| CCA-Dave | 02-02-2019 10:47 AM |
Alright, probably better with a photo of the car (which I'd have to dig up and scan), but at the time we had the Vibrant CRX drag car and thought we should build a street car to showcase product at various shows. We approached some local car companies about getting a car for a SEMA build, and because I knew a local Mitsubishi dealership through a rally team we worked with, made arrangements for a Mitsubishi EVO to be our next SEMA car. I think this has got to be 2002 or 2003, as it was right around the time the second F&F movie was going to come out.
No idea what happened to the EVO, but when we go to pick up the car at the dealership it's a Lancer ES, the 2wd worst-optioned car you can possibly buy. How bad is it? NONE of our partners make anything to fit the thing. The next version up, no problem. But this thing had a whole rear-end that didn't match anything else in the Mitsubishi line up. Show season is coming up, however, and we have no time to wait, so build a 2WD Lancer we will! We had a local company make carbon-kevlar body panels for it, Koni provided the suspension, we did intake/exhaust/visual bits and Enkei provided the wheels. I think it was Toyo for tires. I was reminded of it, because we put green underglow on the car. At the time, Jay-Z's clothing company Rocawear was a sponsor of the drag car, so this car got the full Rocawear treatment on the decal package. That also meant we needed a full ICE setup, and for that we brought it over to a friend's shop in Toronto. The back seat was replaced with a fiberglass enclosure with six subs and who knows what for speakers. The dash was replaced with the Vibrant fiberglass dash that we sold, and had a DVD screen and I can't remember what else. Autometer gauge set...Hmmm, memory is fading. The important part to know, for our story, however, is that the HVAC system suffered under the rush to get the car ready for show season. Gone was the mitsubishi air flow system which gently cooled or heated you to comfort, and instead an asthmatic squirrel softly fanned cold or hot air at you from behind the fiberglass dashboard.
So...onwards we go to I *think* Hot Import Nights Chicago, or some show of similar stature. My co-worker Derek and I are going to the show to represent Vibrant, and the various booth setup and product was shipped ahead of time. We considered shipping the show car, and flying in, but Derek really wanted to attend in his Integra that he had just finished. Ultimately the Lancer was just a basic car with a bunch of expensive bolt ons, and we we weren't worried about mileage, so I decided I'd just drive it so Derek had a backup in case anything happened. Now, in 2002/2003 GPS navigation was still relatively 'new'. TomTom entered the market in 2002, and it was only around this time that they started to become affordable enough that people were buying them for their own cars. On this particular trip I had actually signed out the Performance division's GPS unit to use. We were arriving the evening before show load-in, and were worried about having the car parked "in Chicago" overnight. I called the hotel, and they didn't have underground parking. They also didn't have any parking security, so as we drove down the road I called the Mitsubishi dealer that I *thought* was near the hotel, and asked if they could store the car overnight inside. No problem! And they gave me their address, on Cicero ave. Punched the address into the GPS, let Derek know on the FRS radio what the plan was, and headed off to find the dealership. Chicago is an interesting city. Cicero avenue, is an interesting street. I should have known better (this same GPS sent me down Harlem Avenue in New York), and even though I thought I recognized the Cicero name, I didn't clue into anything. The road looked fine, and the GPS assured me we were something like six miles away.
The first thing you notice, as you drive towards a questionable area of town in the USA, is that the stores and shops start to have bars installed on the inside of the doors and windows. Well, thats not true. You don't notice it...but realize it later upon reflection. As you drive a little further, the bars start moving to the outside of the windows and doors. Graffiti picks up a little, and the area around the stores starts to be less than well maintained. Continue driving, and in addition to the bars on the windows and doors, a fence appears between the sidewalk and the building. Think about that for a moment, yes the side walk is generally right next to the building. But now you have a fence, with a gate that is opened during business hours. It's at this point that Derek gets on the radio to say he's not going any further.
