Anyone know this Ricer?
12-09-2006, 05:43 PM
#101
Staging Lane
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Hagerstown, MD
Posts: 58
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Lying about mods is one thing. However the fact that she's infact a she might have something to do with predilection for a more import less aggressive look. I don't personally like it, but it's not that bad I don't think. I like the hood, even if it does have gaps.
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
12-09-2006, 06:21 PM
#103
Originally Posted by LastKnight
Lying about mods is one thing. However the fact that she's infact a she might have something to do with predilection for a more import less aggressive look. I don't personally like it, but it's not that bad I don't think. I like the hood, even if it does have gaps.
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
Im at a loss for words right now......
BTW
12-09-2006, 07:31 PM
#104
Originally Posted by LastKnight
Lying about mods is one thing. However the fact that she's infact a she might have something to do with predilection for a more import less aggressive look. I don't personally like it, but it's not that bad I don't think. I like the hood, even if it does have gaps.
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
Seriously though, I'll be the first to say I had plans to do away with stock exterior parts from the beginning. And although I've had plans for my car for years and I'm slowly bringing closer to goal, I have had one or two reservations before making the big changes, like the bumper, but in the end I'm always pleased with the result.
I really want one of those 'big block' Vette hoods for my LT1, either that or a custom hood using the 82-92 cowl T/A hood bulge. I know I'm more of a sideliner here at LS1 Tech, but I'd like to think I belong.
Anyone think this is terribly ugly?
that is the most
picture i have seen yet... why would you post that? 
some one lock this thread already..
12-09-2006, 08:15 PM
#105
Staging Lane
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Hagerstown, MD
Posts: 58
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Received 0 Likes
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I posted because I was genuinely curious what reaction the sight of my car would have to "enthusiasts". I guess I have my answer.
Thank you for your humility.
I have loved the Trans Am for my entire life. It's nice to know all T/A owners and their customizations are not created equal. And as far as customizations can go, there's nothing new under the sun. There's always something faster and nicer and louder. I concede to live on sidelines and speak little, but I won't be ashamed of my car or being proud of the work I've put into it.
You know it's not easy customizing from scratch. It's easy to buy a bolt on or take your car to any number of shops from stereo sales to suspension work, but doing it all yourself, learning everything anew, is just interesting and exciting to me in a way I've felt very few times in my life.
________________________________________
An essay on my fascination with the Firebird:
The Knight Excuse
Written by Michael J. Bray
Sitting here, wherever this boredom began, first beginning to type, my mind making petty considerations having nothing to do with anything romantic, it is the car that pervades my thoughts. It drives itself, and, like most of the sacrificial obsessions with which I have managed to oppose the terrible things in my life, it can damn near fly. It is precisely times like these when the Knight 2000 seems so marvelous, days like these where I have struggled to hear another voice only to be further socially debilitated by the ludicrous memory that my wonderful flying, scanning, racecar can talk.
Like one or two of the other fixations spreading their malignancy through my once fresh and unbiased mind, this one began at an early age and with an entirely different car. It was somewhere around 1986, I think, where I would have been five. A 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, black. It was Burt Reynolds who first broke loose the wheels of my lust for what I would wait five years to discover was something called an “F-Body”. Saddled with Sally Field, Burt and his 6.6-liter super-car, “Trigger,” successfully jumped an abandoned bridge, leaving a parade of exhausted and mangled state police cruisers to crash and saturate. Beyond the great fictional city of Metropolis, it was the most spectacular feat I had ever seen. Literarily, it could have been a week; actually I am not positive. Quickly enough to maintain and further the interest and attention of a child less than eight, the auspice KITT, an affectionate acronym for the archetype Knight Industries Two Thousand, spoke his first ultra-conservative touchingly narcissistic words without clearing his throat.
I remember being five-years-old. I remember asking what sort of car it was that jumped the bridge with Sally Field, that jumped the train, that drove itself between a speeding bullet and its owner, that talked, and scanned, and, as a matter of fact, flew. “Trans Am,” they said; that’s what it was. From a place called Pontiac where apparently all of the cars can fly.
