Summer at BangShift Mid-West means a few things: sweat out of every pore, the occasional thrown car part from the garage, the later evenings ending in a fire in the pit on my back porch and a cold drink in-hand, and travel. I probably travel more in August than about any other month, and that’s because everybody suddenly realizes that “oh, no, summer’s almost over, I better get out there and do something!” It’s also when some of the best action goes on throughout the land. For example, as I’m typing I’m a few hours away from hitting the road for St. Louis, but at Beech Bend it’s going to be the Street Car Takeover this weekend, and there’s at least three other events that could be a lot of fun. Ultimately, it’s westbound and down in the morning, and another few thousand miles on the Chevy Cruze econo-mobile.

Oddly enough, I like driving the little rollerskate around. It’s not fast, nowhere near, but any car that can hang at highway speeds while pushing 40 MPG wherever it goes with the air conditioning on is alright by me, and on the few occasions where I want to pretend it’s actually peppy, I’ll roll the window down and listen to the turbo on the 1.4L four whistle and act like it’s putting work in. I’ve said from the start that I’m not going to mod this car out. I don’t want it to become a project, just a solid driver, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it’s fuel economy. But a small car with a six-speed could be good…some slightly stiffer struts, a big-brake package, maybe a mild tune and a cat-back…it won’t be a World Touring Car like Tom Coronel’s Cruze, but if it’s punchy enough, you could think about it as you hustled around from place to place!