5/23/06

I totally forgot to tell y’all about Maxine! Ok, so while I'm at the Motorsport Ranch talking to Ray, he shows me a Miata that is for sale. I look it over and keep telling myself, “I don’t need a Miata!” The asking price is too high and I really don’t need a Miata. I shrug it off and we keep moving on to other things. Well, later on in the evening I get a call from Ray saying he’s interested in the Miata but that if he did buy it he wouldn’t need Maxine anymore. I perked up. He asked if I knew anyone interested. I did, me. We talked a bit and when he realized I was the one interested he said, “Oh, well if you want it back then just come get it! No money out of pocket.” We talked a bit more and it came to pass that he would “write off” the eight months of payments as “rent” of the car and just hand it back to me. We agreed and so on Wednesday evening John and I will head down to the Ranch to take delivery. I'll have to undo many of the things he has done to it, and it will probably piss me off all over again, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I guess that should say, “you gotta undo what you gotta undo” in this case. This time around though, I AM going to install the five-speed! John doesn’t want to use the five-speed I have though. Apparently the overdrive gear is too low and it would be buzzy on the freeway. In a sedan that wouldn’t be an issue because we could just throw a 3.55 ring and pinion third member in it and be off. Wagons have a live axle though. Speaking of which, I'll probably also go ahead and install the 200SX axle with the disc brakes as well. Yeah I know, that’s going to make the rear ratio even worse. It won’t if the third member will swap from the Maxima axle. We’ll see. John and I discussed a few other options for that car. The V8 was discussed at which point Barbecue Bob could be sold. I'm just not sure I want to put a V8 in Maxine. I think I'd really rather have the straight six with a five-speed in there. Besides, Barbecue Bob is just too damn cool looking to let go. If it turns out to be half as bad-assed as I think it will, I might have to paint him matte-black and change his name to Mad Max. I'm talking Barbecue Bob of course. Maxine, while a more appropriate car for the Mad Max appellation, is too nice yet to get the Rat Rod treatment. I don’t know. We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. So, here’s what I'm thinking with regards to the cars. I'll finish George, do the five-speed swap in Maxine, and sell the Pimpmobile to get out from under $570.00 a month in cat payments. Now, another likely scenario is I'll get burned out on working on George, roll him out, do the five-speed swap in Maxine and finish George after that. The rest, about getting rid of the car payment, still applies. Having said all of that, John and I stopped by the Toyota dealer on our way back from delivering the red 510 and I test drove the Yaris hatch back. Me likee! Me likee lots! It was an absolute hoot! It was less buzzy and gutless than the Honduh Fit I drove Saturday evening. I guess I should have mentioned that as well. To make a short story long, it was a slush-box, they only had the one, they wanted a $500.00 deposit and a choice of two colors, and then they’d call me in a month or two when one came in. Yeah, I don’t think so. Oh, it also was buzzy and gutless. I was not impressed. So, the Yaris was way cool and I want it. I'm not going to say I want it “real bad,” like I have been known to say, I just want it. John approved of my appraisal of the cute sales chick as well. Did I mention it was only $12,200.00? I asked her what happens if I bring in a trade that’s worth more. “We cut you a check,” she says. Mom and I will go take a look at it this evening. I'm trying real hard to be pragmatic about it. I really don’t need a new car. The fuel mileage argument aside, the Pimpmobile does just fine. I'll be getting Maxine back tomorrow and she will have the fun factor of the five-speed in the near future. It may be possible to get out from under the $570.00 a month car payment with this purchase though. It depends on how the deal gets worked. Of course shifting into Maxine, pun intended, will also get me out from under the car payment if I sell the Pimpmobile. I have more to rant about but I've got to go pee and I just passed two pages. Perhaps the train of thought won’t derail before I get in here tomorrow. We’ll see.