We all dream. Not dream in the stuff that our subconscious foists upon us every night, where we wake up going “what the hell was THAT person doing in my dream?” I’m talking about THE BIG DREAM. That one thing you come across in your formative years that you absolutely must have, see, be, or experience.
It was 1998. I was in between junior and senior years of high school, and owner of an original Sony PlayStation game console. In May, Gran Turismo came out, and I got it for my birthday that July. I was already hopelessly into cars and racing. I had a Super Chevy magazine subscription when I was 7 if that tells you anything.
I rose through the ranks of the slower cars and races in Gran Turismo, and at some point, purchased this car called a Skyline. I was enamored with the in-game performance. Then there was the look. The 4 taillights. The wing. I became so intimately familiar with it. It was the whole package. Then came Gran Turismo 2, then 3. Every new game I would do whatever it took to get myself an R32. The graphics got better, the sound got better, and I fell harder and harder. Around that time, I learned that cars not made for the US market are eligible for importing when they hit 25 years old.
Now in my early 20’s, I had a plan. Work hard, save money, and be ready in 2014 when the first 1989 R32’s hit 25 years old to import one. I found my unicorn, my BIG DREAM. What happened after that? Everything but the save money part of the plan. All I was doing was working hard. Historically speaking, I have had a bit of a dog/squirrel brain when it comes to cars. I’m currently 42 and my body count is somewhere around 110. I did a lot of “see cheap car buy cheap car” and while most of the time I made some money on them, the poorly purchased ones always bit me in the ass and made any savings go away. Then I fell in love with Carli, the best thing to ever happen to me. We bought a Chevelle, an old house, got married in 2009, and by my 2014 goal we were having child number 2. I had a bunch of crappy cars and no Skyline fund.
I played around with cheap cars because I was stuck in the mindset that it was all I could afford. I kept buying cheap stuff because it was cheap and investing all my time and play money trying to make cheap junk into something it wasn’t. I’ll let you in on a secret – buying cheap anything repeatedly is not the means to an end. It’s also excruciating for mental health to be buried in a garage and driveway full of non-running projects. It’s especially bad when those projects take away from being present for your family, friends, and yourself. This is the part where I get raw and vulnerable. I was hiding from my life. It’s painful to write this still, and things are a little dusty in here.
I am a product of the “suck it up” generation, the feeling bottler-uppers, the “man up and grow a pair” kids. So that’s what I did. I did what I was supposed to do, sucked it up and bottled everything inside. Frankly, it was killing me. I hid from it in the garage. Every Sunday I spent most of the day away from my family in the garage working on whatever squirrel I had at the time. I was the envy of lots of car people because of my amassed collection of cars and parts and having the skills to fix them, but I was hanging another albatross around my neck with each subsequent purchase. I was hiding most of all from my own thoughts, sometimes my head is the scariest place I can be. I had everything anybody could hope for – a home with a loving beautiful wife, great friends, and 2 healthy kids – and I hated myself. I hid in my garage, and I hid in the comfort of food. Coupled with a 25+ year career of physical labor as an overweight carpenter, I was killing my body AND my mental health.
Cue 2020. I built a huge addition to my garage, had room for everything inside, and it was a mess. I went from 830 to 2000 square feet of shop space, and it was still full of broken stuff. I was depressed, anxiety riddled, suicidal, and didn’t know what to do with my life because we shut down most of our business at the start of the pandemic. My job was my identity, and I was lost without it. One day in late September I was driving down the street flipping off every Trump 2020 sign I saw, when I looked in my own eyes in the rearview mirror and said “what the fuck are you so angry about?”
