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Legend Feature: Curbside Classics Website

Posted in Blog, Legend on April 12, 2014 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 529,145

Odometer (ILX): 73,760

“Every Car Has A Story”

Ain’t that the truth! Curbside Classic is one must-see website where cars’ stories are told in great detail. I recently submitted a guest write-up to Managing Editor Perry Shoar and invited him to use it on the site. It was published on Wednesday as a “COAL” – Car of a Lifetime – and has garnered over 90 comments since. It seems there are skeptics in the crowd who raise eyebrows at the thought of an original clutch that’s traveled nearly 530,000 miles. Ha!

Here’s a direct link to the article for any who wish to read it. Therein, I chronicled the story of my half-million miles of travels from long before I even owned my long-lived Acura Legend coupe. Those of you who have followed me for any length of time will probably find certain aspects of the story a re-run, but I hope you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

Swing on by CC and take a peek. They’ve got some great features. As it turns out, the Legend model has been featured previously, too. Editor Brendan Saur posted this write-up last June. Thanks to Perry and the rest of the CC Team for seeing fit to publish my contribution! Have a great weekend, all.

2 Comments »

Friday Photo Challenge – Cast Your Vote!

Posted in Blog, Reader's Ride, Utah on April 4, 2014 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 529,106

Odometer (ILX): 72,982

Of course it rained the day after I washed the Grand Canyon dirt off my ILX. Oh well.

I love photo scavenger hunts, so I created one. On February 7, 2009, I went for a scenic cruise in northern Utah’s Cache Valley on a brisk sunny day. My 1994 Acura Legend had 364,980 miles on it at the time. I stopped to take this series of pictures. The location didn’t really have any significance. I probably just felt like pulling over to document the scenic mountain range in the background. The intersection was 1950 North, 200 West, in Logan, Utah.

The idea struck me. How closely could my friend Ryan duplicate the photo with the street signs, 5 years later?

I sent it to him, to my mom, and to my friend Tyler. Let’s see how they did.

Original

Ryan’s Audi

Mom’s Lexus

Tyler’s Honda

Who gets the prize?

I guess I should decide what the prize is, too.

Have a great weekend, all.

30 Comments »

License Plates

Posted in Blog, Throwback on February 25, 2014 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 528,718

Odometer (ILX): 68,429

It’s always a good day when my neighbors get to see another Acura at my house. Special thanks to my friend James for his visit this past Sunday! James is the former owner of a Legend LS coupe, but he’s been driving a 2004 Acura TL 6-speed for the last 6 years. It’s looking good for 170,000 miles on the odometer. We snagged a picture together after getting back from lunch in the Legend.

I do love that factory body kit!

James is the Executive Director of the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona. His license plate says “Ph.D Cowboy,” and that makes a nice segway into today’s topic.

A couple of weeks ago, I got digging through my collection of license plates and I was able to round up each one of the 10 vanity plates that my cars have worn in my 16 years of driving.

Each one carries with it a unique set of memories in the hundreds of thousands of miles they’ve covered. From my high school “HUGGIE’S” days with my 1986 Chevy Celebrity to my college years with the 1991 Prelude Si 4WS and the multiple Legends I’ve owned over the last decade, each car has had its own personality.

Perhaps the most meaningful pair of plates in my collection is this one:

Those were the last license plates registered to a black 1987 Chevy pickup truck that my late grandfather owned. He passed away at the young age of 58 years old in September, 1989. The license plates expired one month later. These plates have been kept in safekeeping for 25 years now. They still have bug guts on them that I refuse to clean off because they represent part of the history with my grandpa and his beautiful black truck.

What does your plate say, and does it have any special meaning to you?

Thanks to Dillon – “Hondatalover” for this sweet TLX rendering I’m sharing today.

And guess who’s a new card-carrying member of the Acura NSX Club of America (NSXCA)?! Yeah baby!

10 Comments »

“Kurumag” Magazine Interview

Posted in Arizona, Blog, ILX, Legend, NSX on February 2, 2014 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 528,597

Odometer (ILX): 65,849

Happy Superbowl Sunday. Here’s the score. I think you’re OK to look away from the TV for a minute.

About a month ago, I received an email inquiry about my availability for an interview with a Japanese automotive lifestyle magazine called Kurumag. The magazine’s third issue is under development and they wanted to include my story! I may need to call upon those of you who are fluent in Japanese to translate it, but I’m stoked to see how it turns out. This morning, I received a visit from the following:

Yujiro Otsuki, Motorsports Marketing Photographer
Shigeyuki Ishikawa, Managing Editor, Automobile Business Division

Here’s a sneak peek at the vantage point we were able to achieve with some strategic parking and a step ladder.

