Some of these are stories. Some of these are streams of consciousness pertaining to our petrol-fueled hobby. And some of these might make you think about what it means to be alive right now reading this.
Somewhere around the fourth or fifth hairpin, I said the name out loud to nobody. Umunhum. Hell of a name. What even is that?
When you whore out your hobby, you stop being a maker and start being a marketer. Marketers are the worst. Trust me. I’ve been one since 2014, starting in content and SEO and graduating into the rest of it: ads, email, social, the whole digital buffet. Marketers ruined the telephone with telemarketing. They ruined email with email marketing, roads with billboards, and television and social media with ads. The list goes on. I know the playbook because I’ve run it many times, and even added to a few chapters.
There’s so much good in the world but now so little to none of it is happening on these attention-sucking machines (apps) we’re the product.
I don't surf, but a friend once told me something about surfing that changed how I think about life. "Paddle out. Even if it looks bad." I'm in my mid-30s now, and I've spent way too many years making excuses not to pursue my passions — especially driving. We're not going to live forever, and if we don't do the things that bring us joy even when the opportunity is right there, we're bound to die even sooner.
I used to think James Dean was just another Hollywood rebel who got addicted to cars. Then I learned about his relationship with Little Bastard, his Porsche 550 Spyder, and realized he was just trying to feel whole (like most of us).
Porsche wasn't lying — there really is no substitute, but you won't understand that until your 20th drive. Most people think they're looking at the same car for 60 years, but what they're actually seeing is 124,800 hours of refinement that can't be engineered around. You either get it or you don't, and that's ok.
Can you imagine what it’d be like to drive this in 1998? It was a year insignificant to most, but I was only 8 years old then. And it was the year my mom passed. I mention that because…well, I’m not sure. Maybe because it serves as a reminder that our existence is temporary and if I didn’t go for a drive today, I might not be here to go for a drive tomorrow. Morbid, but a fact of life.
Few things get me out of bed before the sun rises — the cat throwing up, the dog barking (whining) for breakfast, and any opportunity to drive my E36. Thankfully, on an uneventful Tuesday, it was something involving my E36 that made it easy to lift my head off the pillow, put on my glasses, and take my morning dump.
The U.S. E36 M3 (1995–1999) was neutered. While the European version had 321hp, the U.S. version only had 240hp. The E36 M3 also didn’t have rad box flairs like its race-bred predecessor (E30 M3) and it didn’t have an engine as special as the M3 that followed (E46 M3). So, why are prices of this“bastard-child” M3 increasing?
