Project POStal’s long-lost footage is back for round two. This episode shows just how miserable — but also exciting! — it was driving the $500 rust bucket on its very first test after many months of arduous wrenching. To me, and to most readers, the trip seemed hopeless. This first leg would be the first indication of just how hopeless it really was. The start of my 3,500-mile road trip in a Postal Jeep that, honestly, nobody thought had a chance in hell of driving more than a few miles, was incredible. I sat there — with a helmet strapped tightly to my head, staring out through a blurry and wet wiper-less windshield, shivering from the cold air entering the cabin and the fact that my pants had been completely drenched by my rear tire kicking up ice-water through a rust hole and onto my seat — with a smile on my face. The Postal Jeep was doing it! The thing was driving literally hundreds of miles! Sure, it was blowing through oil at an alarming rate, and sure, the gas tank wouldn’t hold more than 7.5 gallons, but the suspension was working well. The steering wheel turned the vehicle. The brakes stopped the vehicle. The lights worked. My friends and I had somehow turned this hulk of broken and disintegrated iron into an actual, functional (ish) automobile! This episode, and the last, are in some ways wind-ups for next week’s episode, which is going to feature a discussion with an incredible electrician from a small town in Kansas. The man, Austin, drives a huge truck on 52-inch military tires and makes his own demolition derby vehicles. Austin is awesome. Keep an eye out on Jalopnik next Thursday at noon to meet this incredible human. Also, the episode after that is even better, showing the most amazing, eclectic car collection I’d ever seen, and all in the middle of nowhere, Colorado. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
