He actually posted them up and held them for me for a few weeks. I can't say what he sold them to me for, but I was treated like family. They sat for a while and I kinda just forgot about them. The hatch was locked away and the wheels disappeared into "Backyard" Joe's garage, which is massive and seems to eat parts every now and then. Then one days I had the silly idea to take the hatch to a meet. I entered the "cool guy" circus, looking for parking space and heard the person throwing he event, Joey, yell across the parking lot at me, "What up! Finally got it off those Rota's?!" Now, I've rolled on Rota's in my younger days, I also made a living distributing them, we actually had one of the bigger accounts with Rota for a while. Whatever the case, the car had not been on Rota's in years. So I kindly drove off wondering to myself, "have I not had this car out in THAT many years?" I was a little embarrassed and kinda annoyed, "did he confuse my hatch for my daily driver (wagon, both red)?", or did he just "front" me as I entered the event, we've been seen in the places for over 10 years now. I'll never know, whatever the case I decided to dig some stuff out of the garage after the event, I've been collecting parts for over 10 years, most of which I feel the urge to thrown in the trash fairly often. The decision was to put the wagon on the Panasport's after the NS II's were done being freshened up.
The last look at the Rota's, they treated me good.
Got the off and now it was time to sell them. The B.S. with selling things these days is ridiculous. I was flaked on by so many people, talking about they would "hit me up", and stood up in the parking lot on more than one occasion. Fellas, respect your fellow man and don't waste his time, seems like these "new booties" don't understand there is more than life to Facebook and working your thumb on Instagram. There is a group of older enthusiasts that have done this since the 90's, and we have wives families, and full-time jobs… Don't make us mad.
Selling the Rota's provided enough loot to make a phone call to ALTV supporters at Falken Tire's to get some new rubber for the Sparco NS II's. As you can tell, I had already been there recently. To this day I can't believe my wagon is on the back cover of Honda-Tuning! It's tiny, but the Wagon is in there! I was on Rota's during the shoot, that was another day of awkward looks and ignoring from some of the more "known" or "cool people". The snobbery in the upper "class" of builders can be disgusting some times.
Back on the grind… commuting in this 25 year old vehicle.
After days of searching and failing, the homie Ty put me in touch with the fellas at Upgrade Motoring. Awesome service and they have stuff that these new "shops", have no idea exists. We even exchanged a few industry jokes while I was putting in my order. When the box showed up I was like "Awwwww YEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"… gig'n (bay area dance style).
Break'em open!
I wanted to go "super baller", but then reality kicked in. These will look and work perfectly fine for me.
Tossed the lugs in the garage and forgot I had the tires mounted on them. The smell of fresh Falken Azenis' is addicting.
I didn't want to take pictures of the car without these. I had been waiting for them to arrive for about 4 weeks. I came home one day after work and "the Queen" asked me, "what are you ordering from overseas?!" I gave her the "gimme" look and ran off like a kid with a handful of Red Vines from the liquor store.
I don't expect these to be confused with Rota's ever again… :rolls eyes:
The wheels are not "perfect" but they are fine by me. I know how much effort it took, to get them to this point.
On to the next step… Not sure what that will be yet.