What a name, Trans Am. It was amazing! And, dissimilar from one or two other likewise amazing things, Mom said it was real. In fact, my Uncle Mark had one, and, supposedly, my father had also driven one for a while. Uncle Mark’s car was called “Formula”. It looked a little like KITT, the same shape basically; white and dark gray though, and without a single flashing red light. And although it could not speak, it did have a voice. It idled at pulsing baritone growl, overfed like a wolf, narrowly containing its rage for the road. Instead of howling, at top speeds the Formula charged like a bull taking giant breaths of cold air. It exhaled the explosion, all of them, in splinters of free flow tubular thunder. From what I could see, at seven-years, strapped in, eye level to the glove box, we might have left the ground.
At least that’s the way I would tell it were I begging for an Oscar nomination while juggling contractual product placement guidelines. And while the ride in the white Formula with my uncle when I was eight was hardly as epic as the Dukes of Hazzard remake wishes it was, for whatever preordained reason it stuck with me. With the exception of my first car, and my second car, every car that I have owned has been a Firebird. I have learned many things; a number of them regarding cheap methods to cool an engine determined to overheat and suffocate itself at idle. It should be obvious that opposing the many and varied cons and deterrents of owning an F-Body, particularly a third generation model, that the compelling nature of the dream, or the dependence rather, has always managed to keep a few steps ahead of any growing discouragement; lucky for the car. To date, I’ve replaced three alternators, two 5 liter GM 305 small block, one Corvette LT1, one aluminum radiator, one water pump, two windshield wiper motors, three fifteen inch tires, 5 rounds of padded rotors, 14 speakers, two horns, an army of incandescent bulbs, and a few tens of hundreds of special orange Dextron GM Coolant. Of course every addition has its side effects. Busted knuckles, ripped cuticles, dirt in the eyes and the mouth and the ears, a good over torque forearm bruise, and pretty soon keeping your nails clean and your cuts salved and your blisters popped seems more and more the sort of thing you might do if you didn’t have a car in pieces in the driveway.
The point is in every slamming monkey wrench punctuating a swearing complaint, every inner elbow exhaust scorch, and every job eventually well done. There comes a turn somewhere between the final depressive broom sweeps of broken bolt heads, dust, and dried Band-Aids, a sense of completion, of gratification and satisfaction. And with every proof proven and mission accomplished, much like a crutching nervous system, the ambition for more elaborate and impressive projects spreads geometrically. And there is reciprocation and familiarity. The car performs every time; it never misses. A relationship develops, one of care, maintenance, and predictability. Whatever stress involved -- involved in every component and assembly on, under, or in a car – is absolutely inarguably self-induced. Which could possibly have something to do with the inherent lonely, hermit-like, status of many local aging gear-heads and their wives.
It has never been a good excuse. It was just always something to do, or to see if you could do. Unfortunately though the first product of all the thought and follow through and blood-blisters is a very reliable sense of knowledge and certainty. Perhaps, just the sort of virtue apparently missing or ignored elsewhere. Whether it is known or not, tinkering with a car can and frequently does give a mostly meaningless life a little sound, complexity, and speed. That admission is not an endorsement.
I am neither proud of the eccentricity that has allowed me to abandon any dwindling desire I once had for companionship, nor am I ashamed. I believe that I do love the idea of my car, though randomly, but commonly, I refrain from pushing the backseat into its proper position, from checking the oil at the every other refuel, and even from parking straight. Oddly, I think, it is exactly this moment when the ability to fly, or to turbo boost, or run the quarter mile in eight seconds could really do the most good. Because it is an excuse, there must logically be a rain check somewhere to some date or dinner or chat volley with someone expecting but soon to be disappointed. And while I am not sad that the plans for the newly redesigned fourth generation Knight-inspired front bumper and dash are in the works, I sometimes want so badly to clean everything up and eat with anyone other than myself.
Copyright 2005, Michael J. Bray
______________________________
Thank you for your humility.
