Last week, I drove Hotaru in to work. I told Will that there was a Vibe that looked just like Taru, but it wasn’t a GT. Vibe’s aren’t a popular vehicle and a Vibe with a Sport Package is even less popular. So to see any Vibe with a Sport Package is cool to me.

Travelling down Seminary Rd., the Vibe was parked in the Snyder’s Food parking lot. I went in an asked to see the owner of the vehicle so I could get permission to take pictures. The owner was too busy to come down, but he gave me permission to do so anyway. I was bummed not to speak to the owner because I believe that owners who pay the extra money to add the Sport Package is a possible enthusiast and I love to spread the word about meets, websites and such. I thought it was strange to put a Sport Package on an AWD Vibe, but in the end, it is all about utility and individuality.

Will and I took the time to further personalize our Vibe a couple of weeks ago. I won a coupon from Grafxwerks at last year’s Grand Am Meet and after much deliberation, we decided on a color scheme that would work for Hotaru. Will initially wanted to make her a Penguin mobile with yellow, white and black (I am sure he was just doing that to piss me off…), but we decided to take color cues from the car itself and nix the yellow altogether. Besides…we didn’t need the extra horsepower the the yellow vinyl overlays would have provided (in case you didn’t know, in the tuner world yellow can add at least 5 hp every time you use it to color something…watch out for those yellow cars!). Since the interior lights are red, we chose reflective red for all the arrows and the ‘GT’ on the badges. The white pinstriping aided us in chosing reflective white for all the ‘Vibe’ badges. Hotaru was pretty distinct before, but she definitely stands out a lot more now. We have 2 more overlays to add, but one requires tools (the third brake light overlay that says ‘Vibe GT’ when you hit the brakes) and the other is larger than expected (a reflective overlay that says ‘you got beat by a wagon’). We hope to add those eventually.

I did a similar thing to Michiru 2 years ago. I had a tough time choosing a color scheme because her color didn’t work with many of the colors available. If Mimi had been black or white, any color could have been used. I decided to go with a blue and silver theme - it worked pretty well. In addition to the Grafxwerks coupon, I also won a set of silver grills to replace the stock black grill. My brother and I plan to install the grill this summer.

Before:

After:

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