Originally Posted by jonpg

Paul was my father. He is the same person you guys are talking about who died last Thursday. My girlfriend actually found this post and your replies brought smiles to myself and my family during our time of grief. One of the hardest things that I dealt with that day was that all of my family’s cars were at the house when I got back, except for his blue rx7. The idea that he was gone forever, along with his car, vacuumed out of our lives, was too much to bear.

I could go on for pages about my father, especially about his love for cars, but I’ll try to keep it brief. He had quite a few 2nd gens, his first rx7 was a white first gen that he bought off of one of my friends father’s when I was in 6th grade. I’m now 24 and graduated from college, the entire time in between he had one style or another of rx7 in the garage. I drove a 1986 2nd gen when I was just entering school, upgraded from a 1984 volvo station wagon, quite a different feel if you guys can imagine. So I have the rx7 bug as well, although I don’t think I was as severely infected as my father was. One thing that would drive my mother nuts was when she rode around with him in one he would wave to each and every other rx7 he saw on the road, whether or not they would wave back was up to them. I think he was just happy to share a connection with someone - that they might understand since almost anyone who drives an rx7 doesn’t really end up with it by chance.

From what I can gather, he was getting ready to sell the blue rx7 so he could buy a white convertible 2nd gen. One of my last conversations with him was on the very topic, he was so proud too. He had owned a rex before this that was exactly the same, a pristine 2nd gen convertible, but he didn’t want to ride around in it because he was too bashful. As some other posters have mentioned, he had traded a third gen for an ’03 lancer Evo, apparently after driving that electric blue number around he got used to the idea of people staring at him.

The Evo scared the hell out of him; he didn’t want to drive it. After test driving it around myself I can understand, that thing was a fireball on wheels, it didn’t match his driving style at all. He was even uncomfortable driving 3rd gens around because they were just too fast. See he liked rx7’s not because of their ability to go fast, the power band on a stock 2nd gen is too damn high to be a drag racer, he liked them because of the handling. After reading around on your forums I see something else though, the two places you could have found my father was either in the garage or at the computer. I think he liked rx7’s also because of the community he found here and other places, mailing lists where other rotor heads could talk about their hobby.

That’s what it was though, he loved cars. Well maybe I should put loved in quotes, the first curse words I learned was when I overhead my dad working on our Pontiac station wagon. Tooling around in the garage, figuring out what was going wrong with them and how to fix them were things he could devote a lot of mental energy too. Rx7’s, until the third gens, were the perfect hobby car for him since they had good handling and it wasn’t something you needed a degree to work on. I think the idea of being responsible for all the cars my family drove filled him with a certain kind of pride; it was how he showed his love for us.

My father died doing something that he loved, tooling around in his favorite car. That’s something that I wish everyone could say. Something that I think would mean a lot to me and my family, as someone else mentioned, would be an rx7 caravan in memorial of my father down Georgia Avenue. I’m not sure how often you guys have meets to hang out and look at each other’s cars, but it would really mean a lot to us, more than flowers or cards if it could happen. More importantly though i think it's something that he would have wanted.

We had the memorial service for my father this past Tuesday the 26th. It was small; only close family since my mother and I think the rest of us weren’t ready for a big thing in addition to the grief and pain we were and still are going through.

Thank you all for your kind words, they really did give us a respite through the most difficult times my family has faced. Knowing that my dad’s life touched people in a good way, especially since your community was one he was very much a part of.

Drive safe guys. Don’t let this happen to your family or to anyone else’s.

Thanks again,
Jonathan Myers

Originally Posted by paulpg

This is JonPG. I'm on my father's computer. After talking with my mom a bit more there is way to much stuff going on with regards to chasing down finances since my dad did almost all of that on his own. I think she would be comfortable with the idea of doing the caravan a month or two from now if people are still interested. She wanted me to tell you guys that she was very touched by the idea of it, she's just not comfortable with doing it in the immediate future. Sorry about trying to rush it and then backing off, especially since you guys are doing this for no other reason than to help out my family. I really do appreciate it and if people are still interested a little bit down the road than I think that'd be the most appropriate time.

I'm going to be busy this weekend doing errands to get things in order but i'll try to drop another line soon.