I have loved the Trans Am for my entire life. It's nice to know all T/A owners and their customizations are not created equal. And as far as customizations can go, there's nothing new under the sun. There's always something faster and nicer and louder. I concede to live on sidelines and speak little, but I won't be ashamed of my car or being proud of the work I've put into it.
You know it's not easy customizing from scratch. It's easy to buy a bolt on or take your car to any number of shops from stereo sales to suspension work, but doing it all yourself, learning everything anew, is just interesting and exciting to me in a way I've felt very few times in my life.
________________________________________
An essay on my fascination with the Firebird:
The Knight Excuse
Written by Michael J. Bray
Sitting here, wherever this boredom began, first beginning to type, my mind making petty considerations having nothing to do with anything romantic, it is the car that pervades my thoughts. It drives itself, and, like most of the sacrificial obsessions with which I have managed to oppose the terrible things in my life, it can damn near fly. It is precisely times like these when the Knight 2000 seems so marvelous, days like these where I have struggled to hear another voice only to be further socially debilitated by the ludicrous memory that my wonderful flying, scanning, racecar can talk.
Like one or two of the other fixations spreading their malignancy through my once fresh and unbiased mind, this one began at an early age and with an entirely different car. It was somewhere around 1986, I think, where I would have been five. A 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, black. It was Burt Reynolds who first broke loose the wheels of my lust for what I would wait five years to discover was something called an “F-Body”. Saddled with Sally Field, Burt and his 6.6-liter super-car, “Trigger,” successfully jumped an abandoned bridge, leaving a parade of exhausted and mangled state police cruisers to crash and saturate. Beyond the great fictional city of Metropolis, it was the most spectacular feat I had ever seen. Literarily, it could have been a week; actually I am not positive. Quickly enough to maintain and further the interest and attention of a child less than eight, the auspice KITT, an affectionate acronym for the archetype Knight Industries Two Thousand, spoke his first ultra-conservative touchingly narcissistic words without clearing his throat.
I remember being five-years-old. I remember asking what sort of car it was that jumped the bridge with Sally Field, that jumped the train, that drove itself between a speeding bullet and its owner, that talked, and scanned, and, as a matter of fact, flew. “Trans Am,” they said; that’s what it was. From a place called Pontiac where apparently all of the cars can fly.
What a name, Trans Am. It was amazing! And, dissimilar from one or two other likewise amazing things, Mom said it was real. In fact, my Uncle Mark had one, and, supposedly, my father had also driven one for a while. Uncle Mark’s car was called “Formula”. It looked a little like KITT, the same shape basically; white and dark gray though, and without a single flashing red light. And although it could not speak, it did have a voice. It idled at pulsing baritone growl, overfed like a wolf, narrowly containing its rage for the road. Instead of howling, at top speeds the Formula charged like a bull taking giant breaths of cold air. It exhaled the explosion, all of them, in splinters of free flow tubular thunder. From what I could see, at seven-years, strapped in, eye level to the glove box, we might have left the ground.
At least that’s the way I would tell it were I begging for an Oscar nomination while juggling contractual product placement guidelines. And while the ride in the white Formula with my uncle when I was eight was hardly as epic as the Dukes of Hazzard remake wishes it was, for whatever preordained reason it stuck with me. With the exception of my first car, and my second car, every car that I have owned has been a Firebird. I have learned many things; a number of them regarding cheap methods to cool an engine determined to overheat and suffocate itself at idle. It should be obvious that opposing the many and varied cons and deterrents of owning an F-Body, particularly a third generation model, that the compelling nature of the dream, or the dependence rather, has always managed to keep a few steps ahead of any growing discouragement; lucky for the car. To date, I’ve replaced three alternators, two 5 liter GM 305 small block, one Corvette LT1, one aluminum radiator, one water pump, two windshield wiper motors, three fifteen inch tires, 5 rounds of padded rotors, 14 speakers, two horns, an army of incandescent bulbs, and a few tens of hundreds of special orange Dextron GM Coolant. Of course every addition has its side effects. Busted knuckles, ripped cuticles, dirt in the eyes and the mouth and the ears, a good over torque forearm bruise, and pretty soon keeping your nails clean and your cuts salved and your blisters popped seems more and more the sort of thing you might do if you didn’t have a car in pieces in the driveway.
