Me and my car(s). Or, "Why Stephen is a nut."

OK, so here's the deal about the car...

First a bit of history. I grew up with a Dad who was a car buff. But not an average, american muscle car buff. we watched NASCAR at home, sure, but we also watched F1 and several of the sports car series when I was growing up. Dad went to see the F1 in California one year when I was too young to go with him (boy, I sure hated him for that for a while...). That was one of the years that the cars were using skirts and fans to increase downforce. One of the cars that that was part of my driving education was his 1974 Saab Sonnet III (an early front drive sportscar.) This was the first manual tranny car I ever drove, and it set me up for the future quite well.

My first car was a 1965 VW Beetle. Dad & I stripped the interior and reinforced the rusted floor pan with fiberglass. We dropped the engine, replaced the clutch, and re-installed the engine before I took it out of the driveway. After that one, I had a 4-speed 1974 Volvo 145 wagon. Great car for all kinds of things (Drive In movie dates, camping, etc.) Although a little heavy. After a time with that one, I saved up some money and bought my first sports car, a 1979 Toyota Celica. I think it was the GT version, but the badges were missing, and I didn't know enough to be able to tell. That car lasted a long time, and I learned a lot in it. When it retired, I replaced it with my first new car, a 1993 Mazda Protege DX. A 5-speed, of course. Had it for 8 years before Wendy & I traded it in for a 626 and I started driving her Nissan 240sx with a slushbox (automatic). Neat cars, but really boring and uncomfortable for me. I just couldnt get used to the disconnected feeling of the slushbox.

I finally found a great replacement a year or two later, and was introduced to the wonders of mid-engine madness. A 1985 Toyato MR2 showed me how much I missed a sportscar. This became my daily driver for several years, and I had great fun with it. Small, nimble, relatively quick. Nearly bulletproof, this car let me rack up over 30k miles with barely any maintenance, and I sold it for only a little less than what I paid for it. Which kind of brings me to the current stable of what's in the family now...

When we were getting close to the end of the lease on the Mazda 626 that Wendy was driving, I encouraged her to test drive what was my personal favorite choice... the MINI Cooper. She fell in love, and we ordered one to arrive concurrent with the end of the lease. That's been the family car ever since, and Wendy's daily driver.

For me, I decided I wanted a BMW E30 (80's 3 series small sedan). I initially had planned on trying to find a 1991 318is, as it had most of the features I was looking for (light, nimble, LSD) but had a great deal of trouble locating one. In the process of that search, an E30 M3 showed up in the newspaper. Then a few weeks later it was still there. Then it showed up on the BMW Club website... After much discussion with Wendy, I went and test drove it, and rediscovered a dream car (further details to come later.) So I am now the proud owner of a piece of automotive racing history...

A 1989 Diamantenshwartz (er... Black Metallic) BMW M3.