A Few Cars Of The Party: Cold Start

Cs Partycar1
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I got back last night from the future Superfund site that is David’s soon-to-be former home, and oh man am I exhausted. We got an awful lot done, but there’s still so many more loose ends to tie up. So many. Like, if the loose ends were tentacles, we’re talking a whole jellyfish colony. I don’t think he’s returned the keg from the party, even. It may end up buried in the backyard. I do know that we felt some regret at not burning more furniture, but some nice people picked up a bunch of stuff from the roadside, so that at least felt good. Overall, though, it’s a shitshow. He’ll get through it, somehow. Anyway, let’s just look at a few cars that showed up to the Big Party, which David will write all about later.

Up top there is one of the best, a late 90s to early 2000s Firebird that was all Baja’d up, cut down and big-tired and transformed into some glorious monster. Look at the rear:

Cs Partycars Rear

I think those may be forklift taillights? And that green blanket may be structural?

There was also this fantastic K-Car survivor:

Cs Partycar Kcar

When was the last time you saw one of these in person? It’s been a while. You can run your fingers on it and smell the pure Iacocca on your hands. Of course, some cars got nice and stuck in the snow-covered oily muck that makes up the surface of David’s backyard:

Cs Partycar Push

Nothing more dignified than a Lincoln desperately trying to find traction in snow and mud, is there?

David will be doing a full writeup of The Party soon, so stay tuned for that. I do want to note a couple quick details about this past weekend of cold, uncomfortable moving hell, though. First, get this:

I was there when this happened, and it was incredible. A cop shows up, and I was sure we were in trouble somehow, as I’m pretty sure I was surrounded by enough local ordinance violations to send David and I, his accomplice, probably to some sort of off-the-books detention facility run by America’s combined HOAs, on some island off the Florida coast. But no! He was there because he’d driven by David’s Jeep zoo so many times, and had some old parts from a Jeep J20 truck, including a vent window assembly David actually needed! He just wanted to drop those off! He made it at the last possible moment, too, which makes the whole thing even better. Car people are amazing.

Now I just want to show you this:

Cs Metal

So this is over 500 pounds of metal we brought to the scrapyard. There’s at least another 500 plus pounds of almost identical-looking metal bits that David felt he needed to take with him. It was fun flinging all of this stuff into the huge pile, though, trying to discus brake rotors into an old refrigerator. Also, we made $81!

My back hurts.

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Mercedes Streeter

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52 thoughts on “A Few Cars Of The Party: Cold Start”

  2. Still really bummed my E39 wagon and I couldn’t make it out there for the going-away party. But hopefully us Detroit-Metro Autopians can still make some meets and events happen that I’ll be able to attend again!

  5. I’m not saying brake rotor discus is the main reason I always buy new rotors instead of having them turned, but it’s a factor.

    You can get great distance on compact car rotors, but man are the impacts from truck rotors worth the back sprain.

  6. I have to say, it was really nice meeting all of you that attended, and David I hope you post a photo of the very special “tailgating” present that we got you..

    BTW I’m the guy that had the green Range Rover L322 there. Good times, David you’ll be missed here in Michigan.

    2. JLR represent!

      It was nice to meet you as well, and I appreciate you showing me the Range Rover: the green and tan is a great combination.

      And unlike the BMW wagon, you probably didn’t have any trouble navigating the 4″ of snow in David’s yard. 🙂

  8. So, like now David’s old house is like the Breaking Bad house, except instead of flinging pizzas onto the roof, people will huck Jeep parts?

    Make sure you give the next tenant the names of a few good fencing companies.

  9. I feel like Mercedes should be contacting DT’s landlord to call “next” on this place.

    A landlord who doesn’t seem very concerned with a “fleet” of vehicles parked all over the yard is not that easy to find. And the neighbors may have just given up by now.

    1. 1999 Pontiac Firebird with the venerable 3800 V6/4L60E. Some years ago, prior to my ownership it was slid into a phone pole on the passenger rear side. The guy who built it took that as the inspiration to hack the back off and Baja it. He sold it to the guy I bought it from.

      Details:
      Stock engine/transmission
      4.56:1 LSD rear
      Straight pipe exhaust to dual Suzuki CB650 mufflers with Supertrapp end caps
      Stock front struts spaced up with washers
      Rear springs are some kind of 4in Jeep lift coil
      Rear shocks are off an F250
      Wheel adapters to 5×5.5
      31/10.50/15 front tires on Geo Tracker steelies
      32/11.50/15 rear tires with 15×10 d-window steel wheels
      And custom tube chassis rear that connects to the rollbar inside the cabin.