The point is in every slamming monkey wrench punctuating a swearing complaint, every inner elbow exhaust scorch, and every job eventually well done. There comes a turn somewhere between the final depressive broom sweeps of broken bolt heads, dust, and dried Band-Aids, a sense of completion, of gratification and satisfaction. And with every proof proven and mission accomplished, much like a crutching nervous system, the ambition for more elaborate and impressive projects spreads geometrically. And there is reciprocation and familiarity. The car performs every time; it never misses. A relationship develops, one of care, maintenance, and predictability. Whatever stress involved -- involved in every component and assembly on, under, or in a car – is absolutely inarguably self-induced. Which could possibly have something to do with the inherent lonely, hermit-like, status of many local aging gear-heads and their wives.
It has never been a good excuse. It was just always something to do, or to see if you could do. Unfortunately though the first product of all the thought and follow through and blood-blisters is a very reliable sense of knowledge and certainty. Perhaps, just the sort of virtue apparently missing or ignored elsewhere. Whether it is known or not, tinkering with a car can and frequently does give a mostly meaningless life a little sound, complexity, and speed. That admission is not an endorsement.
I am neither proud of the eccentricity that has allowed me to abandon any dwindling desire I once had for companionship, nor am I ashamed. I believe that I do love the idea of my car, though randomly, but commonly, I refrain from pushing the backseat into its proper position, from checking the oil at the every other refuel, and even from parking straight. Oddly, I think, it is exactly this moment when the ability to fly, or to turbo boost, or run the quarter mile in eight seconds could really do the most good. Because it is an excuse, there must logically be a rain check somewhere to some date or dinner or chat volley with someone expecting but soon to be disappointed. And while I am not sad that the plans for the newly redesigned fourth generation Knight-inspired front bumper and dash are in the works, I sometimes want so badly to clean everything up and eat with anyone other than myself.
Copyright 2005, Michael J. Bray
______________________________
with wheels.
12-09-2006, 10:22 PM
#109
Originally Posted by LastKnight
I posted because I was genuinely curious what reaction the sight of my car would have to "enthusiasts". I guess I have my answer.
Thank you for your humility.
I have loved the Trans Am for my entire life. It's nice to know all T/A owners and their customizations are not created equal. And as far as customizations can go, there's nothing new under the sun. There's always something faster and nicer and louder. I concede to live on sidelines and speak little, but I won't be ashamed of my car or being proud of the work I've put into it.
You know it's not easy customizing from scratch. It's easy to buy a bolt on or take your car to any number of shops from stereo sales to suspension work, but doing it all yourself, learning everything anew, is just interesting and exciting to me in a way I've felt very few times in my life.
________________________________________
An essay on my fascination with the Firebird:
The Knight Excuse
Written by Michael J. Bray
Sitting here, wherever this boredom began, first beginning to type, my mind making petty considerations having nothing to do with anything romantic, it is the car that pervades my thoughts. It drives itself, and, like most of the sacrificial obsessions with which I have managed to oppose the terrible things in my life, it can damn near fly. It is precisely times like these when the Knight 2000 seems so marvelous, days like these where I have struggled to hear another voice only to be further socially debilitated by the ludicrous memory that my wonderful flying, scanning, racecar can talk.
Like one or two of the other fixations spreading their malignancy through my once fresh and unbiased mind, this one began at an early age and with an entirely different car. It was somewhere around 1986, I think, where I would have been five. A 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, black. It was Burt Reynolds who first broke loose the wheels of my lust for what I would wait five years to discover was something called an “F-Body”. Saddled with Sally Field, Burt and his 6.6-liter super-car, “Trigger,” successfully jumped an abandoned bridge, leaving a parade of exhausted and mangled state police cruisers to crash and saturate. Beyond the great fictional city of Metropolis, it was the most spectacular feat I had ever seen. Literarily, it could have been a week; actually I am not positive. Quickly enough to maintain and further the interest and attention of a child less than eight, the auspice KITT, an affectionate acronym for the archetype Knight Industries Two Thousand, spoke his first ultra-conservative touchingly narcissistic words without clearing his throat.
