Conversely, that means a lack of knowledge means your car might be slower than it should be.
Long gone are the days when I used to relish in the occasional red light skirmish; trying to get to point B from the green light faster than a car in an adjacent lane. But nowadays I’m older, I just don’t really care about it anymore, and frankly the cost of fuel is more than justifiable enough to not hit 6,000 rpm in first gear and second gear, just to prove that my car is faster than another.
But when a 3rd generation Mitsubishi Eclipse deliberately pulls up next to me with the intent of attempting to pass me on an upcoming merge point, so that they don’t have to wait behind the three cars behind me, I decided that could turn the clock back a little bit.
At this point, it’s not so much as being competitive, but being righteous; the Eclipse was attempting to cut in front of numerous cars in a busy time of day, and I simply did not want to let them.
Additionally, the driver of the car was this douchey looking douche, and the rap music blaring from his speakers was rattling the chassis of his poor car. And the kicker was all the superfluous badges all over his car, boasting all of the aftermarket parts he had equipped to his “sweet ride.”
I know how to pick my fights, because at least as far as that generation of cars is concerned, I’m pretty good with numbers. If it was an RS or a GS model, which I was willing to bet, because the GT models were all substantially more expensive, I knew what sat next to me was a car with roughly a crank horsepower rating of like 150. Even if the aftermarket parts boasted were actually equipped on the car, it would have been an upgrade of like 2 horsepower or something, especially since in this Georgia humidity, a cold air filter isn’t really that useful.
But the best badge of all on the eclipse was “JDM EQUIPMENT.”
JDM stands for Japanese Domestic Market, which is another way of saying “parts from Japan.” Back in the days of the riceboy, the phrase JDM was enough to cause erections with car-hardos AKA “cardos” because of the fact that whether it was true or not, anything from Japan was instantaneously superior than their American counterparts. Given the fact that like 80% of those cardos were Honda enthusiasts, such an opinion was actually true, since Japan’s Civics and Integras were substantially different than they were in the States, and getting a hold of Japanese Honda parts and installing them into their American Hondas were to be considered actual upgrades.
But for all intents and purposes, JDM parts are still basic equipment. And in the case of the 3rd generation Mitsubishi Eclipse, there was zero difference between the cars sold in America and the ones sold in Japan. Except maybe price, since for whatever reason the Eclipse was classified as a luxury vehicle in Japan.
So basically, this Eclipse driver putting “JDM equipment” on his car, regardless of it was true or not, is the equivalent of saying he got an A/C adapter for his Super Nintendo straight from Japan instead of a replacement unit from Electronics Boutique; there is no performance upgrade.
Back to the story, so I’m basically looking at a car with probably like 152 horsepower or something sitting next to me. If it actually was a GT model, then it would have like 200 horsepower and two more cylinders than my car, and probably could be able to beat me to the merge point, but I was willing to bet that it wasn’t.
My car is rated at 185 crank horsepower and 176 lbs/ft of torque. Both are respectable numbers for a car of my size, even though I’d probably take a trade-off of lower power for better fuel economy; obviously, I don’t know how much of those claimed numbers are actually put down at the wheels, but I do know how to drive my car pretty confidently now, and in the game of numbers, I should pretty easily beat an RS/GS Eclipse without much difficulty, regardless of how many JDM parts they have equipped.
Anyway, the light turns green, and I take off. I don’t even have to rev that high, either. Regardless of what level of trim the JDM part-wearing Eclipse, I passed him fairly easily. The best part was that the car behind me also felt the righteous obligation to stand their ground, and prevented the Eclipse from getting in front of it, and next thing I know, there’s a honk somewhere behind me, and I see the Eclipse get bullied out once again, before finally merging in front of the seemingly ambivalent fourth car in the line.
I’m actually surprised that people like JDM cardo actually still exist. Slamming imports with tacky aftermarket “upgrades” seems so 2002, and it’s rare that I actually see any in the Atlanta area. But apparently, those who are still into ricing out their cars, some things haven’t really changed; people are still getting hard over parts just for being from Japan, whether or not they’re actually performance improving or not, and they still believe that looking fast is more important than actually being fast.
Either way, I owned the shit out of a dumbass Eclipse driver, and for two seconds, I felt kind of smug. Enough to write 930 words about it.
