[Roadroach]

1977 Toyota Celica GT (liftback, 5-sp) - Canary yellow, bought used while in High School. I was stylin' with my sheepskin seat covers. Blew the head gasket when the thermostat froze up and I ignore the temp gauge - rebuilt the 20R motor myself and sold it a year later.

1984 Honda CRX 1.5 - White, 5-spd. First new car. Bought when the CRX was first intro'd (had to drive 200 miles to find a dealer who had one).

1986 Honda CRX Si - Red! Fuel injected!! 91 freaking ponys! woot!! This car gave me my nickname while in college (lil' Red Roadroach). Near the top of my list of favorite personal cars. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and stupid fun. Punched way above it's weight for the day.

1966 Ford Mustang GT Fastback - real factory GT but looked like crap. Bought it from a high school girl who had gotten it from her dad (she didn't want it anymore because it didn't have AC). I think I paid around $1500 in '89. 'A' code with a C4 slushbox, open diff and some rather anemic ponies. Could rip a decent 1-tire burnout. After all these years (and many many mods later - mexican block 302 dyno'd at 360 hp, T5, 9" trac-loc with 4.10 gears, shelby-drop A-arms, reverse-eye rear springs, etc etc etc) this silly thing has taken up permanent residence in my life. I know I've probably ruined whatever collector value it had as a factory GT since it's no longer even close to original - don't care. Never selling it.

1992 Honda Civic Si - needed more than 2 seats and, as a college grad, I needed a more 'adult' car than the CRX. Big letdown from my CRX.

1993 Ford Mustang 5.0 LX Liftback - wanted a more streetable, comfortable car to compliment the '66. Teal (actually, reef blue) so very 90's. Filled up the rear with triple Nakamichi Amps and a couple of massive Kicker subs. Oh. Yeah.

2000 Toyota Celica GTS - Sybil. That's what this car was. Happy little commuter car until the cam phased over (around 7k or so?) and then a banshee wail - for about 2 seconds until time to upshift and then she dropped RIGHT off the cam again. About equal amounts fun and frustration.

2007 Mazdaspeed3 - my only real "family" car. Needed to haul the elementary aged kids to school and that was a pain in the Celica. Stupid quick for a grocery getter in slightly modded form. I got real good at cleaning/replacing sooted up EGR valves. Sold it after oiling issues on both the factory and replacement turbo's (installed 3rd turbo, got it sorted and quickly sold).

2006 BMW Z4 3.0si coupe 6-sp - not outstanding in any one area but impressive as an overall package. Put 90k miles on it in the last 5 (?) years. Metric sh!tton more reliable than my Speed3 (but I don't pick stoplight races with it). I keep looking at gently used 987.2 Caymans but just can't part ways with the E86. It may just end up permanent residence with my '66.