NextStepDesigns

After months of searching, I boiled it all down and focused very seriously on a Toyota Tundra Double Cab. But, I finally had the opportunity to drive one long term, and it just wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. Ultimately, it’s really a pretty big truck, and I just want a mid size vehicle (despite my full size body!).

I recently had the great good fortune to go to the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Arizona a couple of weeks ago. I was in the Corvette Z06 program, and WOW! It was the experience of a lifetime. But I needed a new vehicle so I intesified my efforts to test drive and select one. Of course anything I drove after Bondurant and the Z06’s just felt so…pedestrian. So I got to thinking, what would be the equivalent to a 4 door Corvette? (giving up on the whole truck/SUV thing…)

So I recalibrated my search, and found the Cadillac CTS. They had the CTS with the 2 liter 220hp engines and manual shift at the Bondurant track. My race instructor took 3 of us (4 in the car) around the track at a speed that can not be believed but only experienced. I was mighty impressed with that little car, even with the little engine. Well, lo and behold, Cadillac stuck a 400hp Corvette engine in that little baby and called it the CTS-V. YeeHaa! Now that’s more like it!

A quick search of AutoTrader.com, and it turns out that my local Land Rover dealer happened to have just listed a used 2006 CTS, so I went to go check it out….only, it was gone by the time I got there (on the lot for less than 4 hours!).

This left me feeling somewhat dejected, so my salesman (whom I’ve worked with quite a bit in my fruitless pursuit of my dream car, the Range Rover Sport), offered to show me the one other car that might be cheap enough to be in my price range.

Okay, here’s the part in the story where I have to retract a comment I made earlier. In this post here , I stated the following:

“Land Rover LR3. Very capable car, lots of early 2005 models available used, can go anywhere, but again, looks plain, bland, and wimpy. Great head room though :-)”

To my surprise, the vehicle my salesman showed me was a Land Rover LR3, and the first thing I noticed was that it actually looked kinda cool! This one has had some work done, such as painting out the black plastic trims to match the body color, and it has custom wheels & tires that are several inches bigger and wider than stock. These are beefy 285/60/18’s Nitto Terra Grappler all terrain tires on 18″ rims.

I’m told this car is pretty rare. This LR3 has coil over springs (not the adjustable air suspension). I studied up on this, and many people are having problems with the air suspension & compressors, so I was leery of buying an LR3, but that doesn’t apply to this rare V6 S model LR3 with ultra rare coil springs (only 25 in the US).

This car was clearly the answered prayer from God that I have been asking for. It’s a Factory demo (about 4,000 miles on it), it’s a very rare version in that it’s a ‘Base’ model (opposed to an S, SE or HSE - which significantly raises the price), and it has the fragile bits removed for my piece of mind. Thank you God.

Well, at long last, here she is.

One of my current projects: Seabridge: A very large new developement in Oxnard, CA - right along the coast.

There are a number of multifamily buildings, including townhomes and 3 and 4 story podium buildings, along with single family buildings and retail. My role involves the multifamily stuff. Neat buildings, really nice project.

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