Remember this car from the auction? It's OK if you don't because I sure did. Next to the 1970 Monte Carlo the 1967 HT Sedan Impala is one of my favorite cars that I would love to own. But the prices on those have skyrocketed due to the Supernatural show, which I am a big fan of. (Monte Carlo love? Tokyo Drift... Sue me...)

When I saw the below picture of the engine bay I had a raging boner...
Yup, those heads... Bit big for a 327 smallblock. This is a honest to god 396 big block car. And under the hood, while naturally lived in by XYZ, it looks original and complete. In love doesn't even begin to cover it.

I knew it wouldn't be for me. Colorado, no way to get it here and the sight unseen thing just won't work. If it got here with massive issues that means it isn't drivable without structural work my $10K budget that has been carved out would be blown before the mechanicals can even be touched. It went for $6,250.00 + 10%. Guess we'll never know if it could be a driving for not too much more invested...

I ended up sending the listing to a local shop called "Maupin Metal" who started out as a Supernatural Build shop and now does that and other full custom work. He ended up buying it! When I asked if he knew about it before I sent a message he said no. Strange how a post on OPPO lands a local business with a car.

AAAAAAND if I make it to "Maupin Metal" on the 28th of this month it's going to be at the shop so I can see it in the flesh! Like I said, it isn't for me. But I really hope it is a solid car (no bunk frame etc) so he can either keep it for himself or make a tidy profit. If I make it I'll likely shoot a little video perhaps. At least take some pictures and give an update on it.

I've always loved the MR2. The mid engine runabout for the common man. The story for me definitely started when I got my drivers license. I would frequent a local MR2 forum in the Netherlands for quite a few years as an enthusiast and potential buyer. It never ended up happening unfortunately. Via my YouTube channel I would find myself in an AW11 and in 2018 and I met my hero in the form of a 3SGTE swapped SW20 in 2019. Meeting your heroes can always backfire, but it didn't at all. It was everything I thought it would be.

Fast forward to 2021. I got no clue how it all came together. I think Jose, who owns the black MKIV Supra I reviewed a while back, knew Lance who has this MR2. A few messages later and we're shooting a review. This statement probably spoils the review but; It should have had a V6 from factory. MAJOR NSX vibes.

What do you guys think of the MR2? And which one is your favorite? For me it's definitely the SW20. I like the AW11 as well because it just oozes 80's. Never really liked the 3rd generation for some reason. Never driven one and I would love to. But I just can't get super exited by the way they look compared to the SW20!

I despise drink drivers. I honestly believe drunk driving enforcement is way too lax. The moment someone is caught isn't the first time they did it. They habitually do this. I propose a zero tolerance policy. Get caught? You can't drive, ever again. I am not saying have a beer (depending on the size, if you go to a German place you can order a damn liter of beer and that is definitely too much) but even two regular glasses during a nice long dinner with dessert isn't going to tip the scales much for most people. No, those people who are pulled out of their car not being able to see straight let alone walk straight? Boom, license gone for life. Maybe that would sober some people up or get people to do the right thing. If I go to the German place? My wife drives back. I am NOT good to drive. 100% Don't have a friend? Walk... Or get an Uber. So simple.

May he rest in peace. My condolences to his family, friends and everyone else affected by his passing.

What they wrote was the truth... From a certain point of view

Got to love the Obi Wan clause...

So 4 years ago, in 2017, I connected with Collin and reviewed his 1970 Deuce and a Half. That was a very cool experience and to date still the heaviest vehicle I have ever driven. About a month ago the phone rings and I pick up. I use the phone for work (outside YouTube) so every call gets answered. My old iPhone was replaced and I lost a bunch of contacts in the process, Collin's being one of them, so the number was just a number. Collin being a car guy he says "Hey, this is Collin, the guy who let you review his Deuce." We might not remember a name, but a car? Never!

We had a nice long conversation, but what it boiled down to was this: They were having a shakedown day for the vehicle / armor division of the Cavanaugh Flight Museum to drive all the vehicles and he thought it would be cool to film. The icing on the cake came in the form of climbing in and getting a ride on a tank (M50 Super Sherman, and also a M41 Walker Bulldog, but those are for a later video). There were 4 vehicles lined up, and instead of me filming them driving around it was more like: We need to work on the tank, so we'll get you set up on these 4 vehicles so you can drive them.

3 out of the 4 vehicles have unsynchronized manual transmissions. For those that don't know: That means you need to double clutch like you should and actually rev match every time by ear, every time and without fail. Got some double clutch rev match instruction in the M38a1 jeep and was then left to my own devices. There would be plenty of fail in the video, first time ever driving vehicles like that.

My favorite was without a doubt the M3a1 Scout Car. It is actually also the oldest vehicle I have driven to date. 1942. What better vehicle to take that crown than a cool one like that? There were and actually still are times where I want to quit this thing. But when you come across opportunities like this you start to realize that if you did quit you would have never had this experience.

