September… I’m hella impatient. Winter makes AE86 life less appealing. Or rather… winter makes AE86 life less appealing, having experienced an all weather monster. My wife and I were talking and remember what the RNN14 was like last year. I called it, the best car I’ve ever owned… and despite all the beauties and vintage feelings inherent in AE86, something else calls me when the weather gets cold and the roads turn white.
I mean, think about it… this isn’t Japan. Hell… this isn’t even Vancouver. If I want to disappear, chances are, I’m going to end up finding gravel, or dirt. Four months of the year, I might not have any options but snow. Now, it’s not that AE86 or other two wheel drive platforms can’t get by in such conditions… it’s just that… THEY CAN’T GET BY IN SUCH CONDITIONS.
Blah blah blah… winter tires, and lsd, and good driving. Whatever. The only reason you can say that, is because you don’t know what it’s like. One. If you want your two wheel drive vehicle to be at all manageable, and not self-destructing, then you’ve got to be running soft spring rates and reasonable ride-heights. This basically means your driving a car that 98% of the driving population would consider mundane. A car like that, isn’t fun in any situation really. Your better off, taking it down a couple inches and doubling or tripling the spring rates, so at the very least, you can have fun eight or nine months of the year in the confinement of asphalt.
…Fine for city dwellers who enjoy the 90 degree turns of industrial parks and wide sweeping bends of off ramps. Wee…
Find an all weather monster and the compromises are reversed. Give up the hard turn in at the industrial park where you need to watch your mirrors for red and blue anyways, and trade it for… not caring about speed bumps and pot holes and construction zones? not getting airborne on the Deerfoot? And then imagine going for a drive, any day of the year, and wanting to take every single backroad in sight just to drive what might lay around the bend. Imagine days when you can look at every single other vehicle on the road with disdain and disgust. Yah… it happens.
… the rally zoku.
Gravel roads, broken pavement, snow, ice, salt, massive potholes and mountains…
I live in Alberta. Wee…