I have to admit, when it happened, I was a bit miffed. I had just come back from a week in LA attending the MPMC show, and was dreading getting back into the office knowing full well just what I had in store for me as far as e-mails, voicemails, and the like. When my ’98 Taurus daily beater decided to fritz out on me Monday morning, I was prepared for a bad day. To be honest, it was probably exactly what I needed. Evidently the alternator went bad in my Taurus. I figured the battery light was flickering on and off because I hadn’t run the car for a week, so yesterday morning, I started the car to warm it up, not only to make it nice and toasty inside, but to give the alternator a chance to throw a decent charge back into the battery. Thing is, when I went to roll the window down to give the missus a “have a nice day kiss”, the motor stayed running at 900 RPM, but the tach dropped to zero, the window wouldn’t go down, and the airbag light started blinking at me. A couple of moments later, the tach runs up to 6,600 RPM (the motor still stayed at an idle...go figure!), and all of the idiot lights started going off. I mean, my instrument panel lit up like the Fourth of July! Not wanting to chance taking the Taurus on the 1 hour plus trip up to the office, I had a decision to make: work from home, jack my Mom’s Taurus and save on gas, or slip behind the wheel of my brother’s old Mach 1. He had sold the Mach 1 to my dad to pick up a Benz (I didn’t agree with it either, trust me), so the Torch Red ’04 Four-Valve monster was just sitting in the driveway like a lost soul. I took a gander around my driveway and made my choice. Me and the Mach 1 would go on a bonding trip. With winters in NJ being so nasty, I park my other car (bought before I started here at MM&FF...sorry!) and drive my Taurus every day. Instead of just dialing up the Sirius radio, dropping the car into drive, and dealing with a pedestrian V6, it was nice to slip behind the wheel of the Mach 1, row gears in the 5-speed, and know that under my right foot was a beast waiting to be unleashed. After being a normal commuter for the past couple of months, I relished in my drive to work yesterday. It was nice to drive a car that had character and power bristling from it from all points. I have to admit, I didn’t mind being stuck in traffic either. When I sat down in my office chair yesterday morning, I came to the realization that this is what the hobby is all about. It was nice to enjoy driving a car the caliber of the Mach 1 again. So often we get tired of driving our performance cars in traffic and having to deal with ever rising fuel costs at the pump. I feel the same way, but for the first time in a long while, I didn’t care about traffic, gas prices, the other less-than-stellar drivers on the road, or about all I had to get done at work. It all washed away as soon as the Four-Valve came to life. Now if I could only get my dad to give me the Mach 1 cheap…