Any of you ever drive a military vehicle?

Cavanaugh Flight Museum Website: https://cavflight.org/

It's always good when you see a Testarossa! As a kid from the 80's it shares the pedestal with the Countach. I've seen way more Testarossas though, I think it was the first supercar I ever saw as a kid. I just love the slats on the side, and the fact you have that gated shifter. Perfection. I spoke with the owner and we geeked out a bit. This one has over 90K miles by the way, original paint too. It's a driver! The owner said he put over 1000 miles on it the past month. Love that it gets driven!

The Jensen Interceptor will always be one of my favorites too. But, when my eye saw that M5 badge on an E34 wagon? Very rare, imported from Europe because the US never had them and all original looking. Loved it! Nearly made best of show if I am completely honest, but the way that Testarossa looked? Couldn't bump that car.

The Testa was naturally in the list of photos I showed my kids. But they went for something completely out of left field. The 2.5RS(ti). Classic looks, and STi swapped. It went like STINK and sounded AMAZING (can't recall the time stamp, but it's in the Asian car section).

Yeah, great show to end 2021 with. Now lets see what 2022 has in store!

You got to have balls to drive that in the snow given the low end torque on those is enough to slay those meats on dry pavement if you even look at the gas pedal wrong. I guess that is why a lot of people, at least initially, went: see? SEE!

The Toyota MR2, in particular the second generation (SW20) model, has always been a favorite of mine. So when I was invited by Lance, who's 2GR SW20 I reviewed, to film at MR2 Nationals the answer could only be yes.

I parked my Passat GT at the fringes of the show with all the other support vehicles and started shooting. It was very hot that day so I took plenty of breathers in between. It was also kind of odd shooting since I had no clue what to expect.

The community was very welcoming though, and when asked at the AutoX starting line if I could put some cameras on their cars while they did a lap they all just said yes.

So much fun hanging out with the MR2 crew and it just makes me want one more. I did commit to shooting MR2 nationals next year and weather depending I want to make all days. It would have been so cool to get footage of the dyno day, show, auto x, drag day AND track day. Would be even cooler if I could do it in my own MR... But that... Is going to be something that we'll have to wait and see!

Funny thing, it was my son's turn to pick the cover car. He is immediately drawn to the W30. I ask my daughter and she picks the AW11 which was the thumbnail of this topic. I am personally very hung up on the SW20, the AW11 is cool too and the W30? Last place. Although I have heard that out of the three the W30 is the best handling one of the bunch. More of a straight line person myself so the SW20 punches that ticket nicely, it has that impeccable 90's "supercar" styling and the 2GR swap... OOOOOOOOFFFFFFF!

If you remember a while ago I went to a vehicle day where I got to drive (4) classic military vehicles, of which the scout car was the oldest vehicle I have ever driven in my life. I went to a car show last Saturday but for the 4th of July I figured I should sit down and finish the M50 Super Sherman video that had been in the editing booth for a while.

OPPO Thread: Driving Classic Military Vehicles

That wasn't the only thing that was done that day. They had to shake down their M50 Super Sherman as well so I could do what any self respecting youtuber would do. Strap a camera to my head before getting inside it, look around, get a cold start on video and just capture the experience. First time ever riding in a tank.

They also took the M41 Walker Bulldog out, but that video is for another day (will also be shorter than this one, the main star attraction was definitely the M50 that day!)
Since this day (it was in 2021) I was invited over for a family and friends day where I shot a bunch of B roll just for the show. That video will have a ton of vehicle shots, some shots of a corsair they are working on (they are putting in a new engine which was completely exposed) a ride on the Sherman around the country side (super cool experience, on film probably not as much) and shooting a 105mm cannon (blanks, naturally). They also had a T34 which was cold started, did get a ride on that one as well but man... It was very hot that day and that one had been roasting in the sun. I had some action cams strapped to it so hopefully I got some rolling shots of that too because I was busy alternating position to not burn myself... Hahaha!

Honestly... I love being around those vehicles... More so than shooting car stuff...

Been a hot minute I suppose... But it was time again. Not going to waste your time if you don't want to watch the entire thing, scroll to 10:11 for the footage. This is why we can't have nice things...

Now we get to wait to see if I am going to be ushered away from that exit next month because someone took it too far. Would be a major bummer since I am openly against taking the entire hand. Also wonder how many people are going to complain about the watermark. I did that last time there was a crash in 2019, there are just too many greedy YouTube channels taking footage for their compilations. Now they either won't bother or everyone knows where the footage comes from which is a plus. Took about an hour to blur the plate, I wouldn't want that out for the world to see if I were to bin it myself so it is the right thing to do. In the past I didn't do that, but that was because I didn't have the skill to blur plates back then. Guy got lucky... Real lucky... In more than one way.

