In my high school days my good friend Cale and I spent some time working as porters at a local car dealership. The job involved quite a bit of general grunt work, tons of new car prep and a helluva lot of car washing. Washing cars in the summer is one thing, but washing cars in the middle of a Cleveland winter is an altogether different thing. It sucks.
Our job also involved transporting inventory between the main dealership lot and the storage lot which was tucked away in a secluded area about five hundred yards from the dealership. Often we used a trade-in to shuttle over there to get whatever new cars the sales manager had ordered us to bring up. You’d probably be surprised to know that nobody really gave two shits about those trade-in cars, which meant my buddy Cale and I didn’t feel too bad about using them to perfect our tactical driving skills. And by tactical driving skills, I mean learning the intricacies of the relationship between the gas pedal and the hand brake.
It was then, at the tender age of 17, that I learned the pure joy of the J-Turn. Truly important shit. As it turns out, the YouTubes are littered with videos of people perfecting the art of the J-Turn. I found the two videos embedded here to be the most interesting and informational. Study them, and next time you have a rental car handy – with the loss damage waiver and the additional-liability secure in the affirmative – give this maneuver a try.
I miss driving a car!
I’ll need this for when I rob that bank next week.
Ha ! Flip flops. Great job for a High School kid.
Why aren’t more kids working jobs like this? My brother
and i mowed lawns, delivered papers, bused tables
and washed boats during our summers. Now everyone
wants to be an intern at Marc Jacobs or a PR Firm.
They call it “Cleveland Drifting.”
I was a porter at a local dealership too. Pretty cool job for a 17 year old. We’d drive the used cars in the auto repair bay really fast and do e-brake turns. Or practice starting a car from 4th gear. Best part was the bank runs where I could borrow any used car on the lot and drive 45 minutes each way to drop off some sales receipts or something. I’d always take a convertable and lower the windows so the girls couldnt see the sales stickers.
@Terrapin Stationers: because those jobs are not available for high school or college kids anymore. Because of the recession and the general drift toward service jobs, those positions are going to adults who in many cases are vastly overqualified, but need the work simply to put food on the table.
Most of those internships are now unpaid, so kids (and in some cases their parents, who are funding them) see them as investments in their future.
So, in short, buy more American made clothes, and a high schooler gets a job!
even more impressive, he’s is doing it in flip flops
Why is the guy wearing 2 watches?!
Didnt know that was called a J-Turn.
We always called it a “Rockford” because it was one of Jim Rockford’s signature moves on the Rockford Files.
haha.
“So, in short, buy more American made clothes, and a high schooler gets a job!”
I think you skipped about 47 or so steps there.
@Ronald: he probably saw it on a blog.
This is probably the manliest things you’ve ever posted.
In fact, let me correct myself, this IS the manliest thing you’ve ever posted.
*durable bags, expensive watches, overpriced antiques, rugged boots, foreign thrift shops, how to pull a J-Turn, vintage tote- wait what?*
lol @curran
I had to pull one of these this morning! I made the mistake of heading down an on-ramp to 71N from Pearl Rd by Metro Hospital and saw nothing but brakelights! Thank goodness nobody was behind me yet pushing me down into oblivion!
AHAHHAAHAH Cool!!!!!!!
I’ve always wanted to do a perfect one of those….!!!!