May 2020

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  I've resisted the temptation to post this mostly because I don't want people to think I'm bragging. However, if you look at the list, there's hardly much to brag about.   I imagine my story isn't much different from those who follow me on social media: I started with a hand-me-down car, which I promptly modifying. I eventually learned that trying to fix up a crummy car with almost no available aftermarket parts make such an endeavor a very poor choice.   I learned quickly, however, and moved on to cars that were wholly embraced by aftermarket performance parts.   Having grown up in the 1970s, my school's parking lot was full of American iron - Chevelles, Mustangs, Monte Carlos,  Buicks, Chevy Vegas, Chargers, Satellites, Cudas, Camaros, and other cars. I've ridden in pretty much every car ever sold in America from the model year 1964 to 1988.   By the time I got my driver's license, I already knew that the 1970s and 1980s were a dark time for cars. Laden with restrictive smog equipment, these cars were choked. For the 1978 Pontiac Trans Am (from Smokey and the Bandit), horsepower came in at 185, and torque was 320-lbs.ft., measured at the flywheel (in California).   American cars of

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Why did I sell my movie cars? I get this question so often, I felt it was time to spell it out. There are several reasons why I let these cars go.   For those of you who don't already know, I was the owner and builder of the orange Supra and the blue Nissan Maxima in the first movie. I also owned the silver Nissan Skyline GT-R in the second movie.    I had purchased these cars long before Universal came up with the idea of making these movies. As I tell the stories in my videos about these cars, Universal rented the cars from me and hired me as a technical advisor for. the first two movies.   The Supra was yellow before the movie and Universal chose to paint it orange and chose the graphics and wing for the car.   This was NOT what I wanted. I could have lived with the orange paint, the body kit, and maybe even the wing, but the graphics had to go. I was advised to refrain from changing a "valuable" movie car.   What most people don't understand is that in our little tuner car world, many people thought the first movie was a joke. It was a stereotypical