Pinky Zenki — My OG Japanese Intro to Cars

    Ever bought a shitbox? Most likely you have. However I’ve maybe bought a worse one — but sometimes they are truly the best. Let me set the stage. Spray painted pink, a shitbox with only a driver’s seat, basically no brakes or clutch, rust holes in the floor and so much more wrong. This wasn’t just any shitbox — it was a 95 Zenki 240SX, or S14 Zenki for short. This one was probably the least special, most stepped on, overworked 95 S14 the world had seen. You would have thought it was a no-title drift car.

    Well, it wasn’t. This was my third car. I drove it everywhere and it was a breath of fresh air from my previous Jettas (yes I had 2) . A real car — rear-wheel drive, 5 speed manual, a 95 so no ABS, OBD I, no traction control, and no power steering. This was a driver’s car. Well, all besides the cheeky pink color. This thing drove. I easily put 2,500 miles on it in the first three months of ownership. Couldn’t verify because the odometer was broken, stuck at 153k or thereabouts. The car was glorious in all the worst ways. This rust box liked to boogie.



    I’ll start from the purchase. Negotiated at a Sheetz in Beaver, WV. $700 up front and another $700 after a month — payday money. I was 20. This was my third car and I still had the other two. Typical car guy. I lived in Caldwell, WV at the time, 60 or so miles from Beaver where the car was. I hadn’t had a breath of manual experience so on a wet night a friend named Zach would drive the near brakeless and practically clutch-less car to the barn where all my cars lived at the time. He drove it down Sandstone Mountain — a 7% grade with a 1,058 foot drop over 10 miles. It’s a good time.

    Once the car was at my place I immediately went to work. Flaring brake lines, replacing the rusted ones, bleeding them, bleeding the clutch. My first real critical car system repair. I’ll never forget the first drive after everything was done. A quick test down the road from Caldwell to Organ Cave — sweepers and turns aplenty. Feeling the balance I knew I had something special. As a driver I had never experienced such lightness, balance, and rawness. The driving feedback loop providing a level of engagement I hadn’t known existed until then. To seal the deal of road-worthiness i donned a SENPAI "Wild and Wonderful" vanity license plate.

    I proceeded to drive this thing so much that my daily Jetta 2.slow with coil pack issues was put aside entirely. Why drive that when I had this? I drove it to Kingwood from Lewisburg via 219 North for Army engagements and to Parkersburg for drills, taking every back road I could find.
One incredible summer night just before Annual Training I went and hung out with a friend Jon Via and his 2015 WRX STI with a Tomei exhaust. Not sure how we ended up in Princeton, but little did we know we’d soon have one of the best drives of our lives — back to Beckley via US 19 North.

    The road threw us immediately into something close to nirvana. Somehow my car was keeping up once we descended into the twists and undulation of that spectacular road. This was the first real time I experienced what I like to call the connection. The moment where your processing, cognition, and even your breathing align to do one thing — drive. As we blasted through the dense rural West Virginia mountains I felt a greater awakening and awareness. As if I was in church being blessed by the holy. This was it. My purpose, my passion. To drive and nothing more.



Keep driving—


Andee