This is Phase One

I went out for a quick drive a couple weekends ago and brought my camera with me. Preferably, I would have waited until sunset to take these shots for better lighting… but I didn’t feel like waiting around all day to do that. So instead, I went around noon, the time of day with arguably the harshest lighting possible.

I wish I at least had a flash with me to balance out the highlights. Given the situation, I resorted to Photoshop and post-processing to help compensate.

My agenda here is not to talk about photography gibberish, but rather touch base on the state of affairs with the car itself. The past few months have been non-stop… from the day I wired money away blindly to the weeks the car spent its time on jackstands being wrenched on. The culmination of this monstrous effort is what you see in the above pictures, a car that I can now deem as being “mine”. Being able to impart a unique fingerprint onto a car is all part of the fun, and one of the main reasons why I chose the RX-7 in the first place.

So now what? I don’t want this to sound anti-climatic, but I’m thinking about just pushing the car off to the side until I can come back to it. The first phase of this project is complete, although I feel that there should be 2 more phases before it’s truly well and done. Unfortunately, I’ll need to slow things down now. The amount of energy and money invested cannot realistically continue at the same rate for long.

Every single day for the past few months, I was always thinking about what part to buy or what needs to be worked on next. There was little time for rest, the focus was consuming and constant. On average, I probably spent no less than $1000 weekly, every week. During the times in between, I generously supported local businesses. There were countless shops and services I had to rely on and run back and forth to. William’s for the paint, DCT for the steering wheel re-wrap, AutoRnD for the footwork, All Bay for the powder coating, Nichol’s for the restrictor plate fabrication, Dale’s Hardware for stainless fasteners, O’Reilly’s for an endless amount of random necessities, and the list goes on.

We’ll see what the future holds, as there is still much left to do. For now, I’m just happy to take a step back from it all and let the dust settle.