drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  532,846

Odometer (ILX):  119,147

Among the many highlights of my 2,205-mile drive to Dallas, Texas and back this past weekend, I wanted to devote a special blog entry to an event that was especially fun for me.

Having been a part of the online “Acura geek” community for over a decade now, I’ve done my fair share of networking.  Today, I have car-enthusiast friends in every major city in the country.  When I started putting together my plans to visit Texas, one of the first things I did was reach out to a few folks there to see if they’d be interested in meeting up.  Turns out, they were.  And they did.

TJ drove all the way from Houston for our lunch meet-up, and Marc came from Austin.  Each of them had a 3+ hour one-way drive.  Now that’s dedication!  Our venue of choice was a renowned burger joint on Maple Avenue in Dallas called Maple & Motor.  It’s a former gas station which was turned into a restaurant and it has received multiple awards including a feature on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives.  Its motto is “Low Class Cool.”

Seating was tight and the lunchtime crowd was bustling, but we were able to find a table fairly quickly for our party of 7 while we enjoyed a few minutes of car talk and delicious tater tots.  Pictured here from left to right are Marc, Tyson, Lance (Escalade), Scott (GS350), Blake, and TJ.  Yes, we let a couple non-Legend people join us because they’re still fans.  And thanks to Amanda for taking the picture.

Here’s a little about the Acuras in our party.  First off, this is Blake’s 1994 Legend LS coupe 6-speed.  It was the first Milano Red LS coupe 6-speed on the production line that year.  His car was the 805th Legend coupe built overall for the 1994 model year, and rolled off the line just 27 cars before mine.

It’s nearly broken in at just over 1/4 million miles on the odometer, but you wouldn’t know it by taking a test drive.  During my short spin around the block, I was impressed with its pick-up.

This powerplant is 3.5 liter V6 with a performance air intake system and other upgrades.  Blake has installed a custom Stromung exhaust system which gives the car a nice growl.

This showroom-fresh example is Marc’s Granada Black 1994 LS Automatic with special options like the OEM gold grille/emblems, chrome wheels, and spoiler.

Marc recently snagged this gem from a California dealership and had it shipped sight-unseen to Texas.  He has no regrets, and it’s a stunning example.  It has traveled just 128,000 miles since new.  I took a drive in this one, too, and it felt like going back in time two decades.  It even smells great.

Not to mention that leather interior.

Thanks, Marc and Blake for the test-drive opportunities!

I look forward to seeing all of these people at this year’s National Acura Legend Meet (NALM) in Houston this coming September.

My friend Randy didn’t make it to the Maple & Motor meet-up, but we caught up later over a Whataburger shake just up the road.

When the trip was all said and done, I had a lot of bugs to show for it.

Thanks again for being a part of the adventure!

This entry was posted on April 2, 2015 at 6:39 am and is filed under Legend, Reader's Ride. 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.