I remember being five-years-old. I remember asking what sort of car it was that jumped the bridge with Sally Field, that jumped the train, that drove itself between a speeding bullet and its owner, that talked, and scanned, and, as a matter of fact, flew. “Trans Am,” they said; that’s what it was. From a place called Pontiac where apparently all of the cars can fly.
What a name, Trans Am. It was amazing! And, dissimilar from one or two other likewise amazing things, Mom said it was real. In fact, my Uncle Mark had one, and, supposedly, my father had also driven one for a while. Uncle Mark’s car was called “Formula”. It looked a little like KITT, the same shape basically; white and dark gray though, and without a single flashing red light. And although it could not speak, it did have a voice. It idled at pulsing baritone growl, overfed like a wolf, narrowly containing its rage for the road. Instead of howling, at top speeds the Formula charged like a bull taking giant breaths of cold air. It exhaled the explosion, all of them, in splinters of free flow tubular thunder. From what I could see, at seven-years, strapped in, eye level to the glove box, we might have left the ground.
At least that’s the way I would tell it were I begging for an Oscar nomination while juggling contractual product placement guidelines. And while the ride in the white Formula with my uncle when I was eight was hardly as epic as the Dukes of Hazzard remake wishes it was, for whatever preordained reason it stuck with me. With the exception of my first car, and my second car, every car that I have owned has been a Firebird. I have learned many things; a number of them regarding cheap methods to cool an engine determined to overheat and suffocate itself at idle. It should be obvious that opposing the many and varied cons and deterrents of owning an F-Body, particularly a third generation model, that the compelling nature of the dream, or the dependence rather, has always managed to keep a few steps ahead of any growing discouragement; lucky for the car. To date, I’ve replaced three alternators, two 5 liter GM 305 small block, one Corvette LT1, one aluminum radiator, one water pump, two windshield wiper motors, three fifteen inch tires, 5 rounds of padded rotors, 14 speakers, two horns, an army of incandescent bulbs, and a few tens of hundreds of special orange Dextron GM Coolant. Of course every addition has its side effects. Busted knuckles, ripped cuticles, dirt in the eyes and the mouth and the ears, a good over torque forearm bruise, and pretty soon keeping your nails clean and your cuts salved and your blisters popped seems more and more the sort of thing you might do if you didn’t have a car in pieces in the driveway.
The point is in every slamming monkey wrench punctuating a swearing complaint, every inner elbow exhaust scorch, and every job eventually well done. There comes a turn somewhere between the final depressive broom sweeps of broken bolt heads, dust, and dried Band-Aids, a sense of completion, of gratification and satisfaction. And with every proof proven and mission accomplished, much like a crutching nervous system, the ambition for more elaborate and impressive projects spreads geometrically. And there is reciprocation and familiarity. The car performs every time; it never misses. A relationship develops, one of care, maintenance, and predictability. Whatever stress involved -- involved in every component and assembly on, under, or in a car – is absolutely inarguably self-induced. Which could possibly have something to do with the inherent lonely, hermit-like, status of many local aging gear-heads and their wives.
It has never been a good excuse. It was just always something to do, or to see if you could do. Unfortunately though the first product of all the thought and follow through and blood-blisters is a very reliable sense of knowledge and certainty. Perhaps, just the sort of virtue apparently missing or ignored elsewhere. Whether it is known or not, tinkering with a car can and frequently does give a mostly meaningless life a little sound, complexity, and speed. That admission is not an endorsement.
I am neither proud of the eccentricity that has allowed me to abandon any dwindling desire I once had for companionship, nor am I ashamed. I believe that I do love the idea of my car, though randomly, but commonly, I refrain from pushing the backseat into its proper position, from checking the oil at the every other refuel, and even from parking straight. Oddly, I think, it is exactly this moment when the ability to fly, or to turbo boost, or run the quarter mile in eight seconds could really do the most good. Because it is an excuse, there must logically be a rain check somewhere to some date or dinner or chat volley with someone expecting but soon to be disappointed. And while I am not sad that the plans for the newly redesigned fourth generation Knight-inspired front bumper and dash are in the works, I sometimes want so badly to clean everything up and eat with anyone other than myself.