Mileage, by the way, for the cars in this picture was:

2013 ILX: 65,802
NSX: 97,567
Legend 1: 144,429
Legend 2: 528,562
Total: 836,360

Here’s an example of Kurumag, the Winter 2013-2014 Issue, featuring Ken Block

I’m pretty anxious to see what these guys come up with! The magazine is very widely distributed so maybe I’ll pick up a few followers from that side of the world. Many thanks to Yujiro and Shigeyuki for making the time to come visit with me. My Legend sedan turned over a memorable milestone while out & about today.

Here are a few shots of my ILX from a quickie trip up Arizona Highway 87 toward Payson yesterday. I found a concrete underpass that begged to have its picture taken.

The ILX has a menacing appearance from this perspective.

Go toward the light!

Wait, is that Harry Henderson painted on the wall back there?

This masterpiece, it appears, may have originated from two different artists. Oh, the many things you see when driving the road less traveled. “So Dope,” for sure.

The real deal (I had nightmares about this guy back in 1987):

Dang, broken foglight lens. Discovered it this morning!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

14 Comments »

Check Out These Other Blogs!

Posted in Blog, Reader's Ride on January 30, 2014 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 528,562

Odometer (ILX): 65,539

Jason Hill is an English teacher in Japan with a fascination, similar to mine, for squeezing maximum longevity out of a car. This month, he launched a website called High Mile Club where he shares stories about people who have gone the distance. My Legend made #12 on a list of his 18 “Hall of Fame” cars. Among the top achievers, of course, are Irv Gordon with his 3 million mile Volvo and Joe LoCicero (“Million Mile Joe”) with his 1 million mile Honda Accord. Volvo, as it turns out, has quite a few achievers in the high mileage realm. A new video came out on Tuesday about a man in California who rolled a million miles in his 1988 sedan. Link here.

Do take a few minutes and stop on by Jason’s High Mile Club. Today, I’m going to share with you a few of my favorite sites like his. Be forewarned, these are “not work safe” — not because of graphic content, but rather because you’ll probably find yourself sucked in for a few hours and lose productivity.

High Mile Club

High Mile Club Link

Driven for Drives

My good friend Jason who recently joined for the Kitt Peak drive in Tucson, Arizona, has his own page devoted to capturing life behind the wheel of his 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD 6-Speed. He’s based in New Mexico but his travels have taken him across the entire western United States.

Driven for Drives Link

TSX Travels

Josh is the original owner of an Acura TSX in Boise Idaho and he’s only about 9,000 miles away from hitting 400,000 miles. His website talks about his adventures in getting there.

TSX Travels Link

Roadster Roadtrip

Also, check out Roadster Roadtrip. This one is all about a Las Vegas resident who took to the streets last year and has logged 30,000 miles galavanting around the country in his 1967 Datsun Fairlady Roadster.

Roadster Roadtrip Link

Carchaeology

Lastly, check out Carchaeology. It’s pretty much with it sounds like. Believe it or not, there is a community of about 2,800 people on Facebook who consider their cars as artifacts. They love to preserve the stories behind them. Carchaeology also has a mission of reuniting people with vehicles they have sold but now miss. “Dig it up and drive it,” is the slogan. Maybe the collective forum there could help track down a vehicle of YOURS that’s long gone? Give them a look. Link here and video of the administrator here. His first car, by the way, was a Honda N600.

Since we’re talking about preservation of classic Hondas for a moment, check out this Petrolicious piece about my friend Chris Hoffman who is the original owner of 1987 Honda CRX Si. I met Chris at the Detroit Auto Show a couple of weeks ago and his love for Honda runs deep. Here’s the video link.

I’ll round this post out with a nerdy video I put together last week. Any of you who own (or have owned) an older Honda vehicle are familiar with the series of beeps it made when you left your keys in the ignition and opened the door. As a friend shared with me, it’s Morse code. See for yourself.

13 Comments »

Drive to Fivers Near and Far

Posted in Blog on May 31, 2013 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 522,260

Odometer (ILX): 39,858

Today, I’m going to spotlight 4 people who deserve some recognition for being either an Acura fan or a Drive to Five fan.

