drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  519,415

Odometer (ILX):  26,733

I wore my black Acura Polo shirt to work on Thursday (as I do frequently!) and was asked by my coworker Virginia, “Shooting a commercial today?”  Haha, I love my coworkers!  I went ahead and drew up an “A” logo to pin it to my cube wall just to further let everyone know where my automotive loyalties lie!

I took the ILX to its lowest “range” a couple of days ago.  First time I’ve had this in the low 20’s before.

It’s fun to leave the car’s ignition in “ON” position and watch the range creep up as the fuel is being pumped in.  I even thought to take a video.  Range went from 22 miles to 422 miles in a matter of a few minutes.  The ILX fuel tank has only a 13-gallon capacity.

A fellow ILX driver on Loop 101 southbound in Scottsdale, Arizona today gave me a peace sign through the moonroof!  I don’t know who this guy was but he had a Nevada plate and a really clean looking ILX 2.0 base model in Crystal Black Pearl.  Thumbs up right back atcha!

In other ILX-related news, Dillon’s been at it again.  He goes by “Hondatalover,” and he loves putting together photoshops of anything Acura.  This is his latest rendering of the ILX featuring a few key enhancements:

• Oversized wheels from the ILX Hybrid
• Updated taillights
• Wing spoiler
• Decklid badging
• Dual exhaust

I think it turned out pretty sweet!

High Mileage Success Stories

High mileage S2000!  A post from my friend in Florida showed up on my news feed this morning.  Impressive mileage at over 282,000.   Even if this car is the oldest S2000 (model year 2000) it’s still averaged about 21,700 miles over the last 13 years.  Just shows that even a sportscar is capable of being a long-hauler.

Hondabeat’s latest story in the High-Mileage Club is about a 2007 Honda Fit with over 369,000 miles on it.  That works out to over 60,000 miles per year!  These people drive even more than I do!

Car Chases & “Slimer”

I love a good car chase – and any car movies, for that matter.  Gone in 60 Seconds is one of my faves.  But my friend Marc shared a video link with me this week that was of particular interest because of the car that it featured.  This chase is 7 minutes ‘ worth of abuse to a 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport.  It’s from a 1973 film called “Fear Is The Key.”  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  That thing handles like a yacht!

When I was 10 years old, my dad had one of these as a carpool car.  It was bulletproof.  He’d take us out to empty parking lots covered in fresh northern Utah snow and we’d do donuts in the wintertime.  The car’s lime green exterior and dark green exterior were very 1970’s.  The car also leaked antifreeze, so we named it Slimer.  As in, Ghostbusters Slimer:

There are only two pictures we have of Slimer (hidden in the background).  It was parked on the side of the house, behind my dad’s pride and joy 1989 Ford F-250 4×4 pickup.  My youngest brother Payton is riding his bike on the driveway.  Payton is now 25 years old, married, with one child and another on the way!  Time truly does fly.

Here’s another picture we were able to dig up.  Slimer is in the background, but I’m standing on the lawn with my brother in front of my mom’s 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix coupe 5-speed.  That was a fun car!  The speedometer was digital, as I recall.  And the glove compartment had a combination lock on it.

I’m not sure where that Gran Torino ended up, but even in 1992 at 20 years old it was fairly rusted out as I recall.  Here’s a clean one on Ebay in Houston that I’d love to pick up.

Legend Updates

The Legend is doing well but I’m wondering how much longer I’ll be able to milk the original clutch.  Back in 2009 when I was pricing out replacement clutches for my Legend sedan, I was quoted nearly $3,700 parts & labor!  Gulp.  I think I’ll try for a few more miles on the original unit.

Flashback – First Road Trip to Seattle

In July 2005, I took my Legend to the Pacific Northwest for the first time.  Following is a post I shared with the Acura Legend forums recapping the event.  The purpose of this trip (aside from just an excuse to take a drive) was to visit my friend Patrick who lived in the Seattle area and to enter my Legend in a car show called the Lakeland Hills Rockin’ Auto Show.

At this time, my Legend had 195,000 miles on the odometer.  This round-trip drive was about 1,700 miles and I departed from Logan, Utah where I was going to school at Utah State University.

Following are a few pictures that Pat posted of the car show itself.  His 1991 Persian Red LS coupe out-shone mine by a long shot.  There’s a good reason why we called this guy the “Detail King.”

The following was what I posted to the forums on 7/31/05:

Home sweet home at last!  That was quite the trip.  I won’t go into a lengthy report, but a few items of note…

Round-trip was about 2,400 miles.  I left Thursday night and just got back now (Sunday afternoon).  Slept in the car in Boise, ID going and coming back and had one night in a hotel room in WA.  Had clear skies for the entire drive — and believe it or not Pat, my car still looks great minus the bugs plastered all over!  Didn’t see one other G2 coupe on the roads the whole way there or coming back.

Washington is very scenic… Huge pine trees all over, a few fun tunnels to go through and plenty of nice bridges to cross.  Wish I could have stayed longer.

I decided to come home through Portland.  Oregon is also very scenic — but let me just rant for a bit.  Did you know you can’t pump your own gas in Oregon?!  What is up with that?  For some reason, that just irritates me.  #1 – I showed up at one gas station and no attendant came to assist (I didn’t want to break the law like I did the first time when I didn’t know better :)) #2 – Many gas stations close up at like 10 p.m.  What are people supposed to do when they need to fill up after that time?  I’m lucky I got to the station when I did.  Also — Oregon speed limits max out at a whopping 65 mph.  I was DYING by the time I finally got to the Idaho border and could throw the cruise control on at 82 mph again.  Why 65?

All in all — it was a really fun trip and I must say, for those who haven’t seen 91LSMAN’s car, it is EVEN BETTER looking in person than in the pics!  The shine is unbelievable.  This kid knows his stuff!  I was privileged to have him work on my car!  On to my pics…

Here’s where it all started!

Pat’s vault of supplies!

The result:

Chris’s car (SBWooder):

Pat driving:

On my way back through Oregon, I saw a photo-op I couldn’t pass up. As the sun was setting, the river alongside the road looked awesome.  These pics were taken last night on Interstate 84 just outside Portland, OR.

A shot of the scenery:

A nice TL that was at my hotel:

And finally, this is what my “office” looks like when I’m on the road for 17 hours at a time… cruizn 6th gear, atlas, MapQuest directions, phone, drinks, CDs, etc etc. 😀  Gotta love my ‘plasticked’ carpet!  (Thanks Mastervtec)

Amazing how times have changed!   Back when I took this trip in 2005, I printed up page after page of directions & maps from Google Maps.  I had no GPS.  No iPhone.  And no iPod.  Just a regular Sprint flip phone, a giant road atlas, and CD’s!  I’ve still kept in touch with Patrick, Chris, and the other Legend fanatics who I met on that trip.  Patrick’s in a Torch Red C5 Corvette now, and Chris has an absolutely stunning Milano Red 1994 Legend LS coupe automatic.

I have since traveled back to Seattle a couple of times.  I’ll share a write-up of my subsequent trips in a future flashback.  Is the phrase ‘future flashback’ an oxymoron?

Everybody go rock out to this song!  It sure sounded awesome in the ILX 7-speaker Premium sound system.

Company coming into town tonight!  There will be some car-related adventures this weekend, so stay tuned.

This entry was posted on February 8, 2013 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Legend, Throwback. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.