• 2001 Chevy Cavalier. It was crap but it still got places. Unless I parked in or near a snowbank, then it was immovable.
  
• 2006 WRX wagon. This was great but it was a rebuilt title, had terrible paint and I was always removing previous owner bodgery. This taught me a lesson about paying actual money for cars, so I started to experiment with cheap poo poo like...
  
• 1997 Impreza Outback Sport wagon. I got this for $1000 from a rallying club friend, put new headlights and a knock sensor in it, and ran it forever. I replaced the transmission with a $50 one to get rid of input shaft bearing noise. It was so good, but I began to grow weary of Subarus and bought a Miata (see below). This '97 continued to be the best car I ever owned until someone in a parking lot totalled it on Mother's Day. Then it bounced around the community and a bunch of other people have owned it.
  
• 1991 Mazda Miata. This was an ex-race-car. It had holes for the giant wing in the trunk, PSS9 coilovers with super stiff springs, no heat and a really big swaybar. It was the best winter car I ever drove, after I fixed the heat (self-adhesive thermostat gasket was installed with the backing paper still attached) and put studded KW22s on it. I ended up selling this to a friend who nuked the motor from oil starvation on track, then he sold it to another guy who turned it into an Exocet.
  
• 2003 Impreza 2.5TS wagon. After the death of the Outback Sport, I wanted another Subaru, but I didn't want to pay any money for it. I started out hating this car because it was porkier than my '97, but it held up admirably with near-zero maintenance. The only major fault was the transmission mount falling out after I replaced the stocker for a Group-N and tore the threads out of the captive nut in the body. Also the rear strut towers were entirely rust; I didn't feel safe putting people in the back of it anymore, so I sold it to a buddy who is still driving it.
  
• 1990 Toyota Celica. This was the inaugural Trans Mountain car. Slung and I bought it, we spent a ton of money on putting new suspension and other components into it, and it was rock solid. Except the head gasket was bad so it constantly tried to overheat when stuck in traffic, say in the summer when you are doing a road rally through Vancouver. I drove this some more after, and then we sold it to some kid who was going to turn it into a turbocharged "half-Trac." I saw it a few months ago driving around in a distinctly non-turbo fashion.
  
• 1997 Mazda Miata. I started missing my old Miata, so I decided to get a stock 1.8L one. It was owned by an idiot (he lubed the outside of the speedo cable, to give you an idea) and I spent most of my time reversing his work. After spending a ton of money on winter storage and even more money on restoring it to stock, I drove my buddy's NB Mazdaspeed Miata and realized I had made a huge mistake and should have just paid much less money for a beater NB. I sold it at a massive loss to some guy who lives near my parents, who then sold it at a massive loss to someone else a few months later to make rent.
  
• 1988 Lincoln Town Car. We got this one for free (it was a 'tip' for doing some septic work), fixed the fire-prone alternator wiring, slammed a Taurus alternator in with an F150 alternator harness and ran it for like fifty thousand loving kilometers. We also put General Grabbers on it with Ranger steelies. I'm 90% sure we spent fewer $/km than anything else I've ever owned on this massive, stylish turd. I actually made a profit on this car somehow.
  
• 1992 Honda Civic DX. I was going to run this one in Trans Mountain but decided against it because I would have to choose between either having Slung or all of our gear in the car. I put like $1600 into this car all-told and it was great, but it had enough rust that I was starting to get sketched out about driving it anywhere I might be T-boned or rear ended. The previous owner told me that he replaced the alternator four times. What I think actually happened was that someone jumped the car backwards and blew out like all of it. I had to recap the ECU because it died at one point from having the main power rail cap explode. Things that didn't work when I got it: high beams. Low beams. Turn signals if the headlights were on at the same time. Speedometer but only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wiper high-speed. Intermittent wiper function. The radio. Dome light. Tail lights. And the reverse light switch was on in reverse (N, 1-5: reverse light on. R: reverse light off. Even kastein had no idea why this was happening.) Great car, sold to a buddy who needed it who immediately turned around and sold it to his brother who riced it out. I made a small loss.
  
• 2005 Saab 9-2X Linear. I, uh, gently caress this car. I decided after the '03 Impreza that I would get "a nice Subaru" with "low miles" that would be reliable. The previous owner was a teenager. We somehow hosed up a timing belt job. Then the engine grenaded itself from oil starvation. So we put in a JDM EJ203 and it is fun to drive, but I'm also sort of sick of looking at it. I will run this thing into the loving ground, and it thoroughly encourages such actions. The smaller motor and enormous aftermarket rear sway bar finally reminds me of the '97.
  
• 1982 Toyota Supra. I don't know if I can legitimately count this as 'mine' because Slung and I have both poured money into it, but it is currently an engineless, transmissionless, mouse-nest-infested piece of poo poo that's sitting on a trailer in his back yard. At one point it was owned by a friend (and customer) of mine, which we only discovered a year after we got it and I casually mentioned my Supra ownership status to him at a party.
  
• 2005 Acura TSX. This was another Trans Mountain car. It's now my daily driver after we (Slung) poured thousands into it that we never got out of it. The 6-speed manual transmission exploded almost immediately during ownership and had to be swapped.
  
• 2020 Mazda 3. This is my wife's car. It is a car. It's really nice, and it starts all the time. Before this, she had a 1998 200SX SE-R that is the most hateful, irredeemable piece of automotive garbage that has ever been given wheels.
  

Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Mar 16, 2020