What on earth is a Civilier?
It all started at a little show in the spring of 2002. My friend Tony, who drove a Prelude at the time, was parked next to me during the show. When the judges came around they started with my friend's Prelude. After finishing his car, they started looking over mine. They started asking me a couple questions about it then realized it was a Cavalier. Turns out, the show had separate judges for Imports and Domestics. The Import Judges started judging my car thinking it was a Civic. So Tony started laughing and called my car a Civilier, half Civic, half Cavalier. And since I heard "Oh, that's a Cavalier?" all the time, the name Civilier kind of stuck.
As for me, I've been working on Cavaliers
since 1998. It started out very innocently. I bought a used 1995
Cavalier Z24. I didn't have any intention of modifying the car. Then
one day I noticed an exhaust leak. So I started out by searching the
internet for a replacement exhaust for my car. When I ran the search, it
came up with a couple web sites of people and companies that modify Cavaliers.
What I found were pictures of
Matt
Teske's and
Jim Trevino's
Z24s as well as
RK Sport. If that
wasn't enough, I then saw Jim Trevino's car on the road one day going through
Northville. That was it. From then on, the philosophy I lived by was
"Why simply replace when you can upgrade". The leaky exhaust was replaced
with an upgraded Magnaflow cat-back. Then when my front bumper was cracked
in the winter, it was replaced by the RK Sport Import Fighter front bumper.
When the tires needed to be replaced, 17" OZ F1 Cup Corsa wheels with
Bridgestone
Potenza tires and Eibach springs were ordered. From then on car parts were
like Crack and RK Sport was my pusher.
Although I've moved on to a 2002 Cavalier Z24, I still have that 95. It has since been stripped down and no longer resembles the car that started the addiction. The exhaust and lowering springs are all that are left.
These days you'll catch me at whatever car show happens to be going on that weekend. If there isn't a show, then you'll find me in the garage, either working on my car, or helping out a friend with theirs'. I'm sure it drives my wife nuts. Doesn't seem to leave me much time to get much done around the house. So the addiction continues...
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