Welcome to cardiction!

NASCAR champion. Car designer of the year. Pulitzer-prize winning car critic. I am none of those things but I do have a passion for cars. Before I discovered my love of writing and reading, I already had a love  - cars. Growing up in South Florida, I often marveled at the cars that whooshed by me on I-95 or Alton Road. Whether they were cherry-red Corvettes and basic Chevettes or flashy Porsches or pedestrian Pintos, I compared and contrasted their distinct stylings and shapes. I was a car geek. Still am.

Whenever a car show rolled into Miami Beach, I was there, reading the new-models brochures, comparing MPGs and snapping photos of the cars that I liked.  I don't know when this auto affair started exactly. Perhaps it was when my dad would take me out on Thursdays and Sundays (his days off) in his sky-blue 1973 Chevrolet Caprice or later on in his 1978 Grand Prix. I admired the sleek lines of these cars and their engines' mechanical purrs. On his days off, he taught me how to check the oil, clean the battery terminals and refill the windshield wiper reservoirs and radiator. In junior high, I subscribed to Popular Mechanics just to read about the latest models including the cute, tiny Ford Festiva in the late 1980s or the muscular Mustang 3.5 GT.  I counted the days until I could get my driver's license so I could finally experience life behind the wheel of the cars I had admired from afar.  I never lost this car curiosity. Anyone who knows me that I can talk non-stop about car models, topsellers, and why some cars sold and why others didn't, why their marketing worked or failed. Perhaps it's in my car DNA: my male macho Cuban cousins are mechanics and cars are our common language. I even watch old 1980s movies just to see the cars roaming the streets then.

So I finally decided it was time for me to come out of the garage and start writing about my cardiction because, well, this is fun for me.

What will I write about in this cyber auto showroom?  Like a customized car, this blog is a work in progress  I will start with a little of everything. Tributes to cars I have owned over the years; mini-reviews of current models such as the Honda Civic, the Nissan Altima, the Jeep Compass and the BMW X3 (vehicles I have access to thanks to my friends and family). I will also post auto news with a popculture sensibility and link news articles I have written about cars from my days at The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe and now the Sun Sentinel. Now and then, I will highlight a unique car that I have spotted in my regular travels in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and there are plenty in South Florida.  To the right are car links that I regular read.

This is my cardiction blog. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

(Photo above: me and my old Jeep Wrangler. One of my favorite vehicles of all times.)