hi all, just wanted to share a little story with you. first of all, my car is far from restored, although i drive it every day and i have it running well. i can't remember if i ever shared the story with the group of how i got my car but i'll give you a short version now. i saw it at a local tow yard in very bad shape. i offered $1000 at lien sale and had it towed home. found the engine to be full of rust and seized. i then found an engine out of a 69 280sel which was sadly getting destroyed at the local wrecking yard, paid $600.00 for the engine and i was off and running. i guess i should note that i spend a ton of time working on it. it would be safe to say i'm a little obsessed:) i live in santa barbara and the furthest i have ever driven it is l.a. about an 85 mile trip one way. anyhow, i also own a 99 jeep grand cherokee that i purchased for "road trips" or just primarily freeway trips. it's a comfortable car has lots of power with a v8 and i've done some mods to it bringing the engine to about 325 hp but to be honest it doesn't do much for me. i could take it or leave it. nothing like the pagoda which makes me happy every time i drive it. it's hard to explain but my pagoda changes my mood to a very happy one every time i drive it. well to make a long story short...i'm probably boring the heck out of you, last week i found out that i'm losing my lease at my shop, my fiance and i almost split up over a different issue and my 15 year old dog that i've had since i was 18 needs to be put to sleep. needless to say...i was having a really bad week. i just needed to get away so i called a friend of mine in s.f. told him i was going to visit for a few days and packed up the jeep. i got about 35 miles away and decided to turn back. i knew that this was exactly what i needed but i didn't want to be in the jeep, i wanted to take the pagoda instead. now keep in mind the engine came from a wrecking yard, blows a little bit too much smoke when you start it, and a mystery as to how it was maint. or mileage. it does run very well though so i went for it. i had the best time and the car performed perfectly. until now i have always been a little bugged by the 4.08 rear end and i really didn't understand why it was geared as it was. now i know. going up the hills at 90mph with no more effort than cruising on level ground is actually really amazing. i passed everything on the road the entire trip and although the rpms stayed at about 5k most of the trip the engine seemed to appreciate it. i was absolutely flying, radar detector and all. it was an absolute blast. i would have really liked seeing and hearing one of our cars going down the freeway at a speed of 90-100. i bet it sounds so cool. it's amazing how people in a way respect the pagoda as other drivers seemed to switch lanes and smile and wave to give me the fast lane throughout the entire trip. it seems that in my other cars it never happens. drivers tend to stay in the fast lane at 65 constantly. when i arrived i looked the car over and all seemed good, i spent a couple days driving all over the city sight seeing and just cruising around. i kept the top down all except for the ride home as it was raining. all in all i put close to 1,000 miles on it. when i got home i checked it over again and found that i used a liitle less than a half quart of oil and everything else looked and performed as it did when i left. i guess moral of the story is that i feel so lucky to have this thing in my life that i can just get into and check out mentally when things get really bad. i wonder if it's just me or do your cars have a mood changing effect on you guys too? maybe that sounds crazy but it's true. i also want to thank you all for educating me on so much with my car. without this forum i wouldn't have been able to take the car to the market, let alone a 1000 mile road trip. one other thing... when i first put this engine in i felt very nervous driving this car hard. i actually thought that 65 on the freeway was too much as it seemed to rev much higher than any car i had ever driven. somewhere i was told that the really good running cars are the ones that are driven hard and not babied. i guess that took away my fear and i have to say that i do drive it pretty hard... everyday...and it feels like the car was meant to be driven that way as i have never broken down it and it seems to be running better all te time. thanks for reading, just wanted to share.
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65 auto 230sl
