1. How did you come to the decision of buying this car?
Before my mom's Dementia had really set in, she was always talking about how much she enjoyed driving in their (my parents) Buick Gran Sport. She yearned for a muscle car again. Now I have never owned one before, all my cars had been front drivers, rotaries, or air cooled VWs. So I started researching the current v8 pony cars. A friend had a Challenger SRT8 and his girlfriend had a Mustang GT, so I looked at those first. After reading magazine reviews and renting a Challenger, it was out. I wanted something I could autocross and do track days with. The Challenger was just too big and heavy for what I wanted.
So I was sure that I would buy a Mustang, until I read the review of the ZL1 1LE. After seeing the sticker price I said nope. but then saw the SS 1LE and researched it. At this time, a year plus had passed and I was working full time in San Jose and in the evenings and weekends running my mom's business in LA with bi-weekly trips to see her and make payments for her business. I had done many rental cars to keep miles off my vehicle. Once I rented a v6 Camaro over a long weekend to get an idea of the car. I was surprised, even with the crappy auto and all season tires I could feel the chassis was well balanced. I then rented a Mustang GT and was just not comfortable in the car. So I decided to research the Camaro more and narrowed down my desired options. It was at this time that my mom had passed and I was hurting, so I turned to the vehicle search to quell some of the pain. In all my searching there was nothing in the state of California. The '17 1LEs were all 1SS and I wanted an '18 2SS before the '19 face lift came out. No one had a Hyper Blue 2SS without a sunroof. I was about to settle on a grey car that was missing some of the options I wanted when the dealer told me they found my exact car, in Chicago. After some heavy thought, I decided it was time to go on a trip. My family comes from Chicago and I had never been there. So it was the chance of a lifetime.
2. What has your ownership experience been like?
Being a new car, there isn't much to report on. Cars these days have such good engineering in them and reliability testing has come a long way to developing more durable cars. The only issue I've had to go back to the dealer for was water getting into the tail-lamp housings, yes both sides. But other than that everything I've had to repair has been from something I've caused. Because I autocross and track the car also, it's mostly been fluid changes and alignments.
As far as driving the car though, it brings a smile to my face every day. The car is solid, the chassis is forgiving and lets you play around but still easy to reign in. The power is intoxicating. Being able to start briskly in 2nd gear and make it to highway speeds without having to shift is neat. The torque down low and the smooth transition to the power up top really makes the car easy to drive. I wouldn't mind the car being a little louder but I'm not ready to do anything there yet.
3. What is your fondest memory with this car?
My fondest memory with the car to date has to have been the trip picking up and returning home from Chicago with it. A friend and I hopped on BART in Fremont on the Friday night before Memorial Day with a couple carry on bags of clothes and flew to Chicago. The salesman picked us up at the airport and we did the deal for the car. First stop, downtown, since I had never been there. Next stop, deep dish pizza, we hadn't eaten since Friday night. Stop 3, my grandfather's old apothecary. It still bares the family name even though it's not in the family anymore. Then off we went. 500 miles the first day. It was pure murder, never going over 80, varying the engine load, no hard acceleration...but ya gotta do the proper break-in.
Day 2 Sunday morning, Omaha, Nebraska, first things first, oil change. Only Walmart was open so I watched them like a hawk. Let the fun begin, first on-ramp took it to redline and did its first No Lift Shift. Biggest smile ever! We were really on our way now. Stopped here and there to get a few pictures and rest stop breaks, thanks Runza. Traveled across I-80 to I-76 and into Denver, yeah it's not the quickest way but it's about life experiences. Hop onto I-70 and stop at the Summit for more pictures then on to Vail for dinner. After dinner we trekked on to Salina where we stopped for the night. Day 2 mileage- 1100 miles
Day 3 Monday morning, we ditched I-70 for Highway 50. I was enjoying this running around out in the middle of nowhere. Getting a good feel for the car and it's settings. All was good. Driving thru all the little towns was awesome, we even stopped at the Eureka Opera House in Eureka, Nevada. We caught up with I-80 again just east of Reno and rolled along with traffic all the way back to San Jose. Day 3 mileage- 800 miles. From flying to Chicago on a Friday night and the 2300 miles drive back to San Jose by Monday night made for an epic weekend of memories. Although I would like to do that drive again but over a longer time span so i can really appreciate everything that's out there.
4. Why do you love cars?
I'm not sure if it's a love of cars as much as it is a love of mechanical things. As a kid I would take apart all my toys to find out how they worked. I was fascinated by the engineering that went into them. I guess that cars were put into the forefront because of my dad. He always had a car he was tinkering on and I would sit in the garage and watch him, try to help him when I could. I suppose if his interests were more into locomotives or planes that my interests would lie there too.
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If you would like to participate, just answer the above four questions and submit one to three photos of your daily driver to milhousevanh at geemail. Thanks and have fun!
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