely wife J, has patiently looked the other way and sighed as this habit has transgressed.
For a long while that car was a 1986 Dodge, a vehicle that was shaped with a T-Square and as slow as molasses going uphill in January. That was before I caught the autocross bug,a bug which lends itself to driving as fast as possible in a parking lot course dotted with cones in the same way as parts of my face when I was approaching puberty. Now the Dodge was a fine car, and I attempted to drive it at an event....on racing tires no less. That didn't work well. One the first run I actually came out of the seat, and on my best run, the run with J in the passenger seat, and my best time, I managed to break the rear suspension in an amusing way. After it was fixed, the Dodge broke for real, and was gotten rid of.
It was replaced by a 1998 Mercury Mystique. J loved this car, she absolutely adored it, big cream colored leather seats, power amenities, quiet road cruising with plenty of power for passing. I mention that she liked it, because I didn't. It was an absolute pig on the track, too heavy, too ponderous, lumped in a class with cars that could actually turn a corner. I never warmed to the car, and as a result I conspired to sell it...which would have worked out great if somebody had actually wanted to buy the car. It was later sold at a loss, J literally took a bath when she found out what I had sold it for. Lawyers may have been sought out, I'll never know.
However it was relaced, by a car that was light, rear wheel drive with independent rear suspension, and a five speed, everything that I was trying to find on the first go round. J hates it. It's a 1982 BMW 320i, the first 3 series BMW, built mostly of parts from the BMW 2002 of lore. I absolutely adore it. It's a one owner car that has spent it's entire life in North Carolina, and was bought from the Salvation Army. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't see myself trading it in anytime soon. I've attached some pictures of the car attempting it's first autocross on the street tires, I tried to go cheap and didn't order some parts that I thought that I didn't need for the rear tires, turns out I needed them. Anyway, here's to being happy with 2500 pounds of vintage German machinery.
