Main Street Rides

1985: Back To The Future released and everyone fell in love with terrible DeLorean’s, rad Toyota 4×4’s and a longing for future alamanacs. The year I entered life.

1990: I turned 5, had more Hot Wheels than any kid in town and the starting bell rung for the greatest era of automobiles in history.

1993: The Nissan Maxima SE I would fall in love with and drive throughought High School and College rolled off the assembly line and I would see my first Dodge Viper at the county fair. A 1st gen viper GTS is still on my bucket list.

1995: OBD II rolls out, opening the floodgates to the tuner car world and I start driving through the rural streets of my home town. No going back now, I was a lost cause.

1999: I get my learners permit and drive a 1988 Pontiac Bonneville that is… maroon. It’s maroon on the inside, it’s maroon on the outside. But I can legally drive! My dad would soon blow up the engine on the Pontiac, meaning I would end up driving their Maxima SE instead. Possesion, it’s 9/10th’s of the law.

2001: The Fast & The Furious releases into theaters and I become obsessed with street racing and modified cars. I get a speeding ticket for blasting down Main Street at wreckless speeds in my parents 1993 Nissan Maxima SE. It ended up as an article in my High School year book.

2008: It’s the year I get married and my wife, Aubrey and I buy our first car together. It was the first car I would buy with my own money. A 1995 Honda Accord with a 5-speed manual. I liked it so much that I’d end up owning three more throughout the years.

2010: Idaho winters are brutal and one fateful day I’d gotten stuck in our driveway for the last time. I regretfully sell the Accord and buy a 2000 Dodge Durango. I actually liked it a lot… minus the horrendous fuel economy. Truly abysmal.

2011: We’ve graduated from college and I get my first job as a college grad. We need a second car, so I do the sensible thing and buy a B-series swapped 1989 Honda CRX Si, sight unseen, it’s 1,000 miles away in Phoenix, AZ.

2011: I get a new job in Washington State and we decide we need something that gets miles per gallon instead of gallons per mile and sell the Durango. We replace it with a brand new Dodge Grand Caravan. Goodbye man card. I’m also worried that the CRX and it’s leaky sunroof will be a liability in rainy western Washington. I sell that too and replace it with another 5-speed Accord. This time, a 1997 but still with a manual.

2012: I get my opportunity to work in the automotive industry as a District Sales Manager for NAPA Auto Parts and we move to Boise, Idaho. The new gig comes with a company vehicle, and I get the bright idea to buy a car to flip. The flip is a 2005 GMC Envoy (the less ugly standard length model). It turns out that it needs a new engine after I buy it. We invest so much into the Envoy that we decide to sell our still new Caravan to a family member. I also buy a 1975 Dodge Power Wagon, because my Grandpa drove one of those when I was a kid and what kid doesn’t love Grandpa’s truck?

2013: We buy our first house and it has a glorious 1,100 sq ft, four-car garage. I “accidentally” win an eBay auction for a 1971 Datsun 240z and drive it one way home from Sacramento to Boise. The Z hadn’t been on the road in almost a decade, the 600 mile trip home included some… trials. That car would kick off more than a decade of Z car obsession.

2014: I have an opportunity oversee the marketing for Premier Performance Products in my home town of Rexburg, ID. Working in the performance aftermarket was a goal of mine so we sell our house, I replace the old Power Wagon with a new 2014 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel and we move back to Rexburg with the Z in town.

2015: We buy a house in Rigby, ID and I stumble across a deal on a 1970 Datsun 240z that I can’t pass up. I trailer it home from Boise, ID and pair with the Z I already have. I sell the blue Z shortly after to pay for this one. Little do I know it at the time, but I sell the blue Z to a well known Nissan/Datsun collector who will completely re-imagine that car. We’ll cross paths a decade in the future with my old car.

2015: I get my first taste of overseeing a SEMA build. I’d notice that our SEMA booth the previous year didn’t get as much traffic as we’d have like with just some basic lifted trucks with wraps. With a team of extremely talented team of technical sales people, we build a 1 of 1 rat rod from the ground up, 100% on our own with products donated from our best vendors. We call it Six Pack and make waves at SEMA. Overseeing and helping with the build of Six Pack, driving it in the SEMA Ignited parade and on the Bonneville Salt Flats, will be one of the highlights of my career.

2016: Premier Performance will continue to expand its portfolio and acquires Rallysport Direct. I decide to trade my Ram in on a new Subaru WRX and start modifying it immediatley.

2016: I have my fill of working for a private equity owned organization and have an opportunity to go back to NAPA as a District Sales Manager for their Tool & Equipment division. While working in Spokane I find another 240z, this time a 1972 in two-tone copper and black. We refer to it as the Duracell.

