This entry might not appeal to a lot of you (read; 7 followers), bit I just think it's time for a change of tone in my posts. I've only driven 3 cars I think, in my life. And the car I drove the most was the '92 Barina my parents bought for me and my brother. It's a little hatchback, a chick-car if ever there was one, but a car nonetheless. Now I wasn't a fan of driving really (odd for a guy, I know), I guess I just thought about it too much, thought about how easy it was for an accident to happen. Cos I mean what is essentially happening is a human being is consciously piloting a 1 tonne hunk of metal down an asphalt (are roads asphalt? I can't be bothered Googling right now) road with people on every side of them. One tiny slip of concentration, and someone could die. Very fatalistic thinking, compounded by the fact that I did actually crash the Barina. No one was hurt, but the Barina had some pretty heavy frontal body damage. So at this point, I hated driving. I feared it. I would always try and get someone to drive me to work where possible, because I simply loathed the thought of driving. To the point where at times I'd take the damn bus to work to spare having to actually drive a car. So yeah it was pretty bad. I thought I may never get over it, and how bad would that have been? A young adult male who couldn't drive. SOOOOOOOOOOFT. Wussy, even. So when the Barina started acting up a bit about mid last year, I thought "Screw it. I'm buying myself a car,” I needed to get over this phobia. And the key to that I thought, was getting my own car. So I did. And you know what? I love driving now. Love it. And it's all thanks to my new car. I just feel a lot safer in it. It's 10 years 'younger', and it doesn't, you know, rattle when it goes above 80kph. It's one hell of a smooth ride.
It may actually help if I have some
Anyway, onto my car. It's an '01 (plated in very late 01, sold in very early 02 according to the owner I bought it off) model Mitsubishi Verada. Now I personally had never heard of a Verada before I found the car on a car sales website, but I liked immediately what I saw. It is basically the same as the Mitsubishi Magna appearance and engine wise, with subtle differences in the body. It's also more of an 'executive' variant, more of the luxury build of a base model, so it looks a lot more shick and polished than the standard Magna. The body of the car is different in certain ways, not majorly, but enough to make you think "hey what the hell, it looks different.” Now call me a typical guy here, but to me, yes, it does look more badarse than the typical magna. The front and rear bumpers are slightly longer, the front grill seems more 'aggressive' and the rear lights are shaped differently and look nicer. Again you may think this is just me being blinded by my car, but I'm not. I hope.
The car is base white, which, if you knew me, would probably surprise you. I like a lot of my things in darker colours, mostly black. Examples? My phone, best watch, camera, pretty much all my computer stuff (mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers - whoa, getting a bit nerdy there) and over 50% of my T-shirts are black. And I ain't emo. I just like the colour. To me it seems more - sophisticated, and I just like the darker, more regal (to me anyway) look. But yeah, my car is white, and I really like the colour. Except that it shows dirt too easily. But ah well, still looks like a beast. It has alloy rims (stock) and a 6-cylinder 3.5L engine. Now I'm not a car nut, so I won't pretend I know lots about engines and stuff, but it does have a bit of grunt under the hood and DAMN it makes a nice sound when you open up the throttle *doofish grin*. I may get a spoiler for it sometime soon. But the problem is the price (can cost around $1000 from most places) and getting the paint to match the body. Buuuuuuut I think it'll make the car look even better. It's on the to-do list.
One of the things I was always going to do whenever I got a car, was pimp up the audio system. This was a no-brainer for me. I am a huge fan of good quality audio. I like my music loud, and I like it sounding as good as it can. So one of the first things I did after I got the car and did the rego, insurance etc, was get a good headunit. I dropped $250 for a Pioneer 4250 headunit with everything I wanted in it; mp3 playback, CD, USB connectivity, even an SD card reader (though I think I'll never use that) and sub-woofer control. That's right I got a sub. Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahh.
I bought the sub-woofer and amp a week or two after I got the headunit, because I'd just paid $6,800 for the car and more for the insurance and registration, so I didn't want to go spending money too soon right after all of that. But I did eventually manage to get a pretty sweet deal on the sub, box for it, the amp and wires for $240, so that was me set. If you know much about audio, the sub is 900W max and 300W RMS. So it's not massively powerful, but it is in no way a slouch either. The downside though, is that the amp is only 2 channel, so I can't get any interior speakers. To do so, I'd either have to get a 4 channel amp or disconnect the sub. Which kinda sucks I guess, but the stock speakers in my car are pretty damn good, so there's no real reason to complain.
I always thought 'When I get a sub, I'll never pump it out so the whole street can hear. I'm not one of those douchebags." But guess what? I'm now one of those douchebags. I can't help it. The music just sounds so – much - better louder. I don't blast it to the point where it makes the car's occupants ears bleed, but I still turn it up louder than a normal listening level. But like I said, it just sounds better. If you've been in a car with a sub (and the equaliser has been tuned properly, not just having massive bass, but a good balance with the treble as well), you'll know what I mean. But hell, even after just getting the headunit alone the audio quality jumped up. It's just that with the sub, it doesn't even compare.
Now this whole post probably sounds like a self-serving kind of one, and I guess it is in a way. But I was just sick of reading back through my posts and detecting a whiny tone in a lot of them, so I wanted to change it up a bit. For the better I hope.
Hope you enjoyed (if you even read this far) this entry. And now - I'm off to wash my car.
Drive Away
The Sundance Kids
Fall Into Place, 2009
Nice Shenge.
ReplyDeleteI remember my first car, a Ford Fiesta.
What is commonly referred to as, "a hairdressers car." What I referred to as, "my first deathtrap."
100 meters of black ice sure knows how to put an end to a good drive, and make you realise that there's fuck all you can do while driving backwards at fifty miles an hour, other than hope that your head and organs are harder than a concrete wall or a tree.
To cut a long story short, making the car spin and lose a lot of momentum up a bank is a sure way to either finish yourself or come out cheering. I chose the latter, stopping 2 inches from a tree.
Still haven't lost my love of driving yet though :)
Snap, drift king haha
ReplyDeleteI love driving now, pretty much solely because of that car. But all that caution is still there, just to a lesser degree. The crash helped as well, its made me a better driver overall.