I'm gonna sell the musclecars ('93 GT, '94 Z28). I think I'm gonna get another Ranger. I need to focus on school for the next 2 years. Oh well. Money will come easier after I have the diploma.

You have your priorities right. Heck, I drove a Dodge Omni in college. Granted, it was a GLH Turbo and I bumped it up to a little over 300 HP, but . . . (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) College will pay off in the end. You won't regret it. That college degree will likely allow you to get toys a whole lot better than you have now too.

Good luck and there will always be a car out there.

Get an education while you are young ...

i hate my life without a Camaro... the last couple months have really been depressing with my IROC just gathering dust


if i was going to have to get rid of my truck and my race car in order to save some money for school.. i would definately buy an LS1 Z28 as my daily driver....

right now i'm going to school full time, working about 30 hours a week, just bought the new truck, just bought the new motor... and i made the Dean's List (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
but if i was still 18-19 years old, i would not have anywhere near the discipline(or the credit!) to pull this off...


good luck-- school is REALLY easy if you know what you want to do--

It will workout in the long run. but since you mention it.... email me pics, details, and price about your Z. I know some people on the look out for such a vehicle.
mdawdy@austin.rr.com

About a year ago I sold my two babies, a 66 Mustang that I ran in CP and a 68 Buick GS400 Convertable 4 spd (yeah try and find another one of those). Since I'm in grad school and don't have a house (because I'm still in school) they both sat up at my parents house, so I didn't even see them. I drove the Mustang at autocross's but that was it. The GS400 I drove in high school then in college I bought a beater so the GS400 was driven a couple times a year and that was it. It just came down to why have it if I'm not using it. As much as I loved those cars (I fully restored the Mustang from a $300 pile of junk) I'm much happier not having to worry about them.

You have the correct priorities. I had nice looking cars and trucks during High School & Jr. College, but once I left home I realized I couldn't own all those and ever make it through college.

So I drove a 'Vette....well a Chevy Chevette. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) It was a $500 total that Dad rebuilt for less another $500 and I think only had 18,000 miles at the time.

I just tinted the windows pitch black so I couldn't be seen and made my way through college that way.

Good Luck with school!!

edit(dayum I can't spell or proof read)! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

My roommate (and close friend) is buying the Z28 back for every penny that I have in it. He sold it to me about 8 months ago. He had it for about 9 months before that. I might keep the '93 GT around, it's not running. I hate to sell it with just 41k miles. I've seldom Fox cars as clean. I've got a lot of parts for it that I might sell, 347 shortblock, Stage III (310cfm@.600) Highports, just sold the old trans setup, still everything but the turbo kit from the old turbo setup (6BTM, boost guage in the A-Pillar, Fuel Pressure on the cowl...). That car is safe because it will cost more money than I will have to spend on it to get it back on the road. Plus it sits in the shop at my parents' house.

Oh well, I'll still have keys to the Z28 and it's about to get a heads/cam package and a 12 bolt. It will be fun.... but it won't be MINE. And it's a 54k mile hardtop 6spd. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) I haven't been driving it lately, and I drove it for the first time after the last round of mods the other day.... it just wasn't quick enough to make me crack a smile on the street. I know that I would be throwing every spare dime at it, even when I should be cutting back on work and studying more. I'm know it has some 8.40s in it, hopefully with heads/cam and some launch we will get some 7.40s out of it. I'm going to go out and apolagize to the car for selling it to a pure drag racer here in a minute.

Oh well, after I graduate I'm going to find a job and start saving up for a pre-'03 Viper GTS... unles I can find a good deal on a nice '70 Cuda.... or maybe a Z06. Oh well, I'm back in dreamer mode.

I'm not looking forward to saying "I don't have a fast car, but my roommate does". (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif)

I still want you to sling me around the track in your TA some time. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I never even got to so much as attend an AX event and the car is going away. Oh well. I'll be happy in a nice Ranger. I am tempted to keep the '94 that I have, but it's getting up there in the mileage and starting to get more quirks than I like in a daily driver. I'm also tempted to put the GT together stock and drive it, but I will kick myself for letting it sit in the sun and for putting miles on it.

I gotta admire your priorities. It is just to easy to focus on fun completely when you are in your 20s and 30s. There is a young guy in junior college in my Trans-Am club, he bought a 4th gen V6 Bird because that was all the insurance he could afford; all he could talk about was putting a V8 in it (we are in California). All I could say was "You don't want to go there!"

You had good luck with a Ford Ranger in the past? Not what I would pick for an economical reliable truck, I would likely go with something like a used Toyota or V8 Chev (not economical, reliable though). I see a lot of college guys driving Jeeps (CJs and Wranglers) , those are fun and high on the cool factor.

My ranger is a '94 4.0 auto, my grandfather bought it new in '94, when he died in '95 my dad bought it, then I bought it from him about 5 years ago. 136k and still tickin. About a week ago it finaly didn't want to start when I needed it to.... just crossed over the starter solenoid and replaced it when I got back home. No major mechanical malfunctions.... it's MAF died around '99, still nothing major. I would like to try to find a decent '94-'95 5.0. They are reliable and fun without much temptation to mod it. I'll proly just get another Ranger though. Gotta be another V6/Auto though.... I hate driving slow cars with a 5spd, and the 4cyl/auto is WEAK. I can probably get a '98 model or so fairly cheap (work at a Ford dealership). We will see how it goes. I almost bought a '99 Cobra ragtop the other day (My price $8,500).... glad I didn't do it now.

