Taking The Wife's Car for a Spin

[carlmaloschneider]

I just got back from taking the wife's car for a spin around the rural backroads. It's not a great car by all means; a tiny little '95 Holden Barina hatchback with a 1.3L engine. But it's small, and low and light, with 'non power' steering and really small wheels. An automatic (it'd be more fun as a manual) it reminds me of a rally car, so of course most of the circuit was spent with my foot flat to the floor.

It went really well on the dirt.

When I got home the wife asked where I went, how fast did I go and said 'you thrashed it, didn't you?' (she knows me). Like I said, a cheap little car but it was a fun drive...

How many of you have taken the wife's car for a spin and 'thrashed it' just a little? How many of you owned up to it?

[dustoff003]

Thanks Carl you made me LOL... I routinely drive my wife's vehicle funny thing is she drives a truck and I drive a car. The misses drives and loves her 2005 Toyota Tacoma and I drive a 2011 Toyota Prius that she begrudgingly drives on occasion. There has been more than one instance of me burning out in her truck, without her in it of course. She knows me to good as well when I get home she asks if I laid rubber with her truck, and yes I own up I am a terrible liar. Then she proceeds to tell me how she prefers her truck to my small car.

[MickR]

My wife owns both the cars in the family. I prefer my bike. And yes, I like to thrash her cars. One is a little Dae Woo similar to your wifes Barina Carl. And I love to thrash the hell out of that. Her other car is the Land Cruiser Prado with a V6 Turbo diesel that just begs to be flogged. On a side note, we found that after a couple of months of me bitching about a mouldy smell in the Prado and being told it was all in my head, that there was indeed a mouldy smell in the Prado, and that it was coming from the back where the carpet underlay was saturated. The how and why is yet to be worked out, but the carpeting is currently hanging on the line for the next few days before I have to re-install it. Now why is it my job? And why is it also my job to buff off the few small spots of surface rust and re-paint the metal before I do? If she had have listened to me when I first told her...Oh well. I feel like taking her car out and thrashing it some more now .


Mick

[Furcifer]

Wife had a Prius when we got married. What a f@#$ing POOCH of a car. Hated it. Badmouthed it for a year; finally she gets sick of it while we're visiting her parents, and she says we can sell it if I restore her '65 Mustang which has been sitting outside on a dirt mound under an oak tree for 14 years. I said, "DEAL!!!"

So, anyway, since I'm the one rebuilding this cantankerous old Ford (MOPAR man here!), I'll drive her just how the hell I want, thank you very much! (Especially after I get done with the Shelby drop, racing adjustable strut rods and custom alignment I'm engineering for it...) Here's some before&current. I won't say "after" just yet, because it's not done!

WIFE'S CAR









BTW, I don't just fix them... I really CAN drive, and I know what's WORTH driving, too!

[carlmaloschneider]

...

Wow, nice Mustang!

Mick, it's ALWAYS our job. I'm trying to explain to the wife that just because I'm a man it doesn't mean I'm also a plumber. She doesn't get it...

[johnmrson]

All the time. My wife drives a 2010 Subaru Impreza AWD. It's so much fun to turn it into corners at crazy speeds and hang on as the AWD scrambles for grip.

[cheetahmeatpheonix]

Wife had a Prius when we got married. What a f@#$ing POOCH of a car. Hated it. Badmouthed it for a year; finally she gets sick of it while we're visiting her parents, and she says we can sell it if I restore her '65 Mustang which has been sitting outside on a dirt mound under an oak tree for 14 years. I said, "DEAL!!!"

So, anyway, since I'm the one rebuilding this cantankerous old Ford (MOPAR man here!), I'll drive her just how the hell I want, thank you very much! (Especially after I get done with the Shelby drop, racing adjustable strut rods and custom alignment I'm engineering for it...) Here's some before¤t. I won't say "after" just yet, because it's not done!

WIFE'S CAR









BTW, I don't just fix them... I really CAN drive, and I know what's WORTH driving, too!

Post more pics of that '65 man. I want to see it lowered, front bumper removed and replaced with the racing apron, disc brakes all around, side scoops, roll cage, Lincoln rear, braided hose, battery located in the trunk, 289 small block with 351 Cleveland Heads, lots of powder coating and candy coated paint with 30 coats of clear. I 'll let you pic rims and tires..LOL Just kidding. Beautiful car. Let me know if you have a '65 fastback for sale.

[cheetahmeatpheonix]

Oops my bad. I just saw the braided hose...LOL
Good work. Carry on.

Godspeed Furcifer

[Furcifer]

Post more pics of that '65 man. I want to see it lowered, front bumper removed and replaced with the racing apron, disc brakes all around, side scoops, roll cage, Lincoln rear, braided hose, battery located in the trunk, 289 small block with 351 Cleveland Heads, lots of powder coating and candy coated paint with 30 coats of clear. I 'll let you pic rims and tires..LOL Just kidding. Beautiful car. Let me know if you have a '65 fastback for sale.

Hah! Well, I asked the wife what she wanted before we started: Concours original, full custom, "day-two", sleeper, etc. She said, "What's a 'sleeper'"? I said, "Well, nobody knows - until it blows by them!" So, basically, she wants all original-looking on the outside and original Pony interior, since it was one of the first Mustangs to get it (March of '65 was when the car was built and the same month when the GT and Pony options first became available), and she said I can do what I want with the engine as long as it's all chromed out. I'm also free to do what I want with the suspension as long as it doesn't severely alter the look of the car. I've got 1" lift springs in the rear, thicker sway bars and will be doing a Shelby drop in the front, but that won't lower it much more than a half inch. The more important result is better steering geometry and the ability to introduce a positive caster angle for better cornering and tracking. (Those old Mustangs castered at 0 from the factory, believe it or not). If I can get at least two degrees without binding the lower control arm, I'll be content, but I'm looking to get 3.5 degrees if I can. (race cars will run custom tubular control arms with 5 degrees or more). Probably not going to do much more to the engine than what you see for now: That's a Holley 570 Steet Avenger 4-barrel with vacuum secondaries (It's a C4 automatic still set up with the factory big-dot/little-dot "select-shift") sitting on a Weiand Street Warrior dual-plane intake, fed by a Holley Street Performance fuel pump. It'll get Tri-Y Shelby headers and I'm debating on whether to keep the Blue Streak glass packs that are on it. They aren't made anymore and are illegal as hell here in Hawaii, but they sure sound good!

[Mvcrash]

If I "thrash" it, I have to fix it. I don't drive her car unless required. Makes life easy.