    1. EXACTLY! What none of even realize, is that David’s obsession is so deep, he went back in the middle of the night and stole back that $81 worth of scrap. Hoarders be hoarders.

  16. New Autopian rule : Any time one passes through Detroit One must make an offering of Jeep parts to David’s former Home. And take a photo to post here.

    1. I fully support this, but what if I live in Detroit-Metro? Is this a “one single part that I can keep using as sacrifice” or a “get boned, go get a new part” kind of situation?

  17. At our local transfer station, they used to let you back up on tipping floor right to the edge of the pit and throw your stuff in. Soooo satisfying, the more breakable, the better. But their insurer must have put a stop to it, because now you just fling your stuff onto a pile.

    2. Years ago when I used to spend a week or so at my aunt and uncle’s place in Philadelphia (Manayunk) to hang out with my cousins during the summer, my uncle would drive us kids over to the local incinerator and we got to stand on the edge of this large and fairly deep rectangular pit and toss junk into it before it was collected and burned. It was finally closed by the city in 1989 due to excessive pollution. I can’t imagine any place like that still in operation these days would allow children anywhere near it, but, ah, memories…

  18. Regarding the green F-body…

    One, it was Fan. Frickin’. Tastic.

    Two, though they’re slightly visible only in the second picture, there are two SuperTrapp mufflers pointing skyward from the passenger’s side of the rear cage. (Look just above the spare tire – you’ll see the round end caps.) They sound glorious.

    I was admiring the car and chatting with the owner, and asked if we could hear it. His hands were occupied so I assisted: it was a literal hold-my-beer-and-watch-this moment. 🙂

      1. Appreciated, but oddly enough that was not me: the 500 Abarth owner at the party brought the coffee.

        We had Abarth the car and A. Barth the person, but A. Barth is not driving an Abarth. 🙂

    2. I sent a picture of the green Gambler Firebird to my fiancé — who, wisely, was otherwise occupied last Saturday — and he responded with “OMG, that just triggered my fight-or-flight reflex. What the hell-sh*t is that!?”

      So, to the designer: “mission accomplished.”

      2. Hey, Firebird owner here!

        Although it may appear it has IRS, the Dirtybird is still rocking the GM factory equipped 10bolt rear end. It has been upgraded with 4.56:1 gears to allow the mighty 3800 V6 to turn the 32×11.50×15 mud tires.

    4. Seeing Sam and that Firebird in action at the Autopian meet up last October at Holly Oaks off road park was worth the price of admission that day. That car is way more capable off road than it should have any right to be. I even got to use my Jeep to recover it when he got it stuck, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

      1. I wish I would have had a chance to get the Land Ranger (Safari G35x) together with Sam’s firebird at some point before I moved it North of the bridge. It is currently so stuck that I’ve given up retrieving it until spring (maybe someday we’ll be able to post pics). As such, I missed the Holly Oaks gathering AND David’s party. That Firebird would fit right in anywhere North of Clare. When I was a kid I thought a Trans Am on a truck chassis was a factory option. They were as common as minivans where I grew up.

        1. Hey, Firebird owner here!

          I think we have actually meeting before at one of the Walmart meetups. I was driving my Camel Trophy Subaru Outback at the time.

  19. “future Superfund site that is David’s soon-to-be former home” says the man who placed his face upon its *carpet*… ON PURPOSE. You guys seriously make the most questionable decisions in the auto journo world.

    That’s why I’m a paying member.

    2. I sometimes wonder if by subscribing to the site I’m complicit in the eventual death-by-highly-improbable-circumstance of one of the writers that seems like the inevitable endgame for this site, but then I remind myself that they were doing this stuff long before I moseyed in. 😉

  20. Can somebody take a picture of the oil stains on David’s driveway so we can use them to create the ‘autopian world map’? Off-roadistan is next to New Dragston, and across the petrol sea is Rustopia…

      1. It’s going to be a perpetual cycle of this poor house being full of Jeep parts, them taking them to the Sterling Heights U-Pull yard, and then us buying them back and repeating the cycle. Nature truly is beautiful.

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