I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I don’t collect cars, I collect memories. This mantra is how I keep smiling as I jump from one vehicle to the next while finding new adventures on four wheels. Few cars are sacred and even fewer take up permanent residence in the Finnegan fleet and I absolutely love and appreciate the opportunity to become the caretaker of each one, even if it’s only for a brief moment in time.

As much as I loved driving my 1970 Datsun 510, by the time I got home from it’s very first 600 mile road trip, I had the car out of my system and was already daydreaming of the next one. There was nothing philosophically wrong with the car. It made all the right noises, did the right things, and I had a perma-grin the entire time I was behind the wheel.

I came home from that trip with a short mental list of fixes the car needed, which JC and I accomplished in short order, and then I drove the car once more to see how the repairs improved the Datsun’s character. I ran it through the gears, blasted around one more corner, and then decided to let someone else have a chance to own the little, yellow, rocket.

I’m thankful that much of my time spent with cars is captured on video because I can go back and relive the adventure again and again if I really miss a car that’s long gone.

Some adventures are more memorable than others and thus some cars deserve to be immortalized in cotton, which is why the 510, more specifically the night JC and I spent hours in a parking lot rewiring most of the engine compartment of the 510 after it melted, is now the latest fabric offering from Finnegan Speed And Marine. The night began innocently enough with a quick driver swap after yet another fuel refill and another truck stop corn dog. But as we exited the lot, that’s when things would get really fun.

Smoke bellowed into the cabin of the little Japanese Coupe as JC and my friend Jordan stopped at the entrance to the parking lot and it was all hands on-deck to disconnect the battery and stop the electrical fire before it consumed the car. What followed were four hours of laughs, two new friends who came to the rescue with wiring supplies, and one epic memory as we patched the wiring back together and continued our mission to drive from the beach to the mountains to go snowboarding.

I’ll never forget that night or the following day when I broke my left leg while snowboarding and then hopped in the Datsun and drove it home anyway. You can relive the fun every time you put this new FSM shirt on before going out into the world. Thanks for the support.