jbiii52111

Hi All,

Funny how I got into Mazda's, not sure who really got the short end of the stick.

End of my junior year I moved to the San Jose Bay Area to finish high school because there were only three things to do when you got out, make babies, do drugs or both. I used my Uncle's address to go to school with my Cousin Billy. This side of the family was well to do lets just say, and we were from the Boonies(Mountains) in N. Cal. Way to may stories to tell about culture shock here so I will move on.

I did my usual, got a job at Shell Gas station from 4pm to 10pm, then @ the Wine Rack & Deli 10pm to 2:30am. I was out of Uncle's house in 2 months, 1 month earlier than we agreed. This impressed Uncle, and things went quite well with him thereafter, great advice, help if I needed it, and invited for dinner quite often. Managed to graduate even after discovering the fringe benefits of my two jobs (cars + liquor) = girls. Great time.

I was a year older to the day than Billy (guess my dad had to advise his dad), birthdays on exactly the same day, kinda cool because Uncle & Auntie always got me something. Anyway the next year Billy graduated, barely and moved in with me. This is where unknown to me I would start earning my Mazda. Yea you got it little rich boy was on his own. His half of the rent, never on time and always short, nights out for the ladies my wallet. He was to busy buying things like 600 dollar German Sheppard, parachute pants, you name it, always had to have the latest fade.

So after his 2 DUI and Uncle can’t buy his way out, even being a well known attorney its time for little Billy to move out of Calif. This is when I get the Mazda 1983 GSL for all the money Billy owed me. Back then the car was worth what he owed me, and with little other choice I agreed.

I know that this car and everything else Billy touched was being repo’d, lien hold, collections, even bounty’s. So I parked it 300+ miles away from San Jose.

Mazda’s make GREAT RALLY CARS!!! I drove the $#% out of it on every dirt road I could find. One day I popped out of the trees and crossed highway 70 at about 40mph, holy crap (can I say that on this site?) turned around and up the highway little bit and found myself in Quincy.

Anyway after about six months of beating the heck out of the thing, Uncle called. Only because he asked I do it for him (he did have a rep to maintain in the Courts) I told him which tree it was parked under 300+ mile away. It took the repo guys 4 trips to find it according to the locals.

So now I’m a bit older & wiser  and have a son about to drive. At $400 dollars and in great condition how could I say NO to him to buy his first car, you guessed it 1983 GSL.

The car was left outside and not running for couple of years, but really in great shape. We have it running well, but as we live in CA where political bullshit rains & common sense is not allowed to prevail are having trouble SMOGing it.

This site has been great in getting ideas, reminding me of my car days and how much I’ve forgotten about cars. Hope we can add some spice in some of the threads and conversations as we tackle getting this GSL smog’d.

If anyone would like to chat in detail about legal ways of getting the ACV & AAB working I would love to hear from you.


John & Andrew