20 is a bit young to be getting OUT of the car game, but I'll be back. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Heck, in my book 20 is pretty young to be even getting in when you're going to school. I'd say you're making the right decision and it's a good one, but then again, I didn't even have the luxury of making that choice. However, the month I got my job and out of grad school, I bought a 98 T/A that just came off a lease and went from there.

Keeping the priority on school works best in the end because you're going to have to land a job that can sustain this costly little addiction we all have. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Good luck!

Thats what I meant.... 20 is young to be getting in, much less out. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I've been obsessed since I was quite young. I pretty much saved every penny in the persuit of fast cars. I was able to keep my GPA up in Jr. College while working for a car, but I'm not sure thats possible at a "real" school. I'm just glad I don't owe money on anything... most of my friends do.

Well, I still have cycling, guns, and beer. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Before you go selling your cars, at least pay a visit to the Administration building there at school. When I applied for school, I ended up getting an ROTC scholarship. Now, before you say anything about, "I don't have the grades for a scholarship", realize that something like 30% of all offered scholarships have nothing to do with academic performance! There is a scholarship taylored for just about anyone, as long as you can find out about it. In the same article that had the above stat, I saw that about half of all scholarships go unclaimed. Now, these included endowments, and other thing I have no idea about. But, look for them.

Finally, you can always try to get a job that has a "tuition reimbursement" program. I work for the Ritz-Carlton, and we have one (it paid $7000 for my MBA). Sure, you have to be here a year before you qualify, but it's worth it to wait the year than pay for it yourself (so long as you DO go back!)!

Basically, you want to try to increase the money you have available (don't we all!!) before resigning yourself to curtailing your spending. Sure, I made plenty of cuts during college (ate Ramen noodles and $.25 McDonalds hamburgers for a month), but I always kept my car. My priorities were "School first, car second, everything else third". I would have sold the car to go to school, but only after moving out of the apartment, selling all but one outfit of clothes, hocking all my furniture, and living out of my car!

But, like others have said, it is truly great that you realize the importance of going to school. It will all pay off the day you go for an interview and they tell you that, while there was stiff competition, your schooling made the difference in their eyes (school shows them that you can make a committment and stick to it, as well as knowing stuff)!!

Thats the thing... it's not about the money. I know that if I have the Z28 then it's going to be what I'm focusing on, and school will be the farthest thing from my mind. Theres a drag strip 5 min from campus and a healthy streetracing scene. I don't need to be paying for race gas and lawyer fees. I know that if I keep it another 6 months I'll be eating Ramen noodles and working to much to pay for a T-Trim which will lead to a built 355 which will.... you get the idea. Owning the Z28 just doesn't fit in with my plans for the next 730 days. If I have a Ranger I won't be tempted to mod it. I keep telling myself that a nice '94-'95 GT might be the way to go, but I'd be tempted to vortech it, so I really just need to get another little truck.

Wow... this is probably what I should do. I'll hopefully be done with school by December of 2005, but the money is getting real tight now! I was working with a contractor but his son graduated and is still looking for a job, so that means I'm out and looking again. But my toy is worth much less than the daily driver (2000 Malibu that I'm still paying off) and selling it will only help with the insurance money which isn't bad since I'm over 25. I've thought of making the Formula more reliable and selling the Malibu, but then I would have to pay for fixing up the Formula and with what I owe on the Malibu I would just about break even.

But then I get to the point you just brought up... thinking about the car when I should be studying since I'll be exposed to it more. At least now I can tuck the car away and not think about it as much. I'll just break it out for the occasional autocross then put it away again.

But I will say that you have your priorities straight... school, car or school projects (thanks SAE), and then everything else. My problem is that I was working full time for a while then went back to school, that's even worse since I was used to putting the car first!

Please don't be offended by this, but it sounds like all you really have to do is exercise some self restraint. Both cars seem to be running fine, there's no need to pour money into mods if you don't want to overspend. There's no reason for court fees and traffic tickets if you drive slowly.

It'll probably require the same amount of restraint not to sell the ranger 3 months down the road anyways.

-My 2 cents

You're right, it should be easy to avoid a ton of work and upgrades... but when you're addicted to this stuff its best to tuck the car away somewhere and forget about it. That's another reason why I haven't even put a thousand miles on the Formula in the past year. Besides a few short trips here and there I've only gone to 3 or 4 autocrosses, managed to break the car at 1 autocross, and spent way too much time fixing it. Damn gremlins.

My point is... sometimes even small things with these cars tends to snowball, so it is best to keep them out of mind as much as possible when in school.

I assumed it was a money issue as well. I'd look into storage during the school year, including insurance. If the car's not insured during the school year, then it really keeps you from driving it.

None taken.

I found my next car. '95 GTS (stripper '95 GT). It's gonna have 1/2 of the RWHP that the Z28 will with it's HC package, so it won't feel fast at all. It doesn't hurt that it's in good condition for $3,000 OBO. I'll just do a shifter and SFCs and leave it at that. If I feel like getting in a fast car every now and then I'll take the Z28 out, but since I refuse to race a car that isn't mine I won't get into any trouble with it. I've never had a wreck or a ticket, and I'd like to keep it that way. The GTS hould make a good daily driver (not racy looking AT ALL, slow, reliable), then when I get the cash after college, maybe I'll build the '93. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)