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This month was definately good competition but the people have spoken and the winner is........
Kofkof_00!!!! Congratulations!!!
His Entry:
Kofkof_00!!!! Congratulations!!!
His Entry:
Originally posted by Kofkof_00
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Here goes nuthin.
About 2 years ago, I had to sell my truck. A nice 82 s10 with a v8 swap in it. It was my baby. Impractical, gas guzzling, wickedly fast sled. I felt pretty crappy about cars and such. At that point & figured I would abstain for a while. My girlfriend wouldn't have any of it. She insisted that we get a vehicle. Her father is a really cool guy who collects mini's. I mean he collects mini's. At the time he had 3!
I had a mini when I was growing up. I really wanted another one, but they’re expensive. Too old also. I toyed with the idea of buying one of his, but they were pretty steep. I needed something reliable. Importing one from Japan still meant swapping from left to right hand drive. So I looked at what would be close in design philosophy. This is the mini I would of wanted.
A Justy, a Micra, or a Festiva.
Ruled out the Justy pretty quick. 4wd meant the cars were just about at the right age to require extensive drive train repairs, and my web research was littered with posts complaining only Subaru knew how to fix them right, and charged dearly for their services.
Then came the Micra. If we had found a 2-door model, you probably would not be reading this. We looked high and low, but all we could find was way over priced, or severely abused ex-student cars… Oh, and a pretty steep 4 door that had an impressive collection of snowboarding stickers on it's butt. $2400 was a little rich for that car. And it was an ex-smoker.
During all these researches, no Festiva's were to be found at all. None, nadda, zippo. And we looked. Hard. EVERYWHERE. Finally my gf found a blue one in Vancouver. The price seemed right ($1100) so we made a trip of it. I have to say it was a rather sorry example. It had some improvised switches, some pretty major dings, (a door and a rear quarter panel replacement would have had to be in order, a cracked side marker, a missing right indicator lenses, a gutted radio harness, and a strangely far back sunroof installation. (It leaked, we found out later.)
I guess we felt bad at having traveled all this distance and we bought it anyways. I thought I had my work cut out for me. I mentally inventoried the repairs as I drove back & internalized some major dread. Both CV joints, lower control arm, bearings all around, leaky exhaust... The list just kept growing. But, I'm always up for a challenge and I was determined to turn this one around. No matter how desperate it might be. The same week we got it back, my gf's dad calls me up & says: Weren't
you looking for a Festiva? there's a right smart one by my work, up for sale.
Let me tell you. I didn't want to go. I did not want to see it. My gf couldn't understand why. She forced me to go. (thank heavens she did) Just to have a look, she said.
drove up to where it was, parked on the front lawn of a friend of hotrodin4me's lawn. He was selling it. He's your regular Festiva nut, owns about 6 or 7 at any given time. You might know him, He hangs out here also.
It was a jem. Black, where I hadn't been too keen on the whole blue thing. Flawless, not a dent, where ours looked to have gone through a demolition derby. Needless to say we had blown our car budget on the blue one & the trip. It made that discovery very, very, very bitter sweet...
I drove back home really angry at myself. There was a car that would be a blank slate, a ready canvas for my modification plans. Not the uphill battle I just had spent the little money we had on. After some frantic plotting, some calls were made, and we begged, borrowed, and came up with the money to buy the black one. We had gone from hopelessly looking for a car to owning 2, in less than a week.
It was there that my obsession began. I gave myself a goal. 1 mod a week. One addition, one repair, one upgrade, per week. It didn't matter how small or how big... I had to make this car look as good as what I had witnessed out there. You see by that point, I had stumbled onto fordfestiva.com and consequently had followed the breadcrumbs of websites, and pics peppered across the intertron. I had witnessed Cam's Waugh master piece.
And was shaken to the core.
So pretty. So much effort, poured into such a small receptacle. Such ingenuity applied to sourcing parts from alternate cars. A low 13’s under 10g’s. Brilliant.
No sooner had I witnessed the awe of that blue turbo'ed fury, that I found the Pimptiva's website. This thing was bagged! It was called the Pimptiva for a reason. You rode in style in that. Big Pimpin’ style. I scoured the web for additional pics. Drinked-in every technical detail available, pored over the car show section, had it on the desktop of every workstation I touched at work, annoyed my co-workers to no end reciting the impressive feature list.