Copyright 2005, Michael J. Bray
______________________________
Thank you for your humility.
I have loved the Trans Am for my entire life. It's nice to know all T/A owners and their customizations are not created equal. And as far as customizations can go, there's nothing new under the sun. There's always something faster and nicer and louder. I concede to live on sidelines and speak little, but I won't be ashamed of my car or being proud of the work I've put into it.
You know it's not easy customizing from scratch. It's easy to buy a bolt on or take your car to any number of shops from stereo sales to suspension work, but doing it all yourself, learning everything anew, is just interesting and exciting to me in a way I've felt very few times in my life.
________________________________________
An essay on my fascination with the Firebird:
The Knight Excuse
Written by Michael J. Bray
Sitting here, wherever this boredom began, first beginning to type, my mind making petty considerations having nothing to do with anything romantic, it is the car that pervades my thoughts. It drives itself, and, like most of the sacrificial obsessions with which I have managed to oppose the terrible things in my life, it can damn near fly. It is precisely times like these when the Knight 2000 seems so marvelous, days like these where I have struggled to hear another voice only to be further socially debilitated by the ludicrous memory that my wonderful flying, scanning, racecar can talk.
Like one or two of the other fixations spreading their malignancy through my once fresh and unbiased mind, this one began at an early age and with an entirely different car. It was somewhere around 1986, I think, where I would have been five. A 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, black. It was Burt Reynolds who first broke loose the wheels of my lust for what I would wait five years to discover was something called an “F-Body”. Saddled with Sally Field, Burt and his 6.6-liter super-car, “Trigger,” successfully jumped an abandoned bridge, leaving a parade of exhausted and mangled state police cruisers to crash and saturate. Beyond the great fictional city of Metropolis, it was the most spectacular feat I had ever seen. Literarily, it could have been a week; actually I am not positive. Quickly enough to maintain and further the interest and attention of a child less than eight, the auspice KITT, an affectionate acronym for the archetype Knight Industries Two Thousand, spoke his first ultra-conservative touchingly narcissistic words without clearing his throat.
I remember being five-years-old. I remember asking what sort of car it was that jumped the bridge with Sally Field, that jumped the train, that drove itself between a speeding bullet and its owner, that talked, and scanned, and, as a matter of fact, flew. “Trans Am,” they said; that’s what it was. From a place called Pontiac where apparently all of the cars can fly.
What a name, Trans Am. It was amazing! And, dissimilar from one or two other likewise amazing things, Mom said it was real. In fact, my Uncle Mark had one, and, supposedly, my father had also driven one for a while. Uncle Mark’s car was called “Formula”. It looked a little like KITT, the same shape basically; white and dark gray though, and without a single flashing red light. And although it could not speak, it did have a voice. It idled at pulsing baritone growl, overfed like a wolf, narrowly containing its rage for the road. Instead of howling, at top speeds the Formula charged like a bull taking giant breaths of cold air. It exhaled the explosion, all of them, in splinters of free flow tubular thunder. From what I could see, at seven-years, strapped in, eye level to the glove box, we might have left the ground.
At least that’s the way I would tell it were I begging for an Oscar nomination while juggling contractual product placement guidelines. And while the ride in the white Formula with my uncle when I was eight was hardly as epic as the Dukes of Hazzard remake wishes it was, for whatever preordained reason it stuck with me. With the exception of my first car, and my second car, every car that I have owned has been a Firebird. I have learned many things; a number of them regarding cheap methods to cool an engine determined to overheat and suffocate itself at idle. It should be obvious that opposing the many and varied cons and deterrents of owning an F-Body, particularly a third generation model, that the compelling nature of the dream, or the dependence rather, has always managed to keep a few steps ahead of any growing discouragement; lucky for the car. To date, I’ve replaced three alternators, two 5 liter GM 305 small block, one Corvette LT1, one aluminum radiator, one water pump, two windshield wiper motors, three fifteen inch tires, 5 rounds of padded rotors, 14 speakers, two horns, an army of incandescent bulbs, and a few tens of hundreds of special orange Dextron GM Coolant. Of course every addition has its side effects. Busted knuckles, ripped cuticles, dirt in the eyes and the mouth and the ears, a good over torque forearm bruise, and pretty soon keeping your nails clean and your cuts salved and your blisters popped seems more and more the sort of thing you might do if you didn’t have a car in pieces in the driveway.