That question I asked myself was the turning point in my life, figuring out that I was holding a lot of anger about things I had no control over. To spare the details of the next year and a half (a story for another time), I have developed a healthier relationship with food, lost a lot of weight, started exercising regularly, changed careers, changed my relationship with my kids, rebuilt our home, and we rebuilt our marriage. That brings us to the end of 2021. Blame Carli for this, but for Christmas she bought me a Skyline hoodie. I decided it was now or never because the JDM import market was getting too hot. From December through May I had sold my 67 Sunbeam Alpine, 68 Toyota Corona, 94 Mustang GT, 90 Infiniti Q45, enclosed race trailer that I used once a year, and a ton of parts. I enlisted the help of my friend and Q45 purchaser Kuma to search high and low for a deal and was trying to get together $14,000 to offer on a mostly stock 1993 GTS-T with 168k miles. It had faded paint, oil leaks, and I would absolutely be settling, once again, for a piece of crap based solely on price. Thankfully, the universe intervened and saved me from myself. They had received an offer of $18,000 and were planning to accept.
Unfortunately, I spiraled a bit from that one, feeling like it was never going to happen. I put in all the work but was still being impatient. I was REALLY looking forward to being able to pick up that Skyline for a price I had raised and taking a couple weeks to get it ready for Radwood Cleveland in May 2022. I had visions of changing the hood, seats, wheels, and being the talk of the show. I still planned to go as a spectator, but the morning of the show I was extremely depressed and could barely get out of bed let alone push myself downtown. I give a ton of credit to my weird car friends for bailing me out of that tailspin, because that afternoon they caravanned to my house. Lilac, Alison, Michael, Jess, and a couple other new friends showed up in a convoy after they left the show. Hanging out in the garage that couple hours and just having fun around cars was invaluable to me and I love them for it.
The week the 93 sold, I had also lost bidding to another Skyline on eBay. The week after Radwood, it was relisted. I contacted the seller, and he somehow got his phone number through the eBay message censors so I could text him. After a solid back and forth and catching a trustworthy vibe off him, I talked to Carli about the money. I was about $6500 short of his end the auction early price, and I’m forever grateful to her for allowing me to take a loan from our savings. I sent him a $500 deposit, sight unseen other than pictures and his word, for my unicorn. My BIG DREAM. That night and the next I was an absolute wreck. I did not sleep. I was about to either spend the most cash I’ve ever seen in one place, or I was about to drive to Pennsylvania, see it’s a misrepresented pile, and leave with empty trailer and have the fund be $500 deposit and $100 in fuel shorter than before. When I showed up that Friday evening the car was out and ready to go. The seller was a great guy, the car was way better than he led on, and I could not have been happier with how honest and smooth everything went on both ends. I’ve thanked him for this multiple times. Tom, I truly am thankful for you.
So here is my unicorn. Twilight Sparkle. Marigold Heavenly Nostrils. The unicorn in that folk song about unicorns. My BIG DREAM is a 1990 Nissan Skyline GTS-T Type M. It was extensively modified in Japan over the years, and it was purchased showing 24,933 miles. Power from the 2.6-liter 1994 GTR sourced twin turbo inline 6 goes through a Spec stage 3 clutch and an R33 GTS25T transmission to a limited slip differential with rare Kameari 5.143 gears. The car has been swapped to GTR brakes and sway bars all around, is riding on Ohlins race coilover suspension and it’s now rolling on a staggered set of Nismo/Rays LMGT4 wheels. Interior has been upgraded to GTR rear seats and door panels, period correct Recaro LS seats, and an old logo Nismo gauge cluster. Outside, the body has welded and molded in steel fender flares at all 4 corners for a one-of-a-kind wide body. Up front is a GTR bumper and grill and a vented carbon fiber hood and at the back the car now has a GTR spoiler. Making all the ridiculous sounds is a Reimax stainless downpipe into a 3.5” gReddy/Trust exhaust system.
I love my unicorn. We enjoyed it as a family all summer and fall and will do the same this year once winter is over. It’s been fun sharing it with everyone and can’t wait to get it back out for spring to share with more people. I made a really good friend because of it, I got back out to car meets because of it, and it’s just been a pleasurable experience so far. I forgot just why I love cars in the first place, because of the people I associate with them and get to meet because of them. Most of my circle is car friends, and most of them are more like family. They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a unicorn, and those things make everything sparkly and magical. Go out there, find your own path, and chase your BIG DREAM. Life is too short not to chase those unicorns. You may just catch it.
-Patrick
