Dennis Gillingham is a New Brunswick resident and car lover. His background of how he got interested in car culture resembles other car enthusiasts in the area. His experience with his car, however, is not the same as most people. Normally most people start off with a car that is nearly stock and they build onto it from there. But Gillingham’s pre-built car turned into a huge head ache. But his passion stills holds strong and his stubborn nature has kept his build alive.
Q: What is your name and what do you drive?
A: My name is Dennis Gillingham and I drive a 2006 Subaru WRX STI.
Q: What initially got you in to cars?
A: Racecars as cliché as that sounds. It was any racing really, accept for Nascar, that’s boring. Formula 1, you know it’s exotic and cool – rally, because they do jumps, which is awesome, and it’s super aggressive.
Q: How old were you when you got into it?
A: I was probably around 10 years old.
Q: What drew you to cars like the STI?
A: For my car it was rally. Subaru did really well in rally for so long, right! The car has such and aggressive styling and their really fast right out of the box which is super appealing.
Q: What made you get into car culture?
A: Just the like mindedness of everybody involved. Everybody has the same interest, and even though they can differ between different styles, everybody still kind of gels together. It’s a good community for the most part. You can actually talk to the people, you don’t have to try to force a conversation. There’s always something to talk about. You can always learn something from people, for the most part.
Q: What do you like about your cars in general?
A: There’s an excitement you get from driving. You have control over 3000 pounds of steel, but you have fine control over 3000 pounds of steel. There’s a freedom to it.
Q: Tell me the story of your car.
A: I bought the car 2 years ago. It already had a bunch of work done to it… little did I know that most of the work was done wrong. This caused a lot of things to break and a lot of money to fly out of my wallet. But replacing and fixing everything was a learning experience. I went from being able to change tires and oil to being able to rip my turbo out, do suspension changes, and I have even have to rip my hubs apart later. You get to work with your hands and it’s applicable in life.
Q: How much money do you have wrapped up into your car?
A: Um about 13 thousand dollars, plus the cost of the car. I have a parts list for another 20 thousand done up.
Q: What in your mind makes a vehicle beautiful? What draws you to vehicle?
A: That’s really subjective. It depends on the type of car and also on the owner. Each car has its own personality, but the personality depends on the type of car and who the owner is. For example, Dan Clark’s rusted civic (See previous article) is stupid for anyone else other than Dan Clark. If you know this guy that is his personality in metal. Everything has a different personality and style, so it’s hard to nail down one thing. There’s a variety of awesome, beautifulness.