Back and Forth | The Incoherent Ramblings of Designer and Musician Justin Winslow

My New Car – Part Deux

I have been looking for a daily driver and a music gear hauler for a long time (and honestly more vigorously than I had been searching for a job). My heart was more or less set on a 3rd generation 4Runner. Sadly, the ones I had looked at have been absolutely beat to hell. So I expanded my horizon to any generation 4Runner or Land Cruiser. And still nothing in the right price range and quality range.

A friend of mine had picked up a 2008 Subaru STI recently and I fell in love with it. So I got to thinking an older WRX wagon would be cool and suit my requirements (haul stuff, reliable, and all wheel drive). And again, prices and quality just didn’t line up. Until I found this little car:

Apparently Subaru built this ill-fated car, the 9-2x, for a few years for SAAB. The typical SAAB consumer didn’t take to it so they stopped making them. It has all the underpinnings of a WRX Impreza but with a slightly more adult look to it. What this means is I was able to get a fantastically reliable sport wagon with a 2.0 litre, turbo, 4 cylinder, boxer engine producing 240bhp and room for my gear at a very reasonable price.

There’s some light damage to some of the body panels that you might expect from a 5 year old car with 80,000 miles on the odometer but, the rest of the car is in really great shape (not the least of which is the awesome 2 tone leather interior). I’m super excited to have another great vehicle in my stable and look forward to putting many, many more miles on this fine piece of machinery.

Z3 Saves Couple from a 300 Foot Fall

“I thought I’d lost her, but then she came to. I held her tighter than I’ve ever held her, sobbing and thanking God we were alive,” recollects Bill Bradley after pulling his wife from the car.

People often question emotional attachments to ‘things’, especially an automobile which most view as an appliance. These little cars are built so well and historically have had incredible safety ratings and a plethora of stories of people walking away from ludicrous accidents. So I guess what I am getting down to is: I know this car will gladly give it’s life to save mine. How many people do you know that would do that for you?

Read more about the original story

GM Vehicles Catching Fire – Where’s the Outrage?

With all of the publicity surrounding the issue some Toyotas may or may not have actually had, it’s surprising to see so little publicity surrounding the 1.5 million vehicles being recalled by GM over concerns that they will catch on fire. Which is the sequel to 2008′s “These cars are so hot they are on fire!” recall (Source).

I mean, come on. Unbiased reporting? Fair and balanced? What the hell is going on these days?

Austin Is Getting a Formula 1 Track and the BMW Z4 GT3 Is Incredible

It felt appropriate to merge these into one post given the similar topics.

Apparently Austin is slated to have a new F1 track purpose built for the event and it should be ready by 2012. This is incredibly exciting for one because of my automobile lust and two because it will generate some serious business for the city that just keeps getting better.

Full story: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/5/10824.html

And, BMW put together a competition version of it’s new Z4 a couple months ago and it seems like a proper beast. Here it is on the Nürburgring Nordschleife track menacing some Porsches.