WARNING: If you don't generally have interest in reading my thoughts and writings, there's basicly nothing new here. Driving the Probe has simply got me thinking, and this long ass story is the result. So skip this post, if you will. :)
Well, the summers practicly over and I just couldn't get sleep
tonight. So I decided to write up on what it's been like to be a Probe
driver so far.
A lot of people call their red cars the
Red Devils, even if its a fuckin red Nissan Micra, which has always
seemed utterly stupid to me. But for me, my only red devil is this
Probe. I've sacrificed so much money and time to this devil in order to
get to this point where she's running, and
she only wants more parts, more gasoline, more throttle and speed, and ultimately she will burn my driving license for sure.
Initially, upon my first few drives I had some huge problems to adjust to driving the Probe. I didn't enjoy it that much, thinking back, the handling in corners and the clutch is quite strange, it's a damn big and pretty heavy car so it's a bit hard to maneuver in tight spaces. I don't have the hifi system in Probe which I have in Mazda so I don't get my daily dose of loud music anymore.
In fact, the only thing that felt worth it all was the acceleration.
When you press the throttle, and turbo kicks in, it is a feeling that is very hard to describe and unlike any other car I've driven before. The horsepower number in the technical sheet doesn't give any justice to what it feels like to accelerate this beast. I'm thinking there must be some tuning done to the car which I haven't noticed, but the boost is stock 0.5 bars, and unless its a bigger turbo or an altered engine, I don't know what it could be.
What I do know is, having drived 325 BMW, 2.7 V6 H-Coupe, 2.0 T5 Volvo V40, Audi A4 1.8T, and many others, this car is way beyond them,
in terms of raw power, no matter what the papers say. And I'm not saying this to
provoke debate or to praise my car; in fact, I've come to the realization that powerful cars aren't really my cup of tea. They say with power you get more hungry the more you eat, that just doesn't seem to apply for me. I'm a little scared of the thing as of it is, to be honest.. With all the wheelspin, understeer, pulling etc, and I have the balls to admit, as of now I couldn't nearly have 99% control over the damn thing like I think I do with my ever-so-faithful Mazda.
Because, in the end, it's all so very pointless.
If you mean to follow the Law, that is, and which I do. I do admit sometimes going to the gray area where I might get a small fine, and sometimes in the countryside where it's safer, might go a step further than that. But a car like my Probe just doesn't have much to give within those boundaries. She only wants more and more throttle and speed, empty corner in the traffic lights turning to green; in a blink of an eye you've reached 60mph, you know the limit is 40mph and you just wanna go faster and faster, and it's almost like the Probe wants you to do just that. And in the end, what seperates my Probe from all the cars I've driven is solely the acceleration.
And I know very well how it's gonna end, I'm gonna end up losing my driving license and paying thousands of Euros for my moment of absolute freedom. I was quite close to doing that earlier today.
And to sum it all up, I'm not very satisfied. I've come to realize, the love I have for cars and the hobby is, and has always been,
because of the people involved. I miss those days when we would drive around, goof on the local gas station until the morning dawned. We would make our cars "better" when not doing that, installing better audio systems, exterior or interior eyetreats or just fixing them to keep them on the road. We would sometimes help each other and do things together, and when someone had something new in their car, it was all very exciting.
During these 3 years I've had this project, we have all grown and scattered. I could pick up my phone and call those people, but those meetings would be awkward in a way or another, and to be honest my life is super busy with work, relationship and garage, so it would probably lead to nothing good. As do they.
All in all, it makes me think
what really matters. And with this new light I can't anyhow justify buying a 800 euros coilover set to my car. Which is just a quarter of the full money I need to somehow finish the project in my mind. The car needs a new paint, front end is still the same old (brakes, discs, suspension links). The interior is not close to being ready, the audio system would cost me about 500. I want a different front bumper and the windows tinted.
And frankly, this car could never be a car I'd simply drive. The pleasure of owning is a lot more in working on it and creating something perfect.
So. I'm at a crossroad here. I'll either finish the paint scheme in the interior and do a make over for the car this winter, in order to sell it in the spring, or then I will keep working on it. I will try to drive it as much as possible now, so I could find out which is the better way for me.
I do love cars though, so I would probably buy a small sporty car, a newer one that doesn't need a complete overhaul and could be used around the year. I'm thinking Top Gear Car of the Year, Ford Puma (laugh ahead) or similar. And maybe buy a gokart when the Laws of the Street are choking me. Cos' honestly, for me it brings more enjoyment to push a small agile car near to its limits, than flirt around with a small fraction of capabilities of a larger, more powerful sports car. I guess I always knew that of myself, but thinking back I probably thought having a turbo sportster would somehow get myself more involved in the community.
And now it won't cease to amaze me how much we car-bug bitten men use money and time on our cars. Who of us has ever came with a good answer to the most obvious question, "Why?"
