In the spring of 2008 my current car, a 2000 Nighthawk Black Pearl Honda Prelude 5MT, was beginning to show its age in many ways. It would soon be the summer before I would start medical school, somewhere in California (I had been waiting on Loma Linda, UCLA and UCD) or Chicago (I had been accepted to UIC and CMS). My friend Nino had just purchased a 2007 Grand Prix White S2000. Though he thought he was doing me a favor by letting me buzz around town in his newly acquired sports roadster, it caused me great agony and grief and extreme jealousy.
I thought to myself: Here I am, working my butt off trying to get into medical school, and I will probably slave away another 10 years before I am ever financially secure! I thought it the biggest injustice that I would have to work so hard for a future so distant whereas others just out of college could afford to move on with their lives. They could earn money, save money, get married, buy a house--but far, far more importantly (at least in my mind at that moment), buy a Honda S2000. If I am going to retain any sanity whatsoever in the future years, I am going to have to buy an S2000 of my own. Right now.
I was so consumed by my desire for an S2000 that I probably spent the better half of my workday scouring Autotrader, E-Bay, S2Ki, Honda Certified Pre-Owned, and Craigslist just to name a few. I blew off project deadlines, missed timetables for experiments, conveniently forgot to go to meetings all for this very cause. If I was going to satisfy this burning desire, this car would have to be perfect. Exactly the way I've always wanted it.
It would have to be a 2003 model year. The 2003 models were last of the AP1 chassis with a super high-strung 2.0L 9000RPM engine and quick steering ratio. Starting 2004 (and continuously on with changes in 2006 and 2008) the S2000s were watered down because too many fat, ham-fisted Americans couldn't get the "puny torqueless engine" to haul their 240lb carcasses around the Malibu Canyons safely enough. They would either stall going uphill or the twitchy suspension would swap ends around a corner and send them over the hill to their doom.
So the Honda Corp. lawyers gathered together with the engineers and decided: This sports roadster is clearly too raw for the Americans to handle. We must increase the size of the engine to 2.2L to give the American people more torque. We must revise spring rates and rear suspension geometry so that the car now understeers around corners (at least if they plow headfirst over the hill they can't blame us for building an "unstable" car). Heck, we'll even give them stability and traction control. Their fat hands are clearly are not articulate enough with steering inputs so we must decrease the steering ratio. But most importantly, we must shave the door panels and center console so that their bellies can fit more comfortably in the cabin.
Besides, it's not called an S2200. The S2000's F20C motor won acclaim because it was able to make more horsepower per liter than any other naturally aspirated mass-produced four-stroke engine ever made. A staggering 120 horsepower per liter. For comparison, if the 2003 Dodge Viper had that kind of specific output, it would be making nearly 1000hp instead of 500. The F20C also had a wicked 9000RPM redline, which meant that it would reach piston speeds of 4965ft/min, the highest ever. This is the about the same piston speed as a 2.4L V8 Formula 1 engine at its redline of 19,000RPMs.
It would have to be Grand Prix White. My last car was black and I was sick of waxing and polishing the car and seeing every dust and imperfection magnified on its black canvas in a matter of days. Grand Prix White is also the cleanest and best shade of white I have ever seen. It's name even alludes to Honda's heritage in and previous dominance of the Formula 1 Grand Prix. This paint choice, however, would require a huge sacrifice. In 2000-2002, the interior color combination with GPW was red. Beginning 2003, they decided on a much more European tan. Yuck. But I figured it would be easier and cleaner to swap interior panels, carpet and seats with someone who grew tired of red interior than to repaint Silverstone (the color that came with the red interior combination in 2003). Fine, whatever.
Speaking of obstacles, there was that one little issue of not knowing where I was headed. I had been accepted to two schools in Chicago, but so far no acceptances to sunny California. I had visited Chicago most recently in mid-January, and it was a blistering -6F with 30-40mph winds. With the wind chill factor, it was the coldest Chicago had ever been in years. I knew an S2000 would not be a wise choice for a place like Chicago where they salt the roads and the windshields crack due to extreme cold. I figured, I'll start shopping for an S2000 now since I have three schools in California I'm still waiting on--I'm bound to get into one of them. So as an acceptance present to myself, I'll buy an S2000.
Except I found one a bit too soon. A single-owner 2003 GPW with only 17,000 miles. Driven around as a golfing/weekend car by a retired 68-yr old pediatrician up in Oregon. Never driven during the winter (he had another coupe, sedan and SUV for general purpose use). Asking price within budget. Could anyone ask for more? I still hadn't heard back from the California schools, but I made an executive decision to go for it. I'll worry about staying in California later. Besides, even if I don't, I won't mind putting the car in storage six months out of the year and walking to school in the snow in -6F and 40mph. I would just have to make such sacrifices for this car. If I miss this opportunity, I'll probably never get another chance to drive an S2000 and my teenage dream would just have to die along with any passion I have for life and living. Just kidding ... sorta.
So I called up Nino and pretty much swindled him to flying up to Oregon with me. I bought the plane tickets and went on a flight straight to ... uh, Salt Lake City. Then we walked over to the terminal to our connecting flight. Except it wasn't a terminal. It was more like a parking lot. And instead of a Boeing Jet, it was more like a 15-seater toy plane. And instead of regular sized seats, they were more like oversized child seats. And instead of normal sized people, it was more like 400-lb Polynesian ukulele players. Good thing the flight was only 45 minutes. Felt like 45 hours.
Nino: OMG, you couldn't afford a better flight?
We finally arrived in Salem, OR. Except the airport wasn't really an airport, more like an annex building. The pilot opened the door, walked us over to the building, took out the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door and turned on the lights. OMGWTFBBQ. So this is how it's done in Oregon's capitol? No wonder Oregon is the only state that allows physician assisted suicides.
Trust me, you don't want to go in there.
Too cheap to call a cab, we walked from the ghetto bus-stop of an airport to the nearest motel in pitch dark, no sidewalk and no street lamps. I felt like I was going to either get jumped by ninjas or bitten by a rattlesnake. Instead, we got hollered at by some college kids as they drove by: "Hey Ching Chong Chang!" Nice. Clearly, Oregonians are kind, classy, well educated folk. A few more blocks away, we found a Howard Johnson Inn.
The next day:
All mine. Mine mine mine!
I signed all the paperwork, and soon I was on my way. We gassed up at the nearest Chevron and hit the freeway. As I merged onto the freeway, I revved the engine to 9000RPM in 2nd year, then 3rd and soon I was doing almost 90mph as I cut through a couple lanes to avoid slower traffic. I also cut off a state trooper who was not so amused. I begged, pleaded, showed him the bill of sale, and finally managed to get out a speeding ticket or worse. Apparently I had merged onto a stretch of highway that was undergoing construction and its speed limit was now 45mph instead of 65. Yikes.
Many, many hours of going exactly 65mph later:
My S2000 showing some 5-o-clock shadow
The rest is history...
Welcome to California
Oh, and then that following week, I got a call from Loma Linda University. Called it.
No comments:
Post a Comment