First of all, most die-hard Legend enthusiasts will already know that Christopher Brian Bridges – better known as rapper, entrepreneur, and actor Ludacris – has been driving a 1993 Acura Legend for many years, since before his days of stardom. In this recent video clip of an interview with Chelsea Lately, he talks about his pride and joy Legend. Notice he mentions the fact that it has over 240,000 miles on it. Love it!

To Ludacris: You’re nearly halfway there!

Here’s Luda’s car.

Our next feature is Cody who I’ve introduced before. He’s got an exceptionally clean Legend sedan that looks like like a twin to the one Luda drives, except with just a fraction of the miles. This 1993 L sedan 5-speed has fewer than 70,000 miles on it.

Check the “after” picture of his window tint from a few days ago. Looks much better!

Next, we’re sending some congratulations to the other side of the globe where Francesco who we’ve been following for quite some time now has just completed 280,000 kilometers in his Fiat. Can’t wait to see him roll the big 3-0-0!

And finally:

Another Drive to Five reader, Michael, stopped by this evening to visit. He’s got a high mileage 1997 BMW 740 iL. This beauty has over 270,000 miles on the original drivetrain.

Michael’s BMW sports some impressive amenities. The interior (which I forgot to photograph) is in fantastic shape for being 16 years old.

Great looking luxury cars right here!

Thanks for the visit, Michael!

Here’s a flashback picture from December 2006 with my Legend sedan & coupe in Logan, Utah. Interestingly enough, I didn’t even own the sedan until 2 years later. I was just visiting the prior owner at his office when I took this.

And a pic my friend Ben found from NALM (National Acura Legend Meet) 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Legend was wearing 19″ Racing Hart C2 wheels at the time.

I rolled the bit 522,222.2 this week and I’m already getting anxious for 555,555.5.

Stay tuned! Have a great weekend!

10 Comments »

Drive to Five 2012 in Review

Posted in Blog on December 31, 2012 by tysonhugie

Odometer (Legend): 518,255

Odometer (ILX): 23,812

Greetings!

Determined to close out the year doing what I enjoy most (driving!), yesterday I took a drive in the Legend to the mining town of Superior, Arizona. It was about 60 miles each way. On the way there, I pulled off US highway 60 for a few pictures at a place called Florence Junction. Enjoy!

Driving along “El Camino Viejo” – translated: The Old Way.

Many thanks to those who have followed the blog this year. There is much more to come, so keep those seatbelts fastened and I hope you enjoy the ride in 2013 as much as I will. I’m just getting warmed up with my travels in the 2013 Acura ILX, having logged about 24,000 miles since I got the key in June. Meanwhile, the Legend of Legends, my 1994 LS coupe, continues its journey with regular updates to be shared here.

WordPress.com prepared a 2012 annual report for Drive to Five (link at the bottom of this post). A few highlights follow.

Top viewing countries in 2012:

USA: 48,084 views
Canada: 5,347 views
Italy: 1,702 views

Every continent on the globe has visited this site at some point this year. Here’s a shout out to those 9 folks in Nigeria!

Very special thanks to my top commenters:

Mom (Utah)
Dave (Washington)
Marc (New Jersey)
Kevin (Georgia)
Jeremy (Utah)

You’ve all given me the motivation to keep blogging!

The highest-traffic day on the blog in 2012 (with about 1,900 views) was June 14, 2012 when I announced that I’d begin driving a new 2013 Acura ILX 6-speed.

Thanks again, and here’s to open roads, green lights, and more exciting Acura adventures in 2013!

The rest of the report, prepared by WordPress:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 66,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

13 Comments »

Drive to Five’s International Reach

Posted in Blog on June 7, 2012 by tysonhugie

Odometer: 513,978

Looks like 514,000 tomorrow! I took a corner aggressively this morning and ended up with an illuminated “low fuel” light, on a full tank! The joys of an old car. It extinguished soon thereafter but I found it amusing.

Feeling a bit nerdy, I wandered through some of the statistics this week that WordPress allows me to review about my blog.

Drive to Five has had 44,763 unique hits in its lifetime (since I started the blog in March 2011) as of June 6, 2012.

The highest traffic day was the day that my Legend hit 500,000 miles on November 4, 2011, with 1,468 views that day. Since February 25, 2012 (not sure why WordPress uses this as a cutoff date), following is the distribution of clicks across the globe which total 13,985.

