For the better part of the last decade, I like to think I have been one of the biggest opponents to this tired old mantra. It was pointed out to me this afternoon that even I have succumbed to the desire for turbocharged, all wheel drive power. I think that’s what has stung the most about this week’s events.
More than 12 years ago, back in September of 1996, my mom and I walked into Steven Jeep/Eagle in Wichita, Kansas with my down payment in hand to order up a brand spankin’ new Jeep Wrangler. Walking in with our sales rep, I found myself face-to-face with the most beautiful car I had ever seen. While mom and sales guy kept walking to the office to select options for my Jeep, I was paralyzed, stopped dead in my tracks by this car. Last night, after more than 207,000 miles and twelve years together, I left Daisy in the care of her new owner, PJ.
As hard as it was to watch Daisy pull away, I’ve been excited about the next chapter in my life. Do some digging around on the web with Google and you’re likely to find about a hundred different places where I’ve said I’d never sell Daisy. No way. No how. Yet, here I am, telling the world how I sold her, but why?
This is where we get to the title. I don’t need to explain it to DSMers, but for anyone else reading, there are turbocharged and non-turbocharged DSMs. The fastest are the turbocharged models, but the non-turbo models are the only reason the cars were made more than a couple years. (More than 90% of the DSMs sold were non-turbo.) So when some rookie joins a DSM forum wanting to go fast with class, he was often greeted with “Sell it and buy a turbo,” because there just isn’t as much aftermarket support for the NT models. It took the better part of two decades to finally establish a reputation of being a legitimate platform to modify with respectable performance and intelligent owners. That’s the story behind the title of this post.
Having been one of the biggest opponents of this mindset, it stung a bit this afternoon when my buddy noboost said, “‹oh shit driggs is in the sell it and buy a turbo club now!!!! welcome to darkside, shit, i almost forgot the fanfare!” It hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d gone and done just what I’ve been telling others they don’t have to do for years. Some will say I told them not to sell it and buy a turbo, but I know that I told them to consider their options before doing so.
In any case, this weekend, I pick up another Galant VR4. Number 464/1000. Story to come soon. (Oh yeah, and this one is running at the time of purchase. Big improvement over last time.)