2017: We decide to move back to Boise, ID to be centrally located to my sales territory. I need a truck for work and decide to sell the WRX and buy a lightly used 2007 Chevrolet Silverado. I would end up putting 100,000 miles on this truck in just two years of ownership.

2017: I sell the Duracell 240z on ebay and end up buying a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air from one of my customers. It’s a restomod that is about 75% complete with a 5-speed manual. The Tri-Five Chevy has always been one of my favorite cars, particulary the 1955s.

2017: I sell my 1971 240z on Bring A Trailer for nearly 3x what I paid for it and ship it across the pond to Germany. I find another 240z, a 1973 that doesn’t run and has a gutted intior but its got a lot of potential and I’m excited about making it my own.

2017: While selling a toolbox I no longer need, I meet a local guy that restores Tri-Five Chevys. I end up selling him the ’57 and he agrees to have one of his guys paint my 240z. I get started on dissasembling the Z and pick my favorite factory Nissan color for the repaint, Bayside Blue from the Nissan Skyline GT-R.

2018: If restoring the 240z wasn’t enough, I get the idea that I can utilize my relationships in the industry to restore a car to turn around and sell for a profit. Looking for the right candidate, I find a 1970 Chevrolet C10, the doppelganger of Farm Truck from Street Outlaws.

2018: A 1990 Nissan 300zx Twin Turbo pops up on Craigslist. It’s been in storage for a decade and has the coveted red interior. I buy it from the original owner and get it tuned up and take it on a couple of road trips. It was an awesome car with an automatic transmission being its only downfall.

2018: With four Datsun 240zs and a 300zx under my belt, I get it in my head that I’d like to own every generation of the Z. I find a really clean 1978 Datsun 280z for sale in Boise and decide to buy it. I sell the 300zx and use the proceeds to buy my fourth S30. I can’t stand the five mph crash bumpers that were standard on the 280z so I back date them to the 240z style, install lowering springs and put a refinished set of period correct wheels that I’d had refinished. I would take this Z on an epic 18 hour road trip through central Idaho and Eastern Washington and would ultimately sell it to the Hollywood actor, Rob Corddry.

2018: A friend becomes interested in what I’m doing with both the 240z and the C10 and we decide to fully restore both of them by combining resources. The C10 goes under the knife and I source a freshly built 454 cubic inch big block for it.

2019: Less than a week into 2019, I buy a 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with the pistol grip 6-peed manual transmission and only 9,000 miles on the odometer. I’d known about this car for at least two years, as it sat across the street from a NAPA Auto Parts store that I called on every 3 months in Orofino, ID. It was on a used car lot of the dealership where it was sold new. It was in the wrong market and listed in the wrong way. I talk them down to what I’m willing to pay, load it on a trailer behind the Silverado and bring it home.

2019: I’m a Bring A Trailer junkie and often bid on cars that are listed at no reserve. I’m in Hawaii for a work conference and get an e-mail notification that a 1991 Honda Prelude Si I’d bid on early in the auction was ending in 30 minutes… I was still the high bidder. 30 minutes later I owned a beautiful black 1991 Honda Prelude Si with a 5-speed manual and only 60,000 miles. I would drive it 1,000 miles home from Phoenix to Boise.

2019: At various times throughout the year, I sell off the Challenger, 300zx, and Prelude. I finish off the year by listing the 280z on Bring A Trailer where it goes to Rob Corddry who will co-host a new version of “Top Gear USA”. I decide its time to get the car I wanted most in high school, the Nissan 350z. I find a really clean manual, black on black 2008 350z in the rare Grand Touring trim. It’s on eBay and I get the winning bid. To this day, this Z is one of the cars I miss the most.

2020: The year we’d all like to forget arrives and I get put on furlough. As my unpaid leave drags on, a new opportunity presents itself via a connection from college. I take a new job with Bestop, we sell our home in Idaho and buy a new place in Colorado. Before the move we quickly wrap up the C10 and I deliver it to its new owner. The 240z is about 70% complete and I have to leave it behind with a Z specialist to get it across the finish line. The 350z and I take an epic road trip to our new home in The Rockies.

2020: This car, another 1997 Honda Accord, holds the record for shortest time of ownership. The reason is a misadventure worthy of its own tale. Stay tuned for that.

2020: The failed attempt at finding a commuter to keep the Z in the garage during the winter leads me on a hunt for a replacement. What do I find for a replacement? The holy grail of pre-emissions diesel trucks, a red 2003 Ram Sport with the legendary 5.9L 24V Cummins. Totally practical. I’d buy this truck again 100 times over.

2021: As part of my job at Bestop I get to go to a number of events that introduce me to the wild world of off-roading. My eyes are opened to the magical places of Moab and Sand Hollow State Park in Utah and the endless trails in Colorado. My first time behind the wheel of purpose built Wrangler sells me on why they are so popular. I’m handed the keys to complete the second leg of Double Sammy with zero experience and finish by driving up The Chute. I was hooked.

