Rides of My Life: 22 Years of Driving in LA

The only thing scarier than navigating the traffic-clogged boulevards and freeways of Los Angeles is realizing you've lived in this city for half of your life. Where did those two decades and two years go? How did I get here? 

The answer to the latter is obvious: I booked that fateful one-way ticket to LA after college, never looked back, and survived everything that came after – the Trucker Hat Invasion of 2003, the Great Recession of 2008, the release of Rock of Ages in 2012, and...2020. I've put plenty of mileage on this city (and the rest of Southern California), thanks to the wheels I owned, loved, and leased – each car representing a different era of my LA life.

Let's cruise down Memory Lane before rush hour kicks in, shall we?

2002 FORD FOCUS – After being a licensed driver on the East Coast without a vehicle to call my own, I finally financed my first-ever car, a reliable, economical ride that helped me survive the streets of LA while I was a production assistant running weekly errands from Studio City to Pacific Palisades. I named this silver sedan Sydney after Jennifer Garner's character in Alias...and my favorite Melrose Place vixen (as played by Laura Leighton). Who are you to judge me?

By 2007, I breathed a sigh of relief as I made my last payment and received the title in the mail. My first grown-up asset! But it didn't last long. By 2010, a mysterious piece of metal found its way into the engine, wrecking the entire motor. Sydney died on an October afternoon in a Fatburger parking lot on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. 

2010 TOYOTA PRIUS – I succumbed to the hybrid craze at the turn of the decade and got me a cherry red Prius that was quiet, smooth, and everything else that made me feel like a performative Angeleno who cared about the environment. I attempted to keep the name thing going and called this one Peyton. ("Meet Peyton the Prius!") I drove her everywhere throughout Southern California, from Comic-Con in San Diego to the desert plains of Joshua Tree. True story: two weeks after driving it off the lot, the brand-new interior of my hatchback got stained by a can of green screen paint after it tipped over during a promo shoot I was producing that involved a flashmob featuring a shirtless Jax from Vanderpump Rules.

2013 SCION XD – Some say cars pick you, not the other way around. And in this case, that was especially true when I had to trade in my leased Prius for the only model that fit my financial status at the time (two years of unemployment left me no choice). Luckily I found this blue cutie I named Simon. 

This was around the time I started subscribing to podcasts, listening to episodes during my commute to my new full-time job at an ad agency where I would receive two promotions over the next nine years. Simon the Scion was a peppy little thing that did his job well – jetting me off to Palm Springs, darting me through traffic on Olympic Boulevard, squeezing into tight parking spaces – but I started to outgrow him. Scion just wasn't my brand. It was time to join a new family of automobiles...

2016 HONDA CIVIC EX-T COUPE – Nothing screams single and childless like a sporty, 2-door coupe, and this beauty had an ass that looked like a Stormtrooper helmet. This time, I used a car broker who handled all the details and had this model delivered to my driveway like a baller (or like one of those Carvana commercials in which an overtired mom gets super-excited about the arrival of her minivan). This Civic was possibly the sexiest vehicle I ever had. But the love affair didn't last long...

2019 HONDA CIVIC EX – I stayed in the Honda family, this time financing a "molten lava pearl" 4-door model I picked up in Thousand Oaks (read: deep in the Valley). This Civic was a beautiful ride that seemed like a perfect fit for my approaching forties. The color, I admit, was a little daring for my taste; perhaps it was a sign of early onset mid-life crisis. Three weeks after buying her, however, I was brutally rear-ended by a speeding BMW three blocks from my home (you can read about it here), thanks to an intoxicated young woman who was dumb enough to flee the scene on foot while leaving her drivers license behind on the passenger seat. 

Sadly, in May of 2022, this Civic was re-traumatized when it became the fatal victim of three-car pile-up in Atwater Village while it was parked on the street. I guess we were never meant to be. 

2014 HONDA CR-V EX – Serendipitously, after losing my Civic, my late father's SUV in Florida was available for me to claim. Which meant: Cross-country road trip! However, it wasn't that easy. After an arduous two-month delay due to a botched routine tune-up at an auto shop (they were liable, end of story), I was able to embark on a 10-night journey in September 2022 with my father's ashes in the passenger seat. I brought him and his black CR-V, a car he loved, to Los Angeles, where it is currently (and carefully) getting the West Coast treatment. 

Yours truly, driving off into the sunset,

Hiko

@TheFirstEcho