So what's all this pLuM LoCo stuff about anyways?

It's a long story, really. Goes back to 2000...well, honestly, it goes back even further than that, perhaps even as far as 1990. 1990 is the year I turned 16 and got my drivers license and the world suddenly became a much larger place for a girl who'd lived her whole life in small town Ontario.

I'm a bit of a motor head. Not a die hard mind you, but I know my way around a car more than most girls. My grandfather bought me my very first car the summer between high school and college. I was going to a local college and would be commuting, so a car was a must have. I asked him to *help* me buy a car, so he goes out and buys me just the coolest first car ever (in my opinion; everyone has their own idea of a cool first car). It was a 1986 Mercury Cougar LS in desert taupe metallic blush and I named it Rocco. Rocco and I spent many fantastic years together and went through good times and bad, but Rocco was the beginning of a love affair with cars for me that, over the years, has brought me to my recent obsession spanning the last 6 years. PT Cruisers.

Yes, a Cougar is a Mercury and a Mercury at heart is a Ford and, heaven forbid, a Cruiser is a Chrysler. I never bled Ford blue and to be honest, the Cougar was the oddity since I come from a Chrysler/Dodge family, so although there will never be another Rocco, getting the Cruiser was like coming 'home'.

In the late summer of 2000 while out looking for a new vehicle for my husband, I spotted this peculiar, yet undeniably COOL looking little wagon/van type car and thought to my self, 'self, you need to go have yourself a look at that'. So me and myself not only looked, we took a test drive and a short time later, I was the proud owner of a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser Limited Edition in deep cranberry and I named it Wyldberry...and we still didn't have a new vehicle for my husband.


There was something else that came with the Cruiser that the salesman at the dealership neglected to tell me about, or perhaps it was just to early on in the phenomenon for him to know about it. A membership in an exclusive club. There's a whole culture out there of people who live and breathe everything PT Cruiser...and I became one of them. I bought the shirts, the hats, the 1:32 scale remote model...I drove all over to shows and events. I showed. I shined. I "Cruised the Falls" more than once and when the lease came due on my '01, I did the most natural thing in the world to me...I bought the TURBO. Yup...the only thing I never could forgive in the '01 was the lack of get up and go. No problem with that now.

'pLuM LoCo' is the name of the '04 GT Turbo and I've gone a little bit overboard with this one. It's deep plum (purple is my favourite colour, by the way) - but that wasn't enough for me. I've had it two-toned with vanilla on top. Then I added more side graphics. And a K&N air intake (you oughta here it scream on the 401 now). At the most recent show I was at, I added a chrome hood liner and in a couple of weeks, when I pack up my Maguires Show n' Shine and my buffing cloths to head off to Watkin's Glen, I'm picking up a new smoothie bumper from Maggie.

My family thinks I'm crazy. I have two cars now. I don't drive the Cruiser in the winter. It slumbers winter away in a garage bought just for it erected each fall on the patio.

My husband and I are the respective black sheep in both of our families. We have no children. We each have a "good car" and a "beater car". We spend our hard earned money on our pets (another story) and on our cars. And our families think we are crazy.

I'm just pLuM LoCo...you'll have to ask my husband what his excuse is. Perhaps "Mustang Mad" or "'Stang Stupid"? tee hee (hope he doesn't read this...)