BensonHsu.com

So the baby is coming… and it was time to sell my daily driver S13 to buy a bigger car. I’ve had it since 2003 and it’s been awesome to me ever since. When I bought it, it had less than 100k miles and it helped to complete the Mega S13 freak collection. At one point, we had one S13 from every year that S13s were available in the USA. We had an ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92, ’93. If you are a nerd, you are telling me that S13s were made in also ’94. Well, ’94s were all convertible and no way in hell would I buy an S13 convertible, so be quiet you nerd!

It was really nice driving it, and according to my friends I was going to start fixing it up weeks after I bought it. But I resisted. I already had a low, loud, no frills drift car so I wanted to enjoy the 240sx in stock form. It came with tinted windows, working a/c & heater… it was quiet and had a really strong engine. it was the nicest S13 I’ve ever driven.

Working on it was cake, because NOTHING was rusted or seized. When I worked on it, it was like working on a new car… I would effortlessly pull out nuts and bolts and they looked shiny and new.

The car sold FAST! Luckily it went to a very nice man named Chris who LOVES Nissans and was just looking for a nice daily driver just like what I was looking for when I bought the car.

It was fun while it lasted!

So yes, we sold the green machine. After much searching, arguing (yes, because my wife and I both love cars and driving, we argue about them)… we finally compromised with the… drum roll please… A 2008 Mazdaspeed 3.

Why we chose this car:

• 4 doors
• Under $25,000
• It’s a hatchback like the green machine
• It can fit a huge baby stroller plus ample room for groceries
• It can comfortably fit a baby seat in a rear facing position
• It’s fast (260hp 280tq)
• It’s a limited edition so it should maintain its value well
• It handles well

So far, I’m really happy with the car. I’ve fit tons of baby stuff in the car for our new baby room and from our baby shower. I’m still breaking it in with a couple hundred miles left, but I’m already getting 24-25mpg on average! Sweet! And the car handles oh so awesome.

Now here’s the question… what do I name it?

So they did a D1GP drifting exhibition at TAS this year. Pretty cool setup! It’s really small, probably due to venue constraints but it lets the crowd get really close to all the action. The course is cool because it’s got all the basics – main entry towards the crowd, reducing radius corners, walls to get close to, and direction changes. I love Nomuken’s left foot braking action near the wall.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s Kumakubo’s Evo in action. I don’t really like the Evo… in fact I don’t like Mitsubishis much. Okay I hate them. But I love Kuma! He’s been one of my favs for a really long time and plus he is the king of twin drift and he reminds me of that happy fat guy from Mulan.

And I hate you Rob! Stop showing me those horrible truck drifting videos!

I am still being impressed by this car that impressed me a month ago, and the month before that, and the month before that.

I <3 you, Nissan.

So I was doing my daily rounds of reading blogs and on Jalopnik I saw the released pictures of the new Dodge Challenger. And was immediately let down.

I’ve been keeping a mental note of how American car companies seem to half-ass their designs. They seem to be doing a lot of throw back style cars where they make a new car look like their classics, which in itself is kind of lazy I think but it’s not such a big deal to me because that seems to be the trend with a lot of things. If you can bring back Cabbage Patch Kids and Transformers, why can’t you bring back the Mustang? The problem is the way these companies seem to spend much time on creating nice detail… nice lines here and there that are reminiscent of the classic car yet modern and artistic… then you get to the rear end of the car. What happened??? Did you guys just get tired of designing?

The new Dodge Challenger has been doomed to the same fate:

Nice.	Nice.	Nice.
WHAT THE!!! The Delorean doesn’t look any more modern than this thing.

Here are some other sad examples of what I’m talking about: