Essay Summary of Descriptive Essay
College Writing 2 October 2012 Descriptive Essay A compact two-door car might not mean a lot to someone, but to me, working and improving my car is my favorite thing to do. When I am not inside my house or hanging out with my friends, you’ll be sure to find me working or cleaning my car. For most people, leaving their car stock is passable for their needs, but to me it’s not. My car is modified which makes it one of a kind. My car consists of its exterior, interior, and performance level.
The exterior color of my car, which is a 2005 Nissan 350z, is called Silverstone. Silverstone is the factory painted color. Silverstone is a shade of gray but, this gray isn’t just your average gray; it’s a two tone looking gray that reflects its color tone the different ways the light hits it. For example, on a sunny day, the top half of the car will be a light gray, where as the bottom will be a deep, dark, glossy gray. Like I stated earlier, my car is heavily visually modified.
I have painted the wheels black, painted the front bottom section of the front bumper black to give the car a more aggressive look, painted all the emblems on the car from chrome or silver to black, painted my door handles from a silver, that stood out like a sore thumb, to black to flow with the rest of the car, painted my side markers from a reflective orange to deep black, replaced all the lighting in the car lights to hyper white LED bulbs, upgraded my headlight bulbs to HIDs which let me see the entire road and then some, swapped the ugly orange blinkers to chrome dipped blinkers so they would not have the orange tint that reflects inside the headlight assembly, upgraded my high beams to a eye squinting blue halogen bulb that reflects a blue tint in the lower portion of the headlights, 20% illegal tint put on the side and rear windows with a 5% strip on the front windshield to hide my radar detector, illegally tinted my tail lights and reverse lamp which I buffed to a glossy, mirror finish, installed aftermarket fog lights that required me to take apart the front of the car to tap into the correct wire, installed HID reverse lights to shine through the tint that are brighter than most headlights, installed illegal air horns with a compressor that is almost as loud as a trains’ horn that makes you jump out of your skin, swapped 16” antenna to a 6” antenna to take the attraction of the antenna away, took the front license plate off the factory mounting plate and relocated it to the left side of the grill so the plate would not stand out as much. Most of the things done to my car are illegal, but I don’t really care considering I want my car to look exactly how I want and police have never given me trouble. My mild OCD has affected my car a lot, especially the exterior.
Everything has to be perfect or else I start completely over. When I was tinting my taillights, I used a spray on tinting film that comes in a spray paint can called VHT Nightshades. The first time I used this product, I realized the finish was dull and would not buff out. I thought I would be able to live with it and completely reassembled the car. One of my friends said it looked great, but after one day, I thought it looked like trash. To most, it would have been good enough, if not perfect, but to me, it looked like trash. So guess what I did? I dissembled the entire rear bumper again, sanded down the entire taillight and completely restarted from scratch.
This was about another 20-hour process. I even sacrificed driving my car to school that day and had my parents take me because the rear bumper was still off my car. By the time I was done, the taillights were perfect and the 20 hours I had spent with no vehicle was well worth it. When getting inside of my car, you’ll immediately know that this car is not stock on the inside either. The inside of my car is black interior accented with super thin neon orange thread stitching. Right when you open the door, you are greeted with the beauty of unique LED lighting. I have installed all new interior lights to a whitish-blue hue that is almost annoyingly bright.
After seated with the door shut and the lights dim, you’ll notice everything is dark because of the tint. You’ll notice the aftermarket stereo that pulsates from over 100 different colors. After adjusting the rear view mirror down, you can see the top of a small 8” subwoofer tucked underneath the rear sway bar. About 8” to the left of the rear view mirror, you’ll see a compact device with a small 1-line screen that appears to be cordless. This is the infamous device that has saved me many, many times from being pulled over and receiving speeding tickets. This brilliant creation is known as a radar detector. A regular radar detector has a 1 inch spiraled cord that plugs into the cigarette lighter that hangs down from the windshield.
This is very annoying considering every time the car shifts its weight, the cord slashes around the car, not to mention how ugly a cord hanging from the ceiling of the car to the foot well is. I have fixed this problem which now makes the radar detector seem cordless. It appears to be cordless because the cord is completely invisible. It is invisible because I purchased a 6 foot long black cord that connects to the detector and ran it inside my headliner, down the side pillar, to the cigarette lighter to give the car a clean factory look. A street right by my house is heavily patrolled by police officers doing radar trying to catch speeders. On a rare occasion my small sized, black dog Ralph accompanies me on drives. On one specific day, he was not cooperating with me and I was trying to make him sit.