ANYWAY, 720s was picked as the cover car by my daughter because it looked futuristic. She almost picked the kart looking thing. No clue what it was, but I am sure it's a weapon on a track with lots of corners.

Temperature was WAY lower than the previous months which was a very nice change. I can't wait for the temperatures to take another nosedive. It makes hauling the rig a lot more comfortable for sure! Not TOO cold though. No ice please!

The show also tried to separate muscle from jdm after expanding their lot but it was a bit of a mixed bag this time. I hope that in the future people get more in tune with it and park in the sections. It would be GREAT to have all the old school muscle in one lot. Also need to try that burger joint over there. Aptly called LSA burger (Chevy fans REJOICE, although it really stands for Lone Star Attitude) Maybe I'll try that next month...

@davesaddiction you could have gone to europe and visited Disneyland Paris for the same amount of money...

That is what I'll be doing. Visiting family and then 5 hours in the car to the resort. No big!

They literally killed their US business-model with that EV crap. And it isn't Dodge who is to blame. It's Stellantis...

I've picked up both games. My son took an interesting in beamNG.drive and bought it. Planning to get some mods to we can play together. Picked up Automation as well just in case I feel the need to want to participate. Got a bunch of other games I play with people already. But at least I got the option to participate in the future.

You are making the right moves. If I hated my job I would move heaven and earth to go somewhere else. I am lucky that I love it most days and the people I work with are all FUCKING awesome. Each and every one of them. Almost too good to be true. I hope you find the same.

@pip-bip I've seen a ton down here. There is some big money car enthusiasts down here for sure. I take it for granted now. And while everyone just flocks to those cars I usually don't film them static because of it. Sometimes they are oddly accessible and that is when I strike.

I used to get a bunch of comments about why I don't shoot the hypercars or supercars and the response is always the same: Don't have the space to do so. If I did I would shoot them all the time.

@Old-Busted-Hotness they're big cars for sure. Part of their allure to me.

Two in the span of a week... I know... That's what happens when I don't feel like editing one month and then decide to get the January video out just before the March show. The decision was made to never let a car show get that far away from me so here we are, the March video, a scant 48 hour after it was shot!

My son picked the Huracan STO for the cover car. Not a bad choice but personally I had to go for the old stuff again. The 1970 Ford XL was my favorite. It's essentially a Galaxie but you can't call it a Galaxie XL because the XL was it's own nameplate in 1970. Memories to a few years ago keep surfacing when I see one of those. That was the time when the wife completely (and rightfully) shot me down on a '70 that ran flawless, had AC and even a console! It needed paint but boy... It would have been worth it! And it will forever be the one that got away for sure.

Very cool that a lot of folk showed up because it was overcast with a promise of thunderstorms. Not a drop of rain though, just a ton of wind which took away a bit of the fun in the audio department.

It's probably also one of the last shows I can get through without sweating my ass off I am sure... Texas is starting to come alive again. And with that the sun...

@pip-bip that was my favorite of show! Loved seeing it out there!

@amoore100 said in StarField // About this Release date…:

@TheDutchTexan Yeah, I bought FH5's pre-release edition because I was so hyped about it being set in Mexico, but ultimately I feel like I could have spent my money better by getting it on discount, and a AAA studio really doesn't need my charity. I'll buy countless DLCs from indie game devs, though.

I could never get into FH for some reason. Keep buying the Forza's even though I really dislike how bad the DLC push in those games have gotten. See these cars? You can't have them because you need to buy the DLC. I am from a generation where you bought a game and you had all of it. And if you didn't have all of it you could buy the DLC on a separate disk...

Man I miss physical media... I understand there is no disc big enough to put games on anymore but at least in those times they tried to get it 100% right. If it wasn't their F-up would be very hard to correct. The internet age has made game devs too complacent. (And the goodies too, I loved going through the manual and getting posters and sometimes other nick nacks with it. Now you're stuck paying 100s of dollars for a special edition... can't do it captain!).

Going a bit out of order on this one. This was the January show but I ended up having total creators block on my automotive stuff (hence the increase in gaming content). But I was determined to get it out before the March show. I actually have a mid 2022 show that's unedited... I should get that one done too sometime...

This was the first time I saw the new ZO6. It has enough visual cues to differentiate it from the absolute glut of regular C8's out there (have a ton of them in the exit shots, don't get me wrong though, I still love them, especially when they move out). Unfortunately I was not able to hear it, perhaps another show!

The favorite for me wasn't the ZO6 although it was close. I had to go with the EVO IV. My daughter picked the ZO6 which gave me the "ultimate" clickbait opportunity. Not that it will make a lick of difference view wise, especially since the show is 2 months old at this stage. Not to mention the car has been out for a hot minute so the clickbait on that one has about dried up.