[dianeokie]

I've decided to edit my journal, as I feel the need to tell my journey of how and why I have my car....

I've always enjoyed cars, going to car shows, drove my brother's Camaro in high school when he got grounded...which was often. I remember it was a celery green with a stick shift. It beat driving my 65 red convertible Corvair, although it was fun too.

When my husband and I met cruising Broadway, he had a 71 Charger. After that he had a 72 Cutlass and a 76 Camaro.
We married, had kids and the fun cars were all gone, replaced by station wagons, sedans, mini vans and company cars. When my oldest son graduated from high school, and the other 2 kids were driving, I decided to get rid of my soccer mom mini van.

I fell in love with the Gen 4 Camaro. I found a gently used gold v6 with ground effects and t tops. I think alot of jaws dropped when I drove up in the car and people saw me get out. Not your typical 40's something mom car!
When she started to leak oil and the rear end I had already replaced seemed headed south, I knew it was time to replace her (although I now regret it). The search was on, and I found a pewter 2002 Firebird with t tops and ground effects. I drove the Firebird for 4 more years and loved it. Since then, I've had a Honda Accord that was gone after 6 months, and my current Equinox, that I really love!

In the meantime, my husband had driven a series of hand me down cars and company cars for 22 years. He fell in love with a 2002 Roush Mustang. He wasn't in the market for one, but I cheered him on, as he NEVER thought of himself, and was always thinking about what was best for the family. He bought it and lovingly modded it. He very methodically added a factory supercharger, painted pony, stainless steel inserts for the Mustang on the rear bumper cover and many other mods. He never let it stay in the shop without him there to supervise. When he washed the car it was a 2 hour process. We never went anywhere without checking out the clearance and whether there were any railroad tracks or speed bumps, as it was quite low. We won lots of trophies and even won over some judges who were Mopar men!

In October of 2009, my husband knew something was wrong, and diagnosed himself with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Within 11 months he was gone from us. Many things changed rapidly for our family as we adjusted to the inevitable, and sadly, his beloved Mustang was neglected along with so many other less important things. In October of 2010, I made the decision that I would never be able to take care of the Roush the way he did, and it deserved a better home. I had been looking at the Gen 5 Camaro, and knew that this was the best thing I could do. I can only hope he's smiling down, knowing that I'm still sharing that love of cars and trying to make this new car something he'd be proud of.

That's my story, and I am so proud of my car, but feel an awesome responsibility to make it something to be proud of.

I'm not really interested in too much performance modding, but more appearance modding. Finally threw caution to the wind and ordered my first few mods:

Factory ground effects from ChevyPartsPlus.com

MRT v2 exhaust for ground effects (thanks to Chris here in Atlanta for convincing me that the sound was awesome)

Loyds RS floor mats

Future plans:

Embroidered RS headrests

Rear blackout (done 2-24-2011)

Stainless Steel doorsill plates

possible black/white houndstooth seat "appointments"

I'm still trying to determine what else I want, but I'm sure some of the events I'll be attending will help me decide!

See my avatar for a before shot, the first mod was the stripes the dealer installed!