Long story short, I was not paying attention to the road, or my speed at all. My full attention was on him. All of a sudden my detector blares a ringing tone alerting me ahead that a radar gun has been activated. This entire next part happens in one second. I look down to check my speed and I am doing 50 in a 30. I glance up to the rear view mirror and check to see if anyone is close behind me. One might not think that I can do these things within 1 second, but I have practiced. Yes, that sounds weird, but when a huge ticket is on the line, it’s worth it. When I see no one is behind me, I jam on the brakes and poor Ralph goes shooting into the dashboard and then plummets to the floor.
By the time I get down to speed around the bend, sure enough, a police car is on the side of the road with an officer present doing radar. It is amazing how powerful the brake calipers are to grip the rotor and grind the car to a halt. Approaching the police officer, I make sure Ralph is fine and then drove past the police officer grinning. This is just one of the many experiences I’ve been saved by this amazing device. Once you turn the key to start the car, you are welcomed with an exceptional exhaust tone that is a mixture of elegance and power. Within 1 second after, you’ll hear the radar detector starting up and going through its warm up phase. After the stereo starts up, it is music to your ears, literally.
I have replaced the entire stereo system. I have installed a completely new head unit that boosts the wattage to the aftermarket Polk speakers that can hit an uncomfortable loudness as well as adding an 8” subwoofer to give it some boom. Some say an 8” subwoofer won’t be loud enough because of its size, but when its less than a foot from your head and is on full power, it’s more than enough. This subwoofer is one of the best. It is the perfect size that fits under the rear support bar and gives you the perfect thump with your music without it being overbearing. Hearing music and feeling music are two totally different things; this subwoofer adds the feeling.
An indescribable feeling is the subwoofer rattling the entire inside of your body and feeling the hair on the back of your neck stand up. If you are craving attention and want to be noticed, turn the subwoofer up and heads will turn whilst the contents of the car is being misplaced. One of my favorite parts of my car is the aftermarket shift knob because of the way it contours to your hand and the performance increase. This shift knob is a lot better than the stock one because it is ? lighter than stock which allows me to speed shift through the gears ultimately making my car quicker. Performance is a huge part of this car considering it is close to 300 horse power and is specially tuned. The car is called “350z” because the car comes with a 3. L naturally aspirated engine, which means the car is not equipted with any turbos or supercharger. The “z” in “350z” lets everyone know that this car is a continuation of the Z family. Nissan has been making Z’s since 1969 and the 350z is a continuation of the family. The 0-60 mph time for my car is about 5-5. 5 seconds, which is plenty fast, but me being a thrill seeking, naive teenager, I want it to be faster. Upgrading my car is my ultimate hobby, as would the engine but considering I have been pulled over 3 times and received 6 tickets within the first year of driving, my dad will not let me even touch the engine. I’m surprised he even lets me look at it.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not one of those spoiled kids that have their parents bail them out of trouble. If I mess up and make stupid decisions, I deal with it and I pay. Every ticket and lawyer I have had, I have paid for, not my parents. Even though tickets are costly and ruin your mood, it’s worth risking because no one buys a sports car to drive it like a mini van. Money will come and go but the memories and experiences will stay. The feeling I get when I achieve a driving stunt is unreal. A classic huge grin from ear to ear. To me, the feeling of conquering a difficult driving maneuver is like quenching someone’s thirst to someone else; indescribable.
I crave the feeling of successfully drifting sideways around a turn and looking in the rear view mirror seeing a condensed smoke cloud in the air and deep black tire marks on the ground while hearing the engine and tires beg for mercy is absolutely exhilarating, except when the turn you choose to do this on has a police officer approaching you. That will turn your feeling of exhilaratingly satisfied to a terrible, terrible day. One of the most important things about my car is I can say I’ve done 99% of the work on it myself. Every single thing done to my car excluding the tint and some of the mechanical work, I have done myself. I am not the type of person who takes their car to a shop and tells them what I want done; I do it myself.
This makes me appreciate my car so much more considering, yes it saves money, but knowing I did it. I can show up to car meets and tell them I received professional results even though an 18-year-old kid did it. When someone asks me “Wow, how much have you spent on your car to make it look like that? ” I say “100’s if not 1000’s of hours. ” The amount of time and money put into the car is considered ridiculous to some, but to me, absolutely and worth it. I’ve had some of the most memorable experiences in my car and every cent and second put into it makes it more than just a car to me; it makes it part of my life. If anything happened to my car, the word devastation wouldn’t even come close to the feeling I’d be experiencing.