And then...
Then I found DJ's cardomain page. His car was different. Where Pimptiva was elegant, luxurious even, DJ's was raw, low, angry, not-time-for-shine flat black reminiscent of Mad Max’s falcon gtx Monza nosed interceptor. Packing enough electronics to make best buy curl up in a fetal position and cry for mama. Sitting on his lawn, this thing looked like it would chomp your legs off at the knees if you wandered to close... And come back for the stumps on the second pass.
I had my templates.
I was going to sample a little from the 3 archetypes, mix in some of my preferences, throw in a little Pimptiva spice for just the right level of tartness, like a skirt that’s just short enough to hint at what lies under. Pour in some measured suspension and brake upgrades, to get that CWS tuning stance, helping the trained eye recognizes the packed potential, and last but not least, a good serving of that Technostiva moxie that screams: I can do GPS just like you , sir Escalade, but I can also watch a DVD, play some ps2 & surf the net, all while I blow your doors off and do it at 42mpg!
Without further ado, I give you, my car.
The list of modifications is extensive.
Somewhere in there is a 92 5 speed. It resides in Victoria BC, in that strip of snow off the backside of the us called Canada.
Some of the major mods are: Full FMS bodykit, kyb gr2 & fms springs, brembo brakes / greenstuff shoes, American racing Estrella 13" on Khumo rubber, Procar by Scat racing bucket seats with custom fabbed brackets, onboard pc / gps / internet access with 7" lilliput touch screen. Gen 2 ps2, Custom fabbed short throw B&M shifter, grant steering wheel, air horn, aftermarket pedals, euro kmh rpm cluster, Full custom bent 2 1/2 exhaust with no cat, huge cherrybomb & flowmaster turbo muffler, Sony explod deck with a 200wts amp, scoche cap, 2nd battery located in the trunk with a 95amp battery isolator, variable intermitant wiper assembly, maplight dome light upgrade, 40 band cb with stealth antenna, and a dash mounted coffee cup holder.
It's never done. I probably forgot a bunch of stuff to the upgrades description. There's an engine upgrade in the cards. Funds are there, sourcing the long block is where i'm at.
None of this would of been possible without www.fordfestiva.com
About 2 years ago, I had to sell my truck. A nice 82 s10 with a v8 swap in it. It was my baby. Impractical, gas guzzling, wickedly fast sled. I felt pretty crappy about cars and such. At that point & figured I would abstain for a while. My girlfriend wouldn't have any of it. She insisted that we get a vehicle. Her father is a really cool guy who collects mini's. I mean he collects mini's. At the time he had 3!
I had a mini when I was growing up. I really wanted another one, but they’re expensive. Too old also. I toyed with the idea of buying one of his, but they were pretty steep. I needed something reliable. Importing one from Japan still meant swapping from left to right hand drive. So I looked at what would be close in design philosophy. This is the mini I would of wanted.
A Justy, a Micra, or a Festiva.
Ruled out the Justy pretty quick. 4wd meant the cars were just about at the right age to require extensive drive train repairs, and my web research was littered with posts complaining only Subaru knew how to fix them right, and charged dearly for their services.
Then came the Micra. If we had found a 2-door model, you probably would not be reading this. We looked high and low, but all we could find was way over priced, or severely abused ex-student cars… Oh, and a pretty steep 4 door that had an impressive collection of snowboarding stickers on it's butt. $2400 was a little rich for that car. And it was an ex-smoker.
During all these researches, no Festiva's were to be found at all. None, nadda, zippo. And we looked. Hard. EVERYWHERE. Finally my gf found a blue one in Vancouver. The price seemed right ($1100) so we made a trip of it. I have to say it was a rather sorry example. It had some improvised switches, some pretty major dings, (a door and a rear quarter panel replacement would have had to be in order, a cracked side marker, a missing right indicator lenses, a gutted radio harness, and a strangely far back sunroof installation. (It leaked, we found out later.)
I guess we felt bad at having traveled all this distance and we bought it anyways. I thought I had my work cut out for me. I mentally inventoried the repairs as I drove back & internalized some major dread. Both CV joints, lower control arm, bearings all around, leaky exhaust... The list just kept growing. But, I'm always up for a challenge and I was determined to turn this one around. No matter how desperate it might be. The same week we got it back, my gf's dad calls me up & says: Weren't
you looking for a Festiva? there's a right smart one by my work, up for sale.
