Have you ever wondered what ever became of your old cars? Did the kid who bought it wreck it? Did the old lady who bought it drive it only on Sundays? Did the new owners ever find out about the all the mods you did - and then removed?
A good way to find out is with CARFAX. Membership is inexpensive http://www.carfax.com, and the results are detailed. Using the VIN numbers, I recently looked up several of the cars I've owned during the past 20 years.
My '94 Cobra:
This one is the exception to the usual rule. I traded it in to a dealer on a '96 Cobra. The dealer whole-saled it to another Ford dealer, who sold it to a person who later became a friend. I was sitting in my office at IBM one day when the phone rang and a person asked "are you the person who used to own a '94 Cobra?". I figured it had blown up and was hesitating to to answer... until he said it was fine and wanted to know some of the dertails about the car. Things naturally went in the direction of track events (as they do in any conversation with me), and a month later he was at his first event at Texas World Speedway, and shortly afterwards was doing mid-130s thru turn one! Later, when a twin-turpo Supra enticed him (as they do with everybody), he sold it to a friend of his who also took up the same events, and is still doing them to this day. That person also became a friend.
The '94 Cobra was the most successful track car I've ever owned. I put 22,000 very hard miles on it, and it only had a very few issues (loss of a MAF, front control arm bushings). Currenlty, it had over 80k miles on it and it is still running strong, although there have been a few T-5 transmission issues (all solved). With Ford motorsport headers, an exhaust system, a larger MAF, a complete suspension replacement (the V-6 based SVT suspension was terrible when stock) including a much-needed panhard bar, and a set of racing seats, the car is dependable and predictable. It isn't particularly fast (the market for performance cars has moved well beyond what a pushrod 5 liter V-8 can compete against) but it is dead reliable. I drove it about 4 years ago and fondly remembered it's predictablility and dependability.
CARFAX - shows the change of registrations from me to the 2 other owners in succession. No issues shown.
My '97 SHO:
My '97 SHO was a lease, serving the purpose of daily driver when I was in Redmond with Microsoft. I had it about a month when I came back to Austin before I had to turn it in (coinciding with the arrival of my '99 Cobra) and in that time I took it out on the track at Texas World Speedway just to confirm my high-speed impressions of it. It was flawless there, although of course not particularly fast.
When I turned it in, it was in perfect condition. It did have one distinctive mark on it from a scrape on a peice of cement in a parking lot, under the front left bumper.
After I turned it in, I spotted the car up the road in Elgin TX in front of the City Cafe. It was clearly my car, as evdenced by the same mark under the bumper. Soon after I saw the car several times again and came to the conclusion that the new owner lived somewhere near my house. I even saw it at the neighborhood 7-11 and almost stopped to talk. No point in that, though.
CARFAX - unbelievable: the new owner kept it to the 122,000 mile mark and has moved to San Antonio. A year ago, the car was sold at dealer auction and hasn't been re-registered since. I'm disapointed at that, but not surprised. The SHO engine had it's reliability problems and I'm surprised it lasted this long. RIP, SHO.
My '99 Cobra:
The '99 Cobra was my first big build-up after my return to Texas from Redmond WA. The increased power and the new independent rear suspension made this car work very well. Modifications (see link above) mad eit work even better.
I kept the '99 for two years, then sold it to a friend who in turn turn sold it almost immediately when it didn't work out as a track car for him.
CARFAX - the '99 is in it's 4th owner, but still in Texas. As of last Fall, it has 59k miles on it. At one point in 2004, it was sold thru a dealer to it's current owner outside of Houston. I do wonder if it stil has it's Recaro seats and the othe rmods I made to it.
==============
Several years ago, I looked up some of my more infamous cars on CARFAX.
- The hated 1983 Mustang GT ended up wrecked at the same dealer I traded it into for my Mustang SVO. That's a fitting end for a car that was an absolute piece of junk.