I should mention that at the time I'm a twenty-four year old white kid who hasn't spent much time in downtown Toronto, yet alone anywhere that would be considered "the hood". Derek, on the other hand, is a 23 year old definitely-not-white Canadian who while he hasn't spent anytime in the hood, definitely knows what one should be looking out for. "D-rock," I reply, "the GPS suggests it's just a few more miles...I'm going to continue and get a cab. I'm sure after we cross a highway or something the neighbourhood improves." So Derek pulls a 180, and I continue on. The shops soon have bars inside, bars outside, a fence, and now we've added barbed wire above the fences. I suppose at this point I should mention that it's a warm summer day, so I have all four windows down on the Lancer, with the stereo system working to share my music with everyone on the sidewalk. Remember, that asthmatic squirrel? Yeah, it can't keep the interior cool enough in the summer sunshine. So there I am, at a red light probably enjoying something off the Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water album, when a cop car rolls up beside me. Driving the car is probably the BIGGEST black cop I have ever seen. I'm not talking donuts-big. I'm talking The Rock big. Sitting next to him is a white cop who makes The Rock look like the anorexic kid from grade nine. As I'm wondering exactly how they managed to shoehorn themselves into the crown victoria, the cop says something. I mute the volume and ask him to repeat.
"What the FUCK are you doing here?!" 'Uh...trying to find the Mitsubishi dealership? The GPS says it's like two miles away, do you know where it is?' Just as he's about 5 second into explaining that there is no dealership around here ("use your eyes man, where the hell would they put new cars around here?") they get some sort of call on the radio, hit the cherries and launch left and into the neighborhood. Hmph. Well, he was kind rude about the whole thing. The GPS says it's like two miles....I did mention I was a young, inexperienced, white kid...right? Off I continue down the road.
As I'm marvelling about that fact that the shops now have bars on the inside and out, fences next to the sidewalk, and the barbed wire has been replaced with razor wire, it strikes me that perhaps I should be raising the windows. I am now starting to feel a little nervous about the area that I've driven into. While I'm powering up the windows, a black Cadillac CTS with the darkest tint I've ever seen goes driving past me in the other direction. Noteable at the time, because you didn't see many of them out on the road in full black and dark tint...except in rap videos.They passed me, pulled a U-Turn and passed me again on the other side. As I slowed down for the red light that they had made, the Caddy suddenly veered and stopped on the corner across the intersection. What can best be described as "Big Daddy" got out of the driver's seat, and while looking straight at me, tucked a silver handgun down the front of his pants. The other three doors opened, and three of Big Daddy's big boys got out of the car, all of them holding hand guns, all of them looking straight at me. I can remember the traffic flowing across in front of me, cars moving left and right. I can remember the red light. I can still see all four guys looking right at me, not wavering off my eyeballs. I had my hand on the shifter anticipating a light change. I moved my foot over and depressed the clutch, careful not to make any visible body movements. I flicked the shifter into first, careful to use my wrist only and not move my shoulders. I dropped the accelerator to the carpet, and a half-second later side stepped the clutch. My theory was an accident would give me witnesses, and a crowd, making it far more likely I'd see the sun rise tomorrow.
To this day I have no idea how I managed to thread the needle, but with cars honking and screeching I launched across the intersection as only an anemic 4 cylinder with some bolt on accessories could. I kept my foot on the mat, banging off gears without the clutch as I went for the next intersection. I pulled a right at the light, ignoring whatever colour it might have been, and then a right at the next stop sign. Stop signs, for the record, are optional when you think you might be in serious danger. For the next 15 min I drove Chicago like I was playing a game of Grand Theft Auto. Streetlights, stop signs, speed limits...none of it mattered. To be completely honest, I have no idea if the guys in the Cadillac even followed me. For all I know they were stopping for something else entirely, simply eyeballing the only white guy for miles. Heck, maybe they were stopping for a slushie. I didn't think to look for them in the rearview until probably 5-10min of driving later. And by then I was back to an area with merely bars on the windows, and nothing else. Lived to see another day, got a good adventure story out of it.
...never did find the dealership. |
