Here is my first car, not 100 or so feet from where I found it on my Stepdad’s ranch in the middle of Kansas. it’s a 1983 BMW 320i. At the time my mom and stepdad were dating and so he’d take us out to his ranch in the middle of nowhere. You know how sometimes you’ll pass places that are just a bunch of barns filled with cars? my stepdad’s ranch is pretty much like this. He would go to auctions, buy cars, drive them back to the ranch, and park them for…decades. This BMW was one of them and because I was so fascinated by it he just gave it to me.
I didn’t know until later but it ran on 3 cylinders the entire time I drove it, there was a hole in the exhaust, and the belt squeaked a lot when I drove it, but it still ran and I had this the first two years of high school. It was a good first car, it had some rust spots and what not, but it took me to my jobs at Subway and back and fourth to school. Thankfully years later my sister and her boyfriend started working on it, and eventually got it back running and driving again. My sister’s boyfriend now has an eternal hatred for Bosch’s early fuel injection systems.
My SECOND car is parked a few feet away
I had a fuel issue with my 320i and it was just becoming too much of a hassle to keep, so I wanted something newer, and SOMEHOW my stepdad though to get another BMW. This time E30s. This particular E30 is a 325i that had gotten in a front end accident and the previous owner grafted a whole front end from another E30 onto, performing a Manual Swap in the process.
I liked this car a lot better but I wish I had appreciated the E30 a bit more. The engine sounded like a sewing machine and it would always feel like it didn’t have much torque. I think the wheels would wobble a bit at speed too. At one point the battery died and when the battery dies in these things all the doors lock. I remember doing power slides in the snow with this in college. But it didn’t have power steering, because the pump leaked and the previous owner just removed it, so navigating parking lots was a huge pain. Eventually I needed a new car because I was leaving my hometown and needed something that could be actually reliable.
My plan is to go back to Kansas, fix this car up, and drive it back to the west coast. But that’s been my plan for a while, and when I actually visited last year I took a trip out to the ranch specifically to check the car out and see if it was salvageable. It seems so!
My next car was when I went to college the second time. it was my sisters and my parents made the executive decision that it was mine now, as my sister was going to college in NY. It was…the Ford Focus
Look I hated this car. Just an absolute fuckin shit show of a car. The gearbox felt like cardboard. I hit some black ice once and hit a curb sideways, and had to get the whole rear suspension replaced. The alternator went out on a highway drive, necessitating a family friend buying a whole new battery to swap in so I could make it the rest of the way home (on battery power??). I drove this thing around Kansas City, then to Philadelphia where it got spraypainted the day before I was going to move out of Philadelphia, then back to Kansas City where I worked at the most stressful job I’ve ever had. That’s when the AC went out, and I was finally starting to think of buying my first car.
Such a hard decision. I wanted an FRS because those were new at the time and I could afford one if I spent my entire savings at the time. Instead I found probably the best Honda Fit ever.
I, alongside the previous owner, didn’t like the new Honda Fit design, so he elected to buy the last one Honda made of the first generation (08) and swap the headlights out for darker ones, install tint. aftermarket wheels. colored the roof and some accents. and install a J’s racing front grill. It’s modified, but not overhelming. He also installed a short shift kit. Honda makes the best gearboxes, bar none. My big decision when getting My First Car With My Money was how the gearbox and clutch felt, and this had the best feeling ones, so I went with it.
I moved to Seattle in this car and I’ve had it ever since. I’ve driven down Highway 101 from Seattle to LA (when this photo was taken). It’s hauled so much stuff. Bikes. Furniture. I don’t want to get rid of it. It’s dead reliable too. My only problems have been car batteries going out and people breaking into it. Also the Rota wheels have been dented (twice) by Seattle’s potholes.
This car is so nimble than anything I’d had before. There is nothing wrong with this car. Honda hit it out of the park.
Years go by and the entire time, I’ve wanted a sports car. When I was employed I’d make lists of cars that I’d want to get, like a Miata, 350z, or those kinds of cars. The MR2 was always on those lists, and I’d looked at various cars that were on craigslist and they were always heaps of junk that didn’t run or were about to die, because I didn’t want to spend money on a good car, i had to spend as little money as possible on a personal indulgence due to a severe lack of self esteem.
One day after getting about 2 hours of sleep I open up craigslist and find it
It didn’t run, but it was Red and it was $2000. The owner looked like a teen and showed me a cellphone video of the tachometer twitching to prove that it did run, but didn’t know the problem with it. They had spent most of the money on a set of wheels and tires, but nothing for maintainence, which this car needed a ton of.
After parting with the money I tried using a friend jumper box to get the car running, it would twitch on and then die, so I had it towed to my street. The previous owner said that it was either the ECU (which he replaced) or the distributor, which he didn’t want to spend any more time on. I ordered one on amazon for $50 after signing up for prime. the next day it showed up and I popped it in the car in about an hour. It fired right up. Pop Up headlights baby.
Unfortunatly this is when I found the car’s other problems. It had a really bad clutch smell when I’d get out, then one day I’d just floor it and the tach would climb but it wouldn’t accellerate. That was…a burnt clutch. Once I was driving it around town and the temp gauge spiked to hot, so hot that I had to stop it and let it cool down before I kept going. Eventually a friend of mine helped me flush the coolant system, which took 6 hours to do. It was fine for a while but I never drove it due to the clutch, so when I got my stimulus money I selfishly spent it on… a new clutch.
Recently it developed more cooling problems, so I had to park it. but just today I went to go see if it would still fire up and it does! It didn’t overheat right away, so i drove it around the block. I missed it so much. Now that I’m finally employed my plan is to throw it at a mechanic friend’s shop and ask them to fix all the problems.
Among it’s other problems are the Ebrake cable slipped so it’s only half effective, and it has speed wobbles at over 60mph. also the paint is terrible. Bits of trim are coming off everywhere. I feel like if I don’t put effort into this car it’s a goner. I’ve had project bikes before, but a car is so much bigger, you can’t pick up a car, a car engine isn’t held in with 3 bolts. You can’t buy a $250 bolt on cylinder kit which doubles it’s power. It’s stupid and I love it.
How is it to drive? It’s a huge go-kart. The feeling you get when you accelerate because the engine is behind you is really good. So much grip. The popup headlights are fantastic and I get a kick out of seeing them go up and down. I wish I could drive it at the limit at a track or autocross, but it keeps having problems.
Gonna end this post before I start talking about my bikes, which are about 10000 words worth!