Big Life Update! (Part 2)

The day we both picked up the car, we both took our “new” cars out for a mini road trip.

He wanted to get a proper feel for his brand-new M3 Touring, and I just needed to figure out how my car felt — how it handled, what needed adjusting, what quirks it had. To be honest, I’d only ever driven it once before — literally from our shop to the airport, just a 5-minute drive to pick him up after one of his work trips. Not exactly a proper test drive.

Probably not the smartest thing to do: buying a car without really test driving it, especially a second-hand one. But I trusted the guy, and more importantly — I trusted how well he took care of it.

He had all the right maintenance receipts, and the car was serviced at the same specialist Subaru workshop that our company’s rental Subarus go to. It's a super well-known shop here in Japan, so I felt a lot of peace of mind knowing the car had been in good hands. And if anything ever does come up, I can just bring it back to that same place.

The car was completely stock when he first got it — and now it’s a proper sleeper build. A clean, subtle look with upgraded parts in all the right places. Subwoofer in the back. Upgraded speakers. It even sounds good when you play your favorite songs — something you start appreciating more the longer you drive.

We ended up spending a few days just driving around together — I got to learn a bit more about the car and how to take care of it. As much as I love cars, I’m not the most mechanically-inclined person out there… so I’ve been asking him questions along the way. I really do want to take care of this thing — not just for me, but for him too. It’s my car now, but there’s a bit of responsibility that comes with being entrusted with something someone else once loved.

That being said… I may or may not already have second-hand parts bookmarked across every Japanese car site you can think of. Just window shopping... for now.

It’s been a solid few days of daily driving already — mostly back and forth from work, but also running around handling the paperwork and registration. Still can’t believe one casual conversation over dinner turned into all of this.

I’ll probably drop by his place every month or two — we’ve worked on a few freelance video gigs together since I came to Japan, and this car will be making more appearances for sure. If you’ve been on this Patreon page long enough, you might’ve actually seen this car before in an earlier video I shot for him.

We ended the road trip with Mount Fuji glowing in the backdrop, the sun slowly setting behind us — the perfect close to the day, and the perfect beginning to a new chapter for both of us.

Anyway, that’s the full behind-the-scenes story. I can’t wait to take this thing on a proper road trip soon and share more with you guys.