Category: cars

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.
History became legend. Legend became myth.

LOTR movies

For years, this is how I felt about my father’s first car. It was an entertaining story that had been told and retold so many times that it became legend. It was sure to come up at every family gathering, because everyone finds it hilarious that he never felt the need to mention it until after I bought my own mustang some 50 years later. Like father, like son. Adding to the intrigue was the fact that my dad had no photos of car, courtesy of hurricane Katrina.

Here’s the way my dad tells it. He purchased a 1967 mustang with the entirety of his earnings, all of $3000, one summer back in the 60s. A car purchase was prioritized, because relatives back in Taiwan said the Shih family “will have made it” once one of them owned a car. Fresh off obtaining his PhD in chemistry, he worked that summer for a pharmaceutical company, where his sole job was to rubber stamp batches of chemicals. The blue collar workers at the factory didn’t trust him to actually do any work – “rightfully so, since they knew everything, and I knew nothing. I was only good for my degree.” By the time he was regaling us for the first time in ~2019 after first seeing my mustang, he couldn’t remember the color or anything else about the configuration of the car. So historical accuracy is in question, but he tells the story well.

Fast forward to 2023. My Uncle Richard and Aunt Joanna, whom I hadn’t seen in about a decade, were visiting us in Washington. Like clockwork, the story of the OG Shih Mustang comes up over dinner, and Richard says: “I have photos of it.” Mind. Blown.

Even with the pics, it’s hard to tell the color. Black? Dark green? Whether it was a 1967 is also in question, but the engine was most likely the 170 straight six since my dad is sure he could barely afford the cheapest model.

According to Richard whose memory is still sharp as anything, these photos were taken in 1970 in Wichita, Kansas. Richard, the youngest brother, had just arrived in America, and he was staying with Philip, the middle brother, who was working as a librarian in Wichita. My father Fred, the oldest, was teaching at a women’s college in St. Louis and came to visit. Coincidentally, Philip had also just managed to acquire a car, and the brothers had a good laugh imagining the reaction of the folks at home when the saw a photo with two cars. Fred took Richard along back to St. Louis for a visit, and then dropped him back in Wichita. They rode the mustang the entire way.

My GT350 is loud. If I rev over 3000 RPM, cops from the next town over are queuing up to give me a ticket. It doesn’t help that I’m probably doing 80 in a 35 zone at that point =(.

So I took my car to her natural habitat: The Track. The closest one is Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA. It’s a pretty good one.

On the longest straightaway, it’s not unusual to reach 145 MPH. At the end of that is a generous braking zone to heel-toe 4th to 3rd at high RPM – reducing speed down to about 50 MPH for a long turn. Then, another downhill straightaway up to 100 MPH again before another heel-toe down to 2nd. Then, it’s like a windy mountain road, the aim being to maintain a line as much as possible through mild turns. Finally, the most critical corner, maintaining as much speed as possible entering the original straightaway.

In some ways, chasing a fast lap time is similar to training on the violin. You do the same thing over and over again, trying to get better and better. It’s about having an idea for what to do and practicing at executing on those ideas.

It has the Holy Trinity – manual, rear-wheel drive, and a V8.

Jack Holmes

I loved my E36 M3. Loved it. And for a time, I was determined to keep it as a second car =(

But I got promoted. And alas, before ICE (internal combustion engines) become relics, I was determined to own an American V8.

And what a V8 Ford shoved into the S550 GT350!! 8,250 redline. 526 horsepower. 5.2L displacement. Flat-plane crankshaft.

This thing is special. It reminds you of a Ferrari V8, but those are too small and high-pitched. It burbles like a big-block American V8, but it’s too light, refined, and crazed. It is somehow both.

Even after I became a car enthusiast, I never pegged myself as an American muscle car guy. And I still have little interest in a true muscle car (think the current Dodge Challenger line-up). But the current Mustang is, in my opinion, more European sports car than even the current generation M3. The GT350 is faster, more charismatic, louder, better-handling, and more unapologetic. And if nothing else, it’s nastier.

Yes, I prefer the clutch pedal feel of my M3. Yes, the GT350 is all exhaust noise, and I miss the induction noise of my old M3. But nothing matches the sonic experience and sheer power of taking my GT350 down a track straightaway.

I actually had no love for cars growing up. In fact, if I had any feeling at all back then, it was mild contempt for the loud ass mufflers and comically large wings people would stick on their base Civics. One guy I knew actually painted a the Chinese flag on his red Civic o_O.

Looking back though, I suppose it was always in my blood. My dad owned a ’67 Mustang at one point, but that was long gone by the time I came around. It’s a crying shame no pictures of that car seem to have survived. But even with a Camry station-wagon and Sienna in the stable, my dad made sure he at least got the V6 versions. And he’d always wax poetic about how smooth and reliable the engines were particularly after an oil change.

Fast forward to 2015. I’m driving a Prius – the most practical of cars for techies. I realize I have disposable income, and my friend Vikram baits me into taking the plunge into BMW. First, a 2013 328i with a 4-popper. But I soon learn that that is a bit disgraceful – a proper BMW ought to have an inline-6. So a 2011 335xi it is. The enthusiast spirit grows, and I begin to dislike even having AWD in a BMW.

And with that, I arrive at the first car that I ever loved. My 1997 BMW M3 – the so-called E36 M3. A halo car back in the day. Mine was a sedan in Boston Green.

With this car, I officially became a car enthusiast. She was a problem child for sure, and I ended up befriending a mechanic to deal with the frequent issues.

The E36 was the first M3 powered by an inline-6, the engine type that arguably makes BMW famous. The S52 engine in my car was addicting – amazing induction noise, great linear power delivery.

She was also my first daily-driven stick shift. In Seattle with the hills, this amounted to a bit of trial by fire, but count me in with the #savethemanuals crowd!

2 years with this beauty, but I was eventually sorely tempted by the promise of insane horsepower and sonic experience that only an American muscle car can provide.

Made sure she’s in good hands though. I carefully screened prospective buyers and ended up sending her off with a BMW enthusiastic building his collection of M3’s.