2021: I get to spend a week wheeling in Moab for Easter Jeep Safari and apparently its for work. My boys tag along and we have a lifetime of epic adventures in a weeks time. I quickly build confidence where the road ends and a Wrangler tops my list of next vehicles to own.

2021: Using Auto Tempest, I search Jeep Wrangler listings far and wide and find a great deal on a 2013 Rubiconn with reasonably low miles. It’s stock minus an ARB bumper, Warn winch, and a poorly placed light bar. It’s a unique color (Dozer) and I have big plans…

2021: It’s time to tackle the trails in my own Jeep. My good friends and wheeling mentors at Barney Brothers Off-Road out of Grand Junction, CO and I spend a weekend building my Jeep with high quality parts to make it extremely capable on and off-road.

2021: A friend in Washington State is selling a minty 1993 Honda Accord. I can’t help myself and figure it would be a great commuter. I’ve recently sold the 350z to make room for the Wrangler and fly to Washington and drive the Accord back to Colorado.

2021: The 240z I had to leave behind in Idaho is completed and I take the Ram back to Idaho to retrieve it. I take the Z to my first ZCON and drive it to the top of Pikes Peak.

2022: I win the high bid on another car on Bring A Trailer that I didn’t expect. This time it’s a 1991 Nissan 300zx Twin Turbo, it’s in San Francisco. Aubrey and I get one way tickets to SFO and I check off a major bucket list trip, driving a manual sports car down the Pacific Coast Highway.

2022: Easter Jeep Safari arrives and after an eventful week of epic wheeling, we decide to finish the week by doing a night run up Moab Rim, an iconic trail that boarders a massive cliff. On the way down, I fall behind after dealing with some mechanical issues with my front differential. Unbeknownst to me, I had accidentally reconnected my sway bar before descending the Z Turn obsticle. As a result, I ended up rolling down the obsticle instead of driving down it.

2022: The Jeep is back in action after several months of repair and reconstruction. Now with paint matched Bestop Core Doors, it’s ready for many more trails and adventures.

2022: I have visions of family wheeling trips where both Aubrey and I have rigs to drive. I sell the Ram and 300zx and buy a new 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe with plans to build it to a smiliar spec as the JKU. With fast chargers at work, I’m able to make the 40 minute commute to work and back each day on electric power.

2022: I get the opportunitty to go wheel the Black Hills of South Dakota in a Bestop Jeep we built for SEMA with Jeep Jamboree USA. I got to do a similar trip the previous year to the Rubicon.

2022: Working with Teraflex Suspension and The Edge Automotive, we build my Wrangler 4xe for SEMA and display it in our booth along with several other builds that I helped coordinate for the show.

2023: I reach out to Z1 Off-Road with the intention to sell them a Bestop product which turns into a discussion and job opportunity. We decide it’s the right move and sell our home in Colorado and move to Georgia. I can’t work for Z1 and not have a Z. A customer comes into Z1 wanting to sell his 2008 350z. I oblige him and outfit the Z with some Z1 performance goodies. I start doing track days and fall in love with the roads in Georgia.

2023: Almost immediately after buying the 350z, the seller of a 350z Nismo I’d been trying to buy starts responding to me after weeks of silence. A 2008 in Nogaro red and under 25,000 miles. We’re able to come to an agreement and I fly to Milwaukee and drive it home.

2023: I get to work on a project for Z1 that we call the 600R. Think of it as what Shelby does for the GT500 Mustang but it’s what Z1 does for the Z. It’s a showcase of the performance offering that Z1 supports on the Z. We do a sweepstakes for the very first one that we build and give Serial #001 away to a lucky winner out of Arizona. I’ll get to drive several 600R’s on some great road trips, which will get some stories of their own.

2024: The conquest of owning every generation of the Datsun/Nissn Z continues. A friend that owns a dealership gets an extremely clean 40th Anniversary 370z, a trim that comes with a unique graphite color and beautiful red interior. I decide to trade my silver 350z in on it and try my hand at taking the 370z to track days.

2024: While I’d already checked the 370z off the list, an opportunity to buy a V1 370z in pearl white presented itself and it was meant to be. I still had the 350z Nismo and having a 370z Nismo at the same time, especially a V1 was a killer combo. Few cars of the time had as much curb appeal as a V1 Nismo and they’ve aged well.

2024: I often peruse car listings for specific models, looking for hidden gems or diamonds in the rough. Third, fourth, and fifth generation Nissan Maximas often occupy my search engine queries. One such fourth generation popped up with extremely low miles for the year and optioned with a rare, highly desireable manual transmission and a period correct Stillen lip kit. This was almost not an option to pass on. I did my due diligance and flew to Chicago to drive it home.