So all through my teenage years I really wanted a Mitsubishi Eclipse. The 97-on, scalloped sides one.

Then in 2006 when I was finally buying a car they restyled away from that into some dumb smooth teardrop-butt style. (I had been driving a hand-me-down Acura Integra, but they had luxuried up the new ones to match the US “Acura” badging, and the thing they replaced the old sporty/practical coupe slot with, the Civic GT-R, was in high demand so waiting lists and $3,000 markups.)

So I found a used one to take for a test drive (on the car-dealership strip on Brand Blvd. in Glendale. Did you know dealership strips like that exist cause towns in multi-jurisdiction economies offer beggar-thy-neighbor tax deals?)

And I realized the ergonomics were terrible, the sight lines were absolute shit, and the performance was underwhelming as hell.

That was before we somehow ran out of gas, I’m afraid the salesman thought he lost the deal that way, and not just cause the car was shit.

(I got a Scion tC, rode it hard for a few years before it got stolen, got paid out near new value and then LAPD found it in a cul-de-sac around Temple and the 101. The tow lot lady said everyone made the Lebowski jokes about the Creedence by then. I pocketed the insurance and had this ratbike mechanic named Barron in the back yard of a Mexican Mafia club rebuild me a 1968 Honda CB350.)