Let me tell you. I didn't want to go. I did not want to see it. My gf couldn't understand why. She forced me to go. (thank heavens she did) Just to have a look, she said.
drove up to where it was, parked on the front lawn of a friend of hotrodin4me's lawn. He was selling it. He's your regular Festiva nut, owns about 6 or 7 at any given time. You might know him, He hangs out here also.
It was a jem. Black, where I hadn't been too keen on the whole blue thing. Flawless, not a dent, where ours looked to have gone through a demolition derby. Needless to say we had blown our car budget on the blue one & the trip. It made that discovery very, very, very bitter sweet...
I drove back home really angry at myself. There was a car that would be a blank slate, a ready canvas for my modification plans. Not the uphill battle I just had spent the little money we had on. After some frantic plotting, some calls were made, and we begged, borrowed, and came up with the money to buy the black one. We had gone from hopelessly looking for a car to owning 2, in less than a week.
It was there that my obsession began. I gave myself a goal. 1 mod a week. One addition, one repair, one upgrade, per week. It didn't matter how small or how big... I had to make this car look as good as what I had witnessed out there. You see by that point, I had stumbled onto fordfestiva.com and consequently had followed the breadcrumbs of websites, and pics peppered across the intertron. I had witnessed Cam's Waugh master piece.
And was shaken to the core.
So pretty. So much effort, poured into such a small receptacle. Such ingenuity applied to sourcing parts from alternate cars. A low 13’s under 10g’s. Brilliant.
No sooner had I witnessed the awe of that blue turbo'ed fury, that I found the Pimptiva's website. This thing was bagged! It was called the Pimptiva for a reason. You rode in style in that. Big Pimpin’ style. I scoured the web for additional pics. Drinked-in every technical detail available, pored over the car show section, had it on the desktop of every workstation I touched at work, annoyed my co-workers to no end reciting the impressive feature list.
And then...
Then I found DJ's cardomain page. His car was different. Where Pimptiva was elegant, luxurious even, DJ's was raw, low, angry, not-time-for-shine flat black reminiscent of Mad Max’s falcon gtx Monza nosed interceptor. Packing enough electronics to make best buy curl up in a fetal position and cry for mama. Sitting on his lawn, this thing looked like it would chomp your legs off at the knees if you wandered to close... And come back for the stumps on the second pass.
I had my templates.
I was going to sample a little from the 3 archetypes, mix in some of my preferences, throw in a little Pimptiva spice for just the right level of tartness, like a skirt that’s just short enough to hint at what lies under. Pour in some measured suspension and brake upgrades, to get that CWS tuning stance, helping the trained eye recognizes the packed potential, and last but not least, a good serving of that Technostiva moxie that screams: I can do GPS just like you , sir Escalade, but I can also watch a DVD, play some ps2 & surf the net, all while I blow your doors off and do it at 42mpg!
Without further ado, I give you, my car.
The list of modifications is extensive.
Somewhere in there is a 92 5 speed. It resides in Victoria BC, in that strip of snow off the backside of the us called Canada.
Some of the major mods are: Full FMS bodykit, kyb gr2 & fms springs, brembo brakes / greenstuff shoes, American racing Estrella 13" on Khumo rubber, Procar by Scat racing bucket seats with custom fabbed brackets, onboard pc / gps / internet access with 7" lilliput touch screen. Gen 2 ps2, Custom fabbed short throw B&M shifter, grant steering wheel, air horn, aftermarket pedals, euro kmh rpm cluster, Full custom bent 2 1/2 exhaust with no cat, huge cherrybomb & flowmaster turbo muffler, Sony explod deck with a 200wts amp, scoche cap, 2nd battery located in the trunk with a 95amp battery isolator, variable intermitant wiper assembly, maplight dome light upgrade, 40 band cb with stealth antenna, and a dash mounted coffee cup holder.
It's never done. I probably forgot a bunch of stuff to the upgrades description. There's an engine upgrade in the cards. Funds are there, sourcing the long block is where i'm at.
None of this would of been possible without www.fordfestiva.com
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