Country	Views
United States	11,268
Canada	1,374
Italy	451
New Zealand	127
United Kingdom	98
France	46
Turkey	42
Australia	39
Malaysia	37
India	29
Poland	27
Mexico	26
Brazil	25
Czech Republic	25
Indonesia	22
Russia	19
Hungary	17
Netherlands	16
Japan	16
Romania	15
Spain	13
Pakistan	13
Chile	11
Germany	11
Taiwan	11
Denmark	10
Korea	10
Puerto Rico	10
Switzerland	9
Lithuania	9
Ukraine	8
Sweden	7
Bangladesh	7
Jamaica	7
Viet	6
Saudi	6
Thailand	6
Philippines	5
Dominican Republic	5
United Arab Emirates	5
Cape Verde	5
Peru	5
Egypt	4
Latvia	4
Jordan	4
Hong Kong	4
Albania	4
Israel	4
Slovenia	4
South Africa	3
Panama	3
Croatia	3
Austria	3
Nigeria	3
Norway	3
Costa Rica	3
Venezuela	2
Guatemala	2
Bahrain	2
Sudan	2
Argentina	2
Kuwait	2
Morocco	2
Portugal	2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2
Slovakia	2
Belgium	2
Syrian Arab Republic	2
Qatar	1
Mauritius	1
Oman	1
Tanzania	1
Colombia	1
Ireland	1
Rwanda	1
Estonia	1
Mongolia	1
Finland	1
Ecuador	1
Grenada	1
Cyprus	1
Kenya	1

All of this just for sharing my Acura ownership experience. Pretty cool, I’d say! And I thank you, my readers for supporting this crazy obsession.

Thought I’d take this moment to share a couple fun Acura commercials. This is one of my favorites from the Legend’s heyday, featuring a stunning 1994-1995 GS sedan and touting the car’s value – even at a $42k pricetag which was a hefty chunk of change.

If you haven’t already seen it, check out the clever new Acura ILX commercial. I wonder how many takes it took?

18 Comments »

100th Post!

Posted in Blog on March 18, 2012 by tysonhugie

Odometer: 509,250

Time for a little celebration.

Drive to Five has made it to 100 posts since its first entry on March 28, 2011! It’s been a fun ride, and I thank my readers for joining me in the passenger seats. On March 26th, I’ll also celebrate my 9th year of ownership of my 1994 Acura Legend. Anniversaries all around.

Over the years, the old Acura has achieved a fair number of award-worthy accomplishments.

Here are a few of the fun memories:

2nd Place, Best Import, Lakeland Hills (Washington) Rockin’ Auto Show – 2005
Best Engine, Best Interior, OCDetails Fall 2005 Car Show, Salt Lake City Utah
3rd Place Imports, 19th Annual Rotary Easter Car Show 2004, Hurricane Utah
2nd Place Imports, 26th Annual Rotary Easter Car Show 2011, Hurricane Utah
2nd Place Touring Division, 100 mph Class, Bonneville 100 Open Road Race, June 2007, West Wendover Nevada

And I’m still driving it daily! Grocery run on Friday afternoon.

And the clouds have rolled in today. We haven’t seen any moisture for at least a few weeks around here! So naturally like any Arizonan who rarely gets to see “real” weather, I got a little too excited and took the chance for photo opportunity.

I never dreamed that driving the wheels off this old Legend would someday afford me the ability to play a small role in the launch of a brand new car for Acura. The below picture was taken in January at the Detroit Auto Show. Behind that translucent wall (and underneath a cover) sat the ILX concept car, yet unseen to the public eye. I admit, I peeked around the corner of the wall, but I could only see the bottom half of a wheel! Suspense was killing me.

Since that day, not only have I been able to see and touch the ILX, but I’ve been able to drive it! There are questions and answers being posted to the Acura ILX Facebook tab where I am able to interact with people who are interested in finding out about this 2013 model. Following are a couple of video examples of my experiences in meeting with the designers who play a role in bringing new Acuras to life.

Exterior design video with Jon Ikeda:

Interior design video with John Norman:

There is more to come, so stay tuned!

4 Comments »

Welcome 2012

Posted in Blog on January 1, 2012 by tysonhugie

Odometer: 505,005

Happy New Year! We’re now a few minutes past the midnight hour here in Arizona and I just arrived home from ringing in the new year with some friends at a party in central Phoenix. Seemed fitting also that my Acura passed yet another milestone at 505k tonight, leaving that half-million mark even further in the past. The year 2012 will bring plenty miles and adventures for me and for the old Legend as I continue to drive it daily.

The WordPress.com stats prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog that might be of interest to some of my readers:

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

4 Comments »

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