Your story....56'kers Beware!
I know right now most of the topics will be related to this new site and all that... but I always wondered how others "Fell in Love" with a 3kGT/Stealth/GTO. What is your story, and did you get what you expect, were your dreams fulfilled so to say? Ok maybe that's taking it a bit too far. I'll make mine short, although I could probably fill pages with my blabbering :D
There were really two major events that made me dream of owning a 3000GT. The first one was right after I moved to New York from Belarus. You can imagine, that back in 1998, the only cars I was used to seeing were old Volga's, Lada's, Maskviche's, the occasional VW's and BMW's. Back then I was 8 years old and we used to play with those small cars, building garages for them outside out of sand, imitating race's and what have you. On a side note, my grandma tells me my car enthusiasm started back when I would come over her house when I was 4 years old. I had no toys so I would take a bunch of little stick pieces and act as if they were cars, play with them all day. ( ok I know, cheesy bringing my grandma into this :P) Well so as I was saying, that was my childhood. When we came to the states in late '98, this world was a wonder to me! So many new cars, cool cars, and just a totally different world from the greyness that I came from!
And what do you know, a few weeks after we settled in an apartment in North Tonawanda, I saw the most amazing car I've ever seen! To me it was the Ferrari of legends! She was beautiful, perfect blend of grey and silver , eyes that were closed...making me wonder what she would look like when her eyes were open! I instantly fell in love! Better yet, she happened to be owned by the landlord of the apartment building next to ours. I remember coming out many mornings afterward just to see the man drive it off into the distance... Only much later did I find out that it was a 1st Gen 3000GT . At that moment I thought " I wish I could own something like that...."
About the time I turned 13, I bought myself a playstation along with a copy of Gran Turismo . (maybe it was Gran Turismo 2)...Boy did I love to play that game! And then I found the 3000GT in there! After buying every single version in the game, and modding it out, and beating the game with it, I made it my goal to one day own one. I started helping a friend out in his shop when I was 14, at about 15 I started working every day after school to make some money.... unfortunately it wasn't a Taurus, and some other cars, and much later until I finally got one. I bought it when I was almost 18... A mistake that I didn't understand then. I was simply not mature enough for it.
At the time I found myself in a long distance relationship. I was in New York, and she was in South Carolina. I was driving a Ford F-150 v8 Triton.. I needed a car that would get me to South Carolina and not eat my wallet in the process. So I set my sights on a 3k. I searched and searched, and then finally found one in the classifieds of the 3si site. I traded my F-150 and $1000 for a 1994 3000gt SL 130k mi.
At this point I'd like to note that the fact that I put this thing so high up on a pedestal in my mind, and dreamed of something made of pure gold, is probably what caused a great deal of initial disappointment.
To sum up my 3k experience...I drove the car home from about 150 miles away , and that time seemed like hell, yet I was hopeful. The reason for what I say is due to many things, it was a raining like I don't know what, the windshield wipers did much of nothing to help, the headlights didn't seem to work, half of the buttons didn't work, the stereo didn't work, the common EGR issue made me think my car was an untamed beast from hell, no horn, the clutch pedal needed re adjusting, if you shifted a bit faster than grandpa, it would grind and a bunch of other things...which I seemed to have not noticed in my initial excited-to-bursting test drive of the car when it was sunny out.
To really sum it up, it was like something Jeremy on Top Gear once said to describe some car, something like " It's like that old home of yours, you have to kick the door a certain way to open it, and only you know that certain way to get in, but it's the thing you love so much!"
To anyone who would drive that thing, it seemed like a terrible car, to me it became a part of my heart. Unfortunately when my gf in South Carolina broke up with me, in my immature state I was speeding more than I should have, going 120mph on the highway, got it down to 100 taking a ramp, and then tried to tackle a 360 off-ramp onto a different road at a little less than that resulted in me losing control of the car and hitting a guard rail head on from where it started.
I was going to take it to a salvage auction until one day I looked at it and said " No way, this car is part of me" so I ended up restoring it which was not a good idea as the money I put into that would have had me a better 3k. Most likely a decent VR4.
I sold it for $4k in 2009 , it had engine knock, and close to 150k on it. My experience with it wasn't that of comfort, I was always fixing something, always doing something to it, but in the end... I would have another one any day...
So there is my story... if anybody has any interest I will gladly share the pictures of it before the crash, during , and after I fixed it.
Please, share! :cool:
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/433...2c3c572586.jpg
This is how it was when I bought it
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/2...b2c7ee6fea.jpg
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/674...093174c6c7.jpg
Guard rail that I hit
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8...o020708001.jpg
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8...0207080021.jpg
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/7...0208080011.jpg
The day after
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/8...o041908009.jpg
New Fidanza flywheel...
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/4...o041908010.jpg
F1 clutch...
