When I bought a 6-speed luxury performance sedan last year, I knew the time had come to get a V1.
Still, putting aside my intuition, I asked my fiancee’s father—a fellow car guy with an S4 as a daily driver—for advice. He handed me an old Passport 7500 with instructions on how to trade it in to Escort for a $40 rebate on a new 8500. I drove for over a year with that old 7500. I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on a new one. My frustration reached a boiling point two weeks ago, at which point I ordered a V1.
On the third day of V1-style Situation Awareness, I had this V1 Moment. At least twice a day I drive this same road—downhill, curve to the left from behind a wall, downhill straight, finishing with a sharp downhill curve to the right. Fun stuff.
Just beyond the start of the last turn is an office building with those pesky, X-band, see-you-coming doors. Every day, the Passport would BEEP BEEP BEEP at it. On day one of life after Passport, V1 acquires two X-band bogeys long before the 7500 ever did. On day three, I turn onto the road. BEEP, bogey one; BEEP, bogey two; BEEP-brap…bogey three????
My eyes look up in disbelief—count ’em, three bogeys—the usual X-bands, plus a flashing Ka and a forward arrow. Instinct forces me to chop the speed, regardless of the fact I’ve NEVER seen a cop on this street in my 11 years of driving. As I approach the dogleg right, there he is, a local LEO, out of his car, crouched on one knee, under a tree, using a bush for cover.
If it wasn’t for the V1, I would have been added to his quota. My first V1 moment—three days of Situation Awareness and sold for life.
Justin Barry
Andover, MA