The point is in every slamming monkey wrench punctuating a swearing complaint, every inner elbow exhaust scorch, and every job eventually well done. There comes a turn somewhere between the final depressive broom sweeps of broken bolt heads, dust, and dried Band-Aids, a sense of completion, of gratification and satisfaction. And with every proof proven and mission accomplished, much like a crutching nervous system, the ambition for more elaborate and impressive projects spreads geometrically. And there is reciprocation and familiarity. The car performs every time; it never misses. A relationship develops, one of care, maintenance, and predictability. Whatever stress involved -- involved in every component and assembly on, under, or in a car – is absolutely inarguably self-induced. Which could possibly have something to do with the inherent lonely, hermit-like, status of many local aging gear-heads and their wives.
It has never been a good excuse. It was just always something to do, or to see if you could do. Unfortunately though the first product of all the thought and follow through and blood-blisters is a very reliable sense of knowledge and certainty. Perhaps, just the sort of virtue apparently missing or ignored elsewhere. Whether it is known or not, tinkering with a car can and frequently does give a mostly meaningless life a little sound, complexity, and speed. That admission is not an endorsement.
I am neither proud of the eccentricity that has allowed me to abandon any dwindling desire I once had for companionship, nor am I ashamed. I believe that I do love the idea of my car, though randomly, but commonly, I refrain from pushing the backseat into its proper position, from checking the oil at the every other refuel, and even from parking straight. Oddly, I think, it is exactly this moment when the ability to fly, or to turbo boost, or run the quarter mile in eight seconds could really do the most good. Because it is an excuse, there must logically be a rain check somewhere to some date or dinner or chat volley with someone expecting but soon to be disappointed. And while I am not sad that the plans for the newly redesigned fourth generation Knight-inspired front bumper and dash are in the works, I sometimes want so badly to clean everything up and eat with anyone other than myself.
Copyright 2005, Michael J. Bray
______________________________
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAHHAHA
what kind of babbling nonsense is this? you need to move from MD and head to either Miami or San Francisco.. I think you might find some appreciation you are looking for there. Nice "copyright" by the way
please some one ....lock this
12-09-2006, 10:22 PM
#110
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Originally Posted by GR33N GoblinM6
that is the most
picture i have seen yet... why would you post that? some one lock this thread already..
12-09-2006, 11:49 PM
#111
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It's warms me to provide entertainment for you. Whether you like my car or not is a matter of decision, but to insult me too? That's just plain suicidal.
It's just not cool if doesn't personify how tough each of you indiviually are, eh? How short are you, really? Does everything have to be a pissing contest?
It's a car, have fun with it, take care of it, restore it, customize it. But don't ever think for a minute that any of you represent anything on the latter side of racing or the heirarchy of customization.
All of you are bolt bitches, with greasy overpriced pumped up equipment. But to listen to all of your little curiosities on self-customization makes me giggle. Sixty percent of you piston sniffers ooh and aah over silly junk like turbo switch set ups and billet badging. Everyone of you intolerant zipperheads are trying to be something you're not. If I were there I'd tell you to your face, "It's a hole in your heart. You can't fill with chrome and g force, you weeping girl."
Try something new once in a while. Stop relying on others to build your parts. Get involved. And be don't so preoccupied with the inherent "gayness" of something you silly bunch of maudlin women. It makes you sound scared.
It's just not cool if doesn't personify how tough each of you indiviually are, eh? How short are you, really? Does everything have to be a pissing contest?
It's a car, have fun with it, take care of it, restore it, customize it. But don't ever think for a minute that any of you represent anything on the latter side of racing or the heirarchy of customization.
