donger need food.

Skepticism is the First Step Toward Truth.

What an interesting fortune...I took my old group out to Chef Chu's for a nice welcome lunch for their new manager on Monday and that's what I found inked on a small strip of parchment inside of my fortune cookie. Skepticism...it's something so essential to success in my line of work. Question everything. Critical analysis of all situations. But they're all things that I struggle with -- a big part of me likes to feel hope, likes to think that there's brighter days ahead. And it 's something that undermines my ability to be a powerful QA Manager; hell, even just a plain old manager. Otherwise, you'll get caught unprepared for unexpected situations, when you should've been looking days, miles, months ahead and preparing for the worst. But alas; I have yet to find that balance between the extremes of not caring about tomorrow and being so engrossed with crap that may happen years from now.

Eh. I'm just rambling.

So driving home last night, I started thinking about a list that I've always wanted to compile: Money no object, five cars that would be in your garage...

1. 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S (993 model). Silver or Black. I remember pulling out of UCSD's North Parking Lot some 10 years ago and seeing a silver one turn onto southbound La Jolla Village Drive. Slight squat in the rear end, a cloud of dark smoke (going full rich) and 3 seconds later it was some half a mile away. Four wheel drive. Last air-cooled 911 turbo. Two turbos. Two intercoolers. Sure, there's better Porsches out there (Carrera GT, GT3, etc.) but there's something about the original 993 body style. This would be great as a daily driver exotic -- the F355 would be cool, but I've always had a place for the anal-retentive execution of techno-wizardry by those crazy German engineers from Stuttgart. And the sound of an air-cooled turbo flat six is just too cool. And I can spend years trying to master the art of handling in a rear-wheel drive car with the motor hanging way out over the rear bumper. Must be great fun!
   
2. 1993 BMW M5 (E34 with the 3.8L S38B38 motor). Black. There's a crapload of better cars out there now, but BMW knows sports sedans, and in my opinion, the E34 was the penultimate example. The E39 is just too bloated and feature rich. The E28 is too spartan and raw. This would be my long distance hauler for 4, I could envision 700 mile days in this thing averaging 95+ on the interstate. And hell...I've lusted for one ever since 1995, so I'd shoot myself for not ever getting one.
3. Ferrari F355 Spyder. Screaming bright as fuck Yellow. And screw the paddle shifters. I wanna hear the clink clink clink of a gearshift banging against the open metal gates. And I wanna hear that outrageous wail of a 40 valve 3.5 L V8 screaming at 7000 RPM. I've heard it only once in my life, and I'll never forget it. Walking out of work to my car one day for a lunch break (when I was working near campus) I saw a yellow one screaming up La Jolla Village Drive crossing the I5 overpass. The sound was unbelievable and just out of this world. Yeah, this will be the boulevard cruiser on hot summer Saturday nights.
4. Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec (R32). Grey. This'll be the project car. What better platform to modify than the venerable iron block of the RB26DETT. I'll stroke the motor to 2.9L, throw on a pair of GT 3037 ball bearing units, with a fat ass HKS intercooler that fills the entire front bumper and a 3-inch titanium exhaust out the back. Get some nice Work wheels and keep the rest of the car subtle. And I'll rev the hell out of it...with the right hardware on the top end, 9000RPM should be a breeze. It's definitely not no 1100hp trailer queen Supra, but it'll be fast as fuck enough to scare the bejeezus out of me. Sure, the R33 is better looking and the R34 is one dominating piece of machinery, but the R32 is the original Godzilla, and the looks are just so damned honest to me.
5. 2005 Dodge RAM 2500 SLT Quad Cab 4x4, 8ft bed with shell. Dark Blue. 5.9L Cummins Turbo Diesel Engine backed by a 6-speed HD manual. Come on, 610ft-lbs at 1600 RPM? 2500 lb payload capacity and 12000lb towing? Enough said.

Shit. I got the tow vehicle, but haven't chosen a race car. Damnit. Hell, there's room for one more in this make believe garage! Let's see...open wheel would be cool, but I think I'll stick to touring cars. I'll start out small and move on to bigger and better things once I establish my racing career...I know, E30 M3 Sport Evolution II. Black. Just because I can. Super duper ultra rare, and the most winningest race car in BMW's history. That must be fun to run a 2.5L 16 valve four through its paces, uncorked with a wide open exhaust. Just imagine clipping those apexes, gas out on exit as you unwind the steering wheel, countersteering right when you feel that rear-end twitch. Screaming down the straight, then banging down the gears entering the next corner blipping the throttle under braking and getting that front end to turn and point you to the next apex. Hammer down, crank it up through the gears and touch 120 down the back straight, wind careening in through the window net, palms sweaty, heart pounding as you threshold brake for the hard off-camber left hander...

One can dream, can't he?

Damnit, I didn't even include a drift car! Or a crazy wild turbo wagon! Or an elegant classic car! Or a snorting muscle car! Oh well, I'd be happy to have just *one* of these things.

posted by VirtualErn @ 8:34 AM

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