534 in a Talon is quite the punch.
Mine was just a gray '95 2L air breather that I bought from a friend who was an amateur (Miata) racer. She didn't do anything fancy to it, and I didn't have it long enough to mod it in any way.
Spoiler:
That car was bad juju. I got it from my friend on my birthday.... just before she left L.A. for a few weeks because of a death in her family. That was early April. End of May, the engine went all gloppy. Decided to pay for a rebuild, and the shop did the work, at which time I promptly got hit with some financial trouble that killed my ability to actually pay for the work. Fast forward about 18 months, I've finally paid off the balance and gotten my car out of jail. Six weeks after that I totaled it in a single-car accident that may or may not have involved me doing in excess of 100 mph on Sunset Blvd. Crested a blind curve, lost the back end, and slid sideways into a stone wall, with a cast iron mail box bar coming through the drivers side window and embedding in the headrest. If the car hadn't hit a curb before hitting that wall, the bar would have gone through my head. Both suspensions on the drivers side collapsed, the frame was bent a good 15°, and so I had to get out of the car using the sunroof cos neither door would open.
In addition to the colossal stupidity on display, two things stand out about that accident: 1) I was listening to Rage Against The Machine "Killing In The Name Of" at the time, and after the crashing and banging stopped the car's electrical was still working. So I was sitting there in a puddle of my own terror listening to Zack de la Rocha scream "F**K YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!" over and over again. Which didn't really help calm me, if I'm honest. And 2) the cops who came out to investigate were super cool. The one asked me how fast I was going and said, "I don't know.... 40? 50?" And the other dude, who had been investigating the scene chuckled and said something to the first cop. He asked if I was sure that was my speed.... because my skid marks were 178 feet long, which sort of implies I was going a good bit faster than that, and that I was probably still going 40 or 50 when I hit the wall. Then he said, "Don't worry, we aren't going to cite you. This [pointing to my wrecked car] is bad enough. Besides we just rolled a squad car last week, so it wouldn't feel right."
All told, I owned the car from April 7, 2000 to January 19, 2002. But I only had it in my possession during that time for 119 days. I spent a grand total of $13,500 on it, for an operating cost of $113 per day of use.
In addition to the colossal stupidity on display, two things stand out about that accident: 1) I was listening to Rage Against The Machine "Killing In The Name Of" at the time, and after the crashing and banging stopped the car's electrical was still working. So I was sitting there in a puddle of my own terror listening to Zack de la Rocha scream "F**K YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!" over and over again. Which didn't really help calm me, if I'm honest. And 2) the cops who came out to investigate were super cool. The one asked me how fast I was going and said, "I don't know.... 40? 50?" And the other dude, who had been investigating the scene chuckled and said something to the first cop. He asked if I was sure that was my speed.... because my skid marks were 178 feet long, which sort of implies I was going a good bit faster than that, and that I was probably still going 40 or 50 when I hit the wall. Then he said, "Don't worry, we aren't going to cite you. This [pointing to my wrecked car] is bad enough. Besides we just rolled a squad car last week, so it wouldn't feel right."
All told, I owned the car from April 7, 2000 to January 19, 2002. But I only had it in my possession during that time for 119 days. I spent a grand total of $13,500 on it, for an operating cost of $113 per day of use.
