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If you've paid attention at all to the posts in this club, you'll see it's obvious who the 2002 Petpad Pet of the Year winner is. This year's award, the second, goes to...
What follows is an interview with Rob Sealover (Bobsealover), the Acura
Vigor Club's 2002 Petpad Pet of the Year, conducted by roving field correspondent
Bill Schidder. RS: Get which? The car, the stereo, or the help from the club? BS: The car. How and when did you get it? RS: It all started in 1996. My Father had long ago switched to the import ca mp, having owned several Hondas, a Mercedes, an Audi, and a pair of Super Beetles among other things. I was still ensconsed in the Land of Domestics. I claimed they were cheaper to fix, and made by Americans, and this somehow made them better cars. I was driving a restored 1970 Chevrolet pickup at the time (which I had restored myself, you know) and was almost upset when Father told me I was coming to the local Acura dealer to help him pick up his new car. I got to drive home in his "new" 40,000 mile 92 Vigor. I enjoyed the power it had, and the neat "Cathedral" setting on the DSP Stereo. Father had this car for years. He had always said he would give it to me when it hit 200,000.
Dad commuted over 100 miles a day. Sometime around March of 2001 he called me to say that he had found a new car for his now much-shorter commute, and that the Vigor was mine as soon as my classes were over in May. I was thrilled. I sold my mildly customized and much-loved '87 Buick Park Avenue (Evelyn) to the blonde next door. I had picked up a $200 LeSabre Limited somewhere, and would run that until the day my Vigor arrived. I was an internet addict since my first semester at college, and began searching for information about the Vigor online. Father was leary of the car because it had a ticking noise at cold startup. His fears led me to research this noise at the Yahoo Acura Vigor and Legend Club. I joined the club and was told the noise was probably valve noise, and my Vigor had another 150,000 left on it. I couldn't do anything, of course, because the Vigor was at my Father's house in South Carolina, and I was in York Pennsylvania. I was invited to the East
Coast Vigor Meet in April of that year. I showed up at the meet in my giant
"Domestic Dinosaur" the '85 LeSabre, which by then I had assigned the name of
"LeSabre Type R," to try to fit in with my new import crowd friends. This was
extremely ironic, of course, because it was an 18 foot long LeSabre Limited with a blue
vinyl roof, and a mangled front end held together with a bungee cord. The first Vigor I
saw as I pulled into Motorworks that day was Force/Vigor. And the Legendary
Ackvig was standing next to it. It was something special to put a face and a smile and
a handshake to the screen name
Not long after, I made the trip down to
South Carolina (in a rented Buick, of all things) to pick up my Vigor. She was turned over
to me with 158,000 on the odometer. I washed it, waxed it, and took her to Myrtle Beach
for the weekend. This was the first time i've cruised the strip at Myrtle Beach in
something other than a Buick. What fun! A sunroof! A real stereo!
By the time I got home it had 160,000 on it. I love driving... I love... I... RS: Not a regular
one. I'm a fulltime student. I have some part time jobs, now and then. I even had three
at once at one time. I enjoy retail. And working with cars. How about you? Do you
have a regular job?
RS: No! I said
Ped-a-gogue. It means teacher. BS: A what? RS: No, never mind—it was nothing,
really. Let's move on. You were about to ask...? RS: I like taking pictures. I
often have my digital camera with me in the car, and I take delight in sharing the
oddities I find with my friends online.
To answer your other question, yes, I've
named most of my previous cars. I've had: Shania Cheyenne, the '70 Chevy truck; The
Beast, which was a much-abused 1985 Escort; Buckregal, the 1980 Regal Coupe;
Evelyn, the Park Avenue; Marie, an '84 Bonneville; Guinevere,
which I think was a name far too beautiful for the horrid Tempo it was assigned to; Betty,
the previously mentioned LeSabre Type R; Meredith, the '75 Volvo I picked up as a
winter/beater car, and I'm sure there've been others that I can't remember right now. RS: That was originally the
plan. Vivien is so nice and shiny, I'd hate to get her all mucked up in the rough winters
we sometimes have here in Central PA. But the Volvo died in October and has been a lawn
ornament ever since. I actually have the car sold, and hope to have it delivered by the
time this is published.
RS: I spend a lot of my
free time on the Internet talking to friends and relatives around the country. I sell
things on ebay, and I enjoy spending time with my five year old brother. I'm also an
active leader of my church youth group. Sometimes I have telepathic conversations with the
People in the Center of the Earth. All in all, I stay pretty busy. How about you?
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