My Non-Rotary History AKA the Dark Years

Unfortunately, this will be mostly a text-based blog, as most of my pictures of these vehicles have been lost to photo sharing sites going defunct or hard drive crashes, but if I’m going to use this site to tell my whole story, I figured this should be included.

My first non-rotary car was purchased sometime around 2005 when I ran into some transmission issues with my first FC.  It was a ’95 Eagle Summit.  Those familiar with these will recognize this as the same chassis as the Mitsubishi Mirage…..which was also the same as the Evo1,2,3.  Naturally, the goal was to eventually do a LHD version of an Evo III.  Back then, the idea of legally importing one of our favorite Japanese cars was so far away, there were many people who would RHD swap their LHD cars to make them more JDM, or taking a clip from a JDM car and transferring everything into it’s LHD sister car.  I quickly realized I had neither the knowledge or resources to pull this elaborate scheme off…..so I sold the car and used the funds to fix the trans in the FC.  All was back to being right in the world.  Until..

As I alluded to in my post about my rotary history, this car would not be long for this world, as it would blow a coolant seal.  This time, it was time to move on from this car.  As sad as that was, it did allow me to scratch an automotive itch that I had had since I was little.  I purchased a YJ Jeep Wrangler.  It was a ’91 with a shackle lift kit, 33″ tires, and the 4.0.  As much as I enjoyed this vehicle, I never really fell in love with it the way I thought I would.  In hindsight, I believe a big reason for that was never getting to use it as I had intended.  There really wasn’t much “Jeeping” to do in South Florida.  Had I still been up north, I probably would have stuck with that platform a lot longer.  But that was neither here nor there, because as with almost every old wrangler, the underside was completely rotted out.  Once I noticed a break line almost gone, I knew I had to cut bait on this one too.  That lead me right back in the arms of another rotary:  my GTUs which is detailed in that blog post as well.

Next came my absolute favorite non-rotary car:  My 2001 2.5RS coupe.  Being back in Pittsburgh, I wanted something both practical for the winter and fun.  This thing fit the bill perfectly.  I owned the car for 10 years, and had done a couple nice upgrades:  JDM STi suspension, STi exhaust, spats, mudflaps and I was on my way to doing the RSTi swap on it, when I found the rust to be so bad that I had to abandon that idea (not the end of the world, as the money I had saved up for that swap was used to purchase my FD….which we will get to in another post).  Here are some pics I had from the end of it’s life (even a pic of it with my FD):

While attempting to put the Subaru up on jack stands to fix an exhaust leak, I realized the car was too far gone when as I lowered it to the stand, the jack just kept bringing the car down….the jackstand had gone through the pinch weld.  Scrap time.  I sold it to a local Subaru friend who needed some parts for his car, and had to find another car to replace it.  I decided that since I have Swedish relatives, I should probably own a Scandinavian car at some point.  So I purchased a 2001 Saab 9-3.  It was quirky, it scratched the “unique” itch….and that’s about all there is to say about it.  It developed transmission issues, so I moved it along after maybe only a year.

This brings us to the beginning of my journey with my Cosmo, and I have not been without a rotary car since (technically I haven’t been without a rotary car since purchasing the FD, but as you’ll see in the story of that car, it took quite a long time to get that thing on the road).  If we are to properly close out my car ownership, I should also include a 2015 Honda Pilot which was really more bought for my wife to drive, as I have a work truck so no real necessity to have a daily car of my own.

Next post will be back to the fun stuff.