As most of you know, I relocated to the Dallas, Texas area a couple of years back. Excited to have our own home, my wife, daughter, and I immediately took to decorating and making the house our own. Of course, this meant I would be spending time redoing the garage. A small, three-car garage, it has limited space and is sadly still serving as the holding chamber for many things we need to go through and disperse throughout the house or simply get rid of. Happily, though, two cars reside within. Which is a good start, none of us were ready for weather. Coming from SoCal, there isn’t much weather to speak of – but here, it’s a different story. But, that said, the garage is coming along.
Back around 2017, I was excited to have visited the AACA Hershey Swap Meet and hang out with various cohorts like the brothers Rick and Phil Rader, magician extraordinaire David Ferst, and a roster of other fun car guys. Kia loaned me a shockingly nice Soul, complete with leather interior, a turbocharged engine, full-length moonroof, terrific navigation system, and plenty of space for stuff.
During this trip, I fell for a near-mint condition NGK cabinet still in the original box complete with the little Styrofoam corner protectors holding the cabinet in place in the box. I had to have it. Of course, back then, it would simply sit in the corner of the storage garage as I couldn’t hang it in the garage we had back in Orange County. Long story.
I loved the NGK cabinet for a lot of reasons, one, of course, it was a piece of memorabilia that needed a home. Two, interestingly enough, came from my Fiat mechanic. A hundred years ago, when the Fiat was my daily driver, my mechanic, yes, this name was Tony, gave the car a fairly extensive tune up. During this time, he replaced the Bosch spark plugs with NGK saying they were better. A Bosche snob, I was taken aback and asked how so. He explained a multitude of things to me that went right over my 20-something year old head, but it sounded like a good sale, so I bought. As time went on, I became more familiar with the NGK brand and thusly more impressed as time went on. The history of the company is fascinating, a joint interest venture of ceramic production leading to the creation of a spark plug company that would in 30 years’ time become a major multinational producer of spark plugs and a supplier to many of the world’s car makers and, of course, the aftermarket. I learned that they were a major thorn in the side of Bosch and Champion and others, which made me like them even more. Slow and steady, the tortoise wins the race, right? So, yeah, I had to have the cabinet.
I recently opened the box and pulled the cabinet out to size it up to the garage – it’ll work, just barely. Of course, as I play with this thing and arrange the garage layout in my mind, I’m realizing the walls and ceiling need to be painted. And the floors need to be done. And the garage doors, while okay in and of themselves, could use a refresh or complete replacement too. And the minisplit needs to be installed. More to come, stay tuned, I’m making videos as I go along. I wonder what other boxed treasures will reveal themselves in the coming months.
Thanks for stopping by!
