Love Audio Love Cars

Odd how many of us like cars and high end systems, maybe we just appreciate high perfomance stuff? The two hobbies are similar in that you need to keep things in perspective or you can go WAY overboard for that last inch of perfection. Slippery slope for both pass times. I've owned various BMW and Audis, fun cars but the care and feeding of fine German engineered automobiles can be a bit overwhelming.

My winter car is a stock 2001 Acura 3.2 Type S (yeah, including the Bose system but I just can't bring myself to carve up the dash switching out the 6-disc head unit). Fun car: 265 HP, 17" rims, tiptronic tranny if you want to shift gears (or leave it in automatic), great handling, and totally reliable. No regrets, a real nice ride.

My summer car is a 1989 Toyota Supra Turbo, never winter driven and for the most part all original. Cosmetic changes were the mags (Momo's), window tinting, and of course the stereo. Dual MTX subwoofers, dual Pioneer amps, 12-CD changer, Pioneer head unit, stock speakers swapped out for Infinity's, and 1" dome tweets thrown in for good measure. The Type III Supras are gorgeous looking cars and one helluva lot of fun to drive!

Rhljazz, so you own the very first 3.2 litre E36. Mine is the very last. It's Titanium Silver. Where are you located? I could use a good shop, hopefully you're close to me in Los Angeles, CA. :-)

Plato, I had a red GSR and it got stolen three days beofre my lease was up and two days before Thanksgiving '99. It was recovered on Christmas Eve a month later completely stripped. Whoever chopped it did a very neat job, but then again they had plenty of time and privacy. I did remove the carbon fiber shift knob and give it to my girlfriend at the time before it got snatched.

Ramond, nice ride! Does your Vette have one of them old Muncie shifters? Rock Crushers? I agree. With your car who needs a car stereo, the engine and exhaust are the music! Or maybe in your case closer to 7.1 earthquake surround!

UncleJeff, that is an amazing trek you accomplished!

the two just seem to go together somehow. to fight the itch i've tried to buy modern classics that are too good in my eyes & pocketbook to sell. Bimmer: '88 535is white on red leather. Beemer : '95 R100RT Classic Edition

now if i could just get settled on the audio end.....

Dma, that NSX is an awesome car. I really want one, but can't afford it! I was passed by one on the highway once and it looked like some hi-tech dream from outer space. I love that car.

Gunbei, that stinks about your GSR being stolen during the holiday season. Now that you mentioned it, I hope I get my carbon-fiber shift knob back when I pick up my car from the body shop later today. That would be nice. :)

Plato, during the time I owned the GSR I had a chance to drive my friend's NSX. It was around midnight Christmas Eve and the roads in Southern California were pretty empty so I had a chance to open her up.

The seating and cockpit of this car fit me perfectly, and since this was a '96 model it no longer had the heavy manual steering of the early models so it was just as easy to drive as an Accord. No supercar diva here. This could easily be a daily-driver.

Heal-toeing is easy in this car and I needed it when my friend scolded me for taking a freeway on-ramp too slowly in third gear. So I downshifted and let that V-TEC buzz away on the long sweeping on-ramp. The acceleration is effortless in this car, and it wasn't until after I upshifted to third I noticed we were doing almost 110 mph. It' sooo easy to go fast in this car. I would have loved to take this car on the run from Los Angeles to Vegas!

My M3 is nice, but the NSX feels like you're in the cockpit of fighter jet.