- My '96 Cobra, complete with Yellow KONI DAs, was still in the state of Washington - but is in it's 3rd owner. The 2nd owner, no doubt had to spend all of their money on back surgery due to the KONIs and the thousand-pound front springs. That was one great car on the track, but a bone-crusher on public roads. All-around, you couldn't live with it.
==============
So CARFAX will give you the mileage at major milestones such as registration renewal, major dealer service, or austion sale. It will also indicate whether the car has been crashed and received major body damage. Flood, fire, and lemon buybacks are also indicated. Junk and salvage tieles are also shown. An estimate of yearly mileage is computed. Any potential odometer rollback is indicated.
That's the extent of the information CARFAX can provide... if you want to know more you could take the VIN to a dealer and ask them to run a service history on the car. They won't of course tell you the name of the current owner, bvut you could see what kind of servicing and parts replacement it's had.
==============
But there is more to this research going on in my mind... like most of the cars I've had, these three were originally love/hate relationships. I drove them ruthlessly on the track, or left them carelessly in whatever open parking spot could be found. They had a single purpose to me and I drove them to within an inch of their lives in achieving that purpose. The Mustangs were driven at 10/10ths for most of their lives. The SHO was left in any open spot that could be found on the Microsofct campus - that was after all it's purpose - and it was even driven near flat-out on dirt roads in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State while spectating at a SCCA Pro Rally. It ended up stuck in a ditch, but it served the purpose of getting me to some great spectating locations.
When I was done with these cars, I left them behind, very rarely giving them a second thought. I was already on to the next one at that point, ruthlessly driving yet another car to 10/10ths of it's life while plotting another round of mods or planning it's disposal for yet another track car.
And after many years of this I've come to one conclusion: that this is the problem with this hobby. It's very difficult to "love them as they are". You lust after them until you finally own them, and then inevitably find there is always something dead wrong or something that needs major (and expensive) improvement. Finally in the end you hate them and move on to something else. After several of these, you realize you never even liked them for what they were.
There are very few of them you look back fondly at - and never until years later when you have exhausted the hobby and then find new dimensions to it such as restoring old cars. For example, I'd love to find and restore an original 240Z - even though the car would be useless as a track car, is dead slow by modern standards, and has the chassis integrity of a wet noddle, there is something timeless in it's appeal. Even thirty-seven laters later, it's got stunning looks. This is a car that could be a keeper, one that I'd preserve, protect, and even cherish. And if there are some fellow hobbyists who also see the value of certain classic cars like I do, then chances are they've also exhausted the love/hate beat/abuse track hobby.
Next month will be the 27th anniversary of track events for me. My first event was, I believe, in May of 1980 at a Corvette Club of Cleveland event at Nelson Ledges. The car was a '79 Indy Pace Car Mustang, and it had it's faults. Nevertheless, I ditched the car for an '83 Mustang GT which turned out to be an absolute piece of junk and was a major mistake. That was the beginning of my love/hate phase of track events - and particularly of Fords for track events.
If I've found love since then, and perhaps even reformed (recovered?), it's with the S2000. It's not the fastest thing around the track (although it is within the top 15%), but it is the most fun and the most visceral car I've ever driven (and as an instructor I've driven nearly everything made in the past ~20 years). It's a car you like from the first drive and to the last. It's taught me far more about driving than any of the Mustangs ever did. Instead of relying on brute (and unreliable) power, it relies on finesse. Instead of the loosing power while trying to figure out how to get the power down to the ground you are challenged to keep the engine in it's power band (a stratospheric 6-9k RPM), really leverage the full abilities of the independent rear suspension, and focus the razor-sharp steering on finding and keeping the perfect line. All of this makes for a car that will run circles around most others, while constantly and repeatedly endearing itself to you. I have no doubt I'll someday be restoring one of these for concours events, while at the same time explaining to folks what I've done with them over the years - both on track and on back-roads driving (something no Mustang ever had any capabilities for). And that's what true love is all about - a lifetime of stories, perhaps even love lost - but above all having and remembering good times without excuse or regret.
