(Welcome to Member Rides. This is the weekly feature where we look at people who became members of the site by signing up here and parting with a little of their hard-earned dough to keep The Autopian going. Our plan is to do these every week! Credit to 98z28, who volunteered to be our guinea pig for the first ever installment). Autopian: Hey, thanks for doing this! Tell us a little about yourself: where do you live and what you do? I live in New England and I work in Customer Support (Senior Level). Autopian: And what do you have? A 1998 Camaro Z28 – My mom’s car, it’s been in the family since new. My father and I keep it going. I plan to keep it forever as my daughter likes it. 2010 Cadillac DTS – The road tripper that was my mid-life crisis car. I went a different direction there. The first time I saw one, I knew I wanted it. It took nearly three years to find this one. 2018 Subaru Crosstrek – The daily, winter, and dump runner car. A little bit of everything in on package. I couldn’t afford a truck and got a good deal on this one. It also has the anti-American carjacking deterrent known as a 6pd. Autopian: I feel like you’ve gotta be the only person who has that specific mix of three cars. What’s your favorite memory in the Camaro? That would be the first day my daughter rode in it and took over the back seat. Now she loves “Red Car” with the huge rear window. Autopian: How do you feel about the six-speed in the Crosstrek? I’ve heard mixed things.
I like it. It is a four-cylinder small car so it can get a bit noisy, which I expected. It is an easy manual to drive; on the highway I usually throw it in the 6th and leave it there. The car has less that 50k on it so I have not had to do a full clutch, just the fluids. Autopian: DTS is not what I’d call a traditional ‘midlife crisis’ car. What attracted you to the big Caddy? How’s it holding up? My dad is an owner/operator who does most of his own repairs, as well as a bit of working on others’ trucks. Seeing/helping that was enough for me to stay out of trucking and major wrenching. The radio looks like it belongs and plugged into all of the current features. The only missing one is with the original setup if I took the call, the blower would go down to the lowest level. Easy fix to take the blower off auto. https://youtu.be/1v3CzvQ9e_w?t=124 More square footage. The last of the evolutionary Camaro design, before the retro set in. General note – I can’t access my personal email on my work computer. I mainly read the site on company time (TAKE THAT, MAN). I can’t do the two-factor authentication during the workday to participate in the comments. Just bringing it up as there may be others in my situation. I built the Fiat X1/9 from a barely running wreck, fixed it again when I hit a deer, and painted it myself. No other person did a single thing on the Fiat. All me. Evening sewing upholstery. I’m doing the same on the IH, which is in process. I did everything on the Mustang except for paint it. But I’m not a member at this time. Thinking about it… I ask as in manual form didn’t they have this oddball 2 to 5 shift “guide” for fuel economy’s sake?
