Captivated by Cars
I can't help it, honest! I got interested in cars during my single digit years, when I avidly read Hot Rod, Car Craft, Car and Driver and several other magazines and built dozens (if not hundreds!) of plastic model cars. Decades later I still have a subscription to Car and Driver, but the models long ago gave way to the real thing. I've built engines and transmissions, rewired everything under the hood of my Camaro project, replaced major suspension and drive train components with parts intended for some other vehicle, and generally re-engineered any parts or systems that I thought could be tweaked to be more to my liking. My plan for this page is to leisurely search through several decades of pictures looking for those that best-define my inclination to make cars go faster. I'll update the site as more pictures are excavated. Here's a list of some of the more interesting (IMHO) cars I've tinkered with: |
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High School and the Early Years
| I was fortunate to have nice cars in high school, starting with this pristine '66 Pontiac GTO. Click here to go the the Early Years page. |
A Brief Burst of Excitement
A series of boringly practical cars came after the initial set of Detroit muscle. But then, a high school buddy turned car salesman (and bad influence - j/k, Bob!) told me about the Monza Mirage they had at the dealership. He said the car had been on the lot for months, and so I could probably get it for a lowball price. Next thing you know, it's mine. Click here to read about turning this flamboyant slug into a real performance car. |
10 Year Camaro Project
After selling the Monza, I started another string of generally uninspiring cars. However, A lunchtime ride in a coworkers '94 Camaro reawakened the urge to hear and feel V8 power. A bit of research pointed to the 4th-generation Camaro being hard to beat in terms of bang for the buck, so I ordered a '96. At that time I had absolutely no plans to modify the car. Things changed. Big time! Click here to read about the conversion from showroom new to 1000hp monster machine. |
'02 Corvette Takes Over as Daily Driver
Over the years, cumulative Camaro modifications slowly decreased its utility as a daily driver. That fact plus four days in a friend's '99 Corvette convinced me that the 5th-generation Corvette (C5) would work out well as a daily driver. And it did! I didn't want to send it down the Camaro path, but it was impossible to leave it alone. Click here to read about the C5 modifications. |
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'02 Porsche 911 Turbo
While I had owned several fast cars up to this point, purists might argue that none of them were true sports cars. Certainly none of them were even remotely exotic. The Camaro may have been quite unusual, but it would never be mistaken for a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Or a Porsche. Prices for the 996 version of Porsche's 911 Turbo model had reached striking distance, so I sold the Camaro and the Corvette in favor of this German experiment. Click here to read about how it turned out. |
'08 Corvette
If you've read the 911 page, you know that my Porsche honeymoon didn't last as long as I expected. Magazines and aficionado web sites enthused about how much better the 6th generation Corvette was than its predecessor, and I was generally happy with my C5, so I decided to return to my Chevy V8 homeland. In the 1-1/2 years I've owned this Jet Stream Blue C6, the only problems have been with aftermarket parts. The car itself has not required any attention outside of oil changes. Click here to visit the C6 page. |