All of you are bolt bitches, with greasy overpriced pumped up equipment. But to listen to all of your little curiosities on self-customization makes me giggle. Sixty percent of you piston sniffers ooh and aah over silly junk like turbo switch set ups and billet badging. Everyone of you intolerant zipperheads are trying to be something you're not. If I were there I'd tell you to your face, "It's a hole in your heart. You can't fill with chrome and g force, you weeping girl."
Try something new once in a while. Stop relying on others to build your parts. Get involved. And be don't so preoccupied with the inherent "gayness" of something you silly bunch of maudlin women. It makes you sound scared.
Last edited by LastKnight; 12-09-2006 at 11:57 PM.
12-10-2006, 12:03 AM
#113
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o.m.g. this thread. the girl is a liar. and the dude with the startrek car...front end looks photoshopped imo. but further more...what the F*CK does your contribution to this thread have ANYTHING to do with it?
EDIT: "anyone think this is terribly ugly?" Answer: yes.
EDIT: "anyone think this is terribly ugly?" Answer: yes.
12-10-2006, 12:13 AM
#114
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Front end is Photoshopped. It's due to be painted this winter, should the date ever come.
The real front end is this for now:
As for the reason for posting, I wanted to take some of the slack off of the rope suspending this poor girl for doing what she wants with her car. So she's a liar, and therefor brought on the ravening dunderheaded wolves herself, there's no reason for this type of posting.
Think about it. Why is the girl trying to fit in so hard, to impress you? Because some of you post as you live, like prehistoric apes that hate anything they can't recognize as sacred. But in the end, no, I suppose I don't care much about the girl.
I was just trying to do the right thing, and draw some fire away from her. I knew you'd hate my car. It's antithesis everything everyone of you are trying to do, be recognized.
The real front end is this for now:
As for the reason for posting, I wanted to take some of the slack off of the rope suspending this poor girl for doing what she wants with her car. So she's a liar, and therefor brought on the ravening dunderheaded wolves herself, there's no reason for this type of posting.
Think about it. Why is the girl trying to fit in so hard, to impress you? Because some of you post as you live, like prehistoric apes that hate anything they can't recognize as sacred. But in the end, no, I suppose I don't care much about the girl.
I was just trying to do the right thing, and draw some fire away from her. I knew you'd hate my car. It's antithesis everything everyone of you are trying to do, be recognized.
12-10-2006, 12:25 AM
#115
Originally Posted by LastKnight
... Does everything have to be a pissing contest?
Try something new once in a while. Stop relying on others to build your parts. Get involved. And be don't so preoccupied with the inherent "gayness" of something you silly bunch of maudlin women. It makes you sound scared.
Try something new once in a while. Stop relying on others to build your parts. Get involved. And be don't so preoccupied with the inherent "gayness" of something you silly bunch of maudlin women. It makes you sound scared.
Trying something new is not too bad, but there is nothing really for the mainstream F-body enthusiasts that we can build ourselves, since our drive is for performance, not appearance. I can't make a set of headers to fit my car, grind my own camshaft or create an new intake manifold. Maybe some sort of welding fabrication for suspension/chassis or speaker boxes is feasible. But all the internal engine parts, we do need to rely on others, of course.
As for harshing on this chic, it kinda is getting excessive, but when you put it out there, you make yourself a target. What she is claiming about her car is so ridiculously obscene. This is basic tech knowledge and she's spewing it out like we don't know anything about LS1s. That's like saying your car, a RED LT1 car, was the original Knight Rider car used in the TV series from 1982-86. It's complete and total bullshit. Anybody comes in here with a whack *** story and they'll get bombed, just like this chic is.
12-10-2006, 01:26 AM
#117
wow, 32 degree LSx heads.. must want to go slower.. and an 85mm TB for a fast tech intake? LMFAO come on... someone needed more attention growing up... or needs it now. see a councelor.
12-10-2006, 01:28 AM
#118
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Originally Posted by RaNsOm
ah, well that explains everything. And girls wonder why there's such awful stereotypes about them and cars.
/thread.
/thread.
THAT LITTLE BITCH