When I joined UCP....

[Niko_Fx]

When I joined the UCP forum I was 19 and in my fourth semester of college. I had no digital camera and a sh*tty 2001 Honda Civic. My rep was at 10 points and members such as Misho and NoOne were vivid posters. I had a long-distance relationship with my Venezuelan girlfriend which made me stay at home long nights chatting and browsing the forum... hence my 10 posts per day or so (at that moment).

The premium forum, chopping forum, photo forum, and gaming forum did not exist. There were only 7 moderators, Matra believe it or not was a regular member at the time... He also received my first PM ever and he also sent me my first PM ever (which I still have).

I never thought I would stay this long in an internet forum, my first internet forum I must say....

February 9, 2004.

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Today I'm 22 and done with college. I have 3 digital cameras and sh*tty 2001 Honda Civic . My rep does not exist anymore and Misho and NoOne almost don't post at all . I married my GF over a year ago (no more long-distance) and my post-per-day count went down to 3.78.

A bunch of new forums exist (including the proudly added Moderator Forum ) There are 22 moderators and yes, Matra is one of them

I'm here to stay

March 24, 2007


What's your story?

[IWantAnAudiRS6]

When I joined UCP, I don't think Premium Membership existed. It was a great summer, filled with invigorating Internets and such. No porn, before you ask. I was at school, just starting my GCSEs, or in the middle of them. It was when I had a beautiful girlfriend called Pippa, I think. Or it was a year later, something like that. I remember UK_CARS being a prominent member, and rep was in full swing. The battle between Egg Nog and Matra for rep points (strangely lacking in concern from both parties ) was a close one, IIRC. I had a pair of Honda Civics in my parents' possession at the time, although the blue 1.5 VTEC LSi I was allowed to drive when we went to places where there were huge fields/open spaces. Chopping was rife, I remember foto_choppa was quite near the top of the pile, along with Rocke. illusionest was new to the scene. As with Niko, these new-fangled forums didn't exist- but Matt's Hi-Res Hideout was an interesting forum to be in. I wondered when it was that I could have my own forum named after me! I left for a few months, but that was later on.

August 18th, 2004.

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Well, I'm on the way to university now! It's been a long couple of years, but definitely worth it. Because of this site I've picked up knowledge and friends that I definitely wouldn't have had. I've met some very interesting people. Passed my driving test, and the Civic has been replaced by a 206 1.1. A bit of a step back, but oh well. I'm also a Premium Member, which does have its benefits. Single, in preparation for uni, and also happy with the new members coming and going- but I am proud to be part of what could be deemed 'the old-school'.

March 25th, 2007.

[my porsche]

I joined in Aug 2004, mostly so I could see the pictures and make new threads almost every day on wht my first car should be. I had negative rep. I was 14 and 5'10" 245lb.
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Today I'm an avid photographer, 6'3" 235lb, have my first car which was never in any of my hundreds of threads. No more rep. Play football and still love German cars. And I no longer feel so nerdy for partaking in an internet forum.

[ScionDriver]

When I joined UCP, I had just turned 17, a junior in high school, I had a Sri Lankan girlfriend and my Scion xB was just 3 months old. I remember Matra posted a lot more and some other members I can't recall. I think Karmann was around and that comforted me because I was really intimidated. I had surfed the forums before joining a lot (I use to come to UCP everyday for the POTD) and I was nervous about not contributing and getting flamed off in like a day (See Karmann calmed these fears) but anyway I was just starting to get into photography and I just wanted to try something new.

October 24, 2004

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Now I am a 19 year old freshman at Ball State University majoring in photojournalism (My interest in photography grew) I am now a much more educated car person but still feel if I left UCP it'd make no difference. I have since broken up with the Sri Lankan but dated a wonderful girl from January 2005 until August 2006. We are still really close and realize we may some day tie the knot, long distance just isn't really working right now, its hard on both of us. Enough of that though, I still have my Scion and could care less what people think about it. I like to think I am a valued member, at the least I like all of you and respect the info you are able to give to me even if I don't return a lot of it.

March 24, 2007.

[johnnynumfiv]

I joined in Feb of '04 at the age of 15, a sophmore in highschool. The forum was alive with discussions about skylines vs. *car name here*, batmobile turbo, 350civic, R34_GTR, and many others posted often. I had a crappy nikon point and shoot camera and never thought of photography as a hobby. I couldn't yet legally drive. I promised myself that I would never own a FWD vehicle. Between my dad and I we had about 14 MG's, one ran . I wasn't involved in any type of racing. I didn't have a job. I was planning on going to college so I could be a high school teacher. I was about 5'9" and 250lbs. I thought I knew everything about everything.

02-15-2004

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I am now 18 years old, and a college drop out. Many of the members that were active when I joined don't post anymore. The skyline discussions have become a thing of the past. I haven't been coming to the forum as much as I used to because of work. I now have a canon camera that I use for photography, which is one of my favorite hobbies. I've been driving for 2 years now. I own a FWD econobox. We are down to 11 MG's, 3 run. I am going to be racing full time this year. I am also going to be on several pit crews for racers. I have two jobs, auto body tech and restoring muscle cars. I dropped out of college and auto body school. I am now 6'1" 220lbs. I now know nothing about everything.

03-24-2007

[taz_rocks_miami]

I joined in July of 2004, had just moved to Mexico with the idea of starting a tortilla factory, had just bought a VW Beatle (YUCK!!!!) to get around in, I had a new iMac with a dial up connection, I was 38 years old and had never been a part of an internet forum before.


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Now I own a succesfull consulting firm, I drive a 2001 VW Pointer GTI now ( a lot of fun to drive) I still have my trusty iMac, also bought two new HP computers (for my home, a desktop and a laptop) and 4 more for the office, all with wireless broadband, I'm 41 now and I don't remember when it happed exactly, I was added to UCP's mod squad. I never thought I would stick around this long on UCP and never thought I would make the friends I have. Cheers fellow UCPers!!!

[cmcpokey]

january of 2004. i was a 21 year old college senior. i had a long distance girlfriend, and drove a piece of crap 1993 honda accord. i had been a reader of the site for probably a year. i sometimes looked at the forum, but mostly i looked at the main site. i slowly made it through almost all of the cars. i decided to try commenting on the vw gti r32, about how one of my neighbors just bought one, and how i was looking at buyine one when i graduated, and had to be a member to do it. i signed up, sent in my response, and got a kind email from wouter a few hours later telling me very kindly that my post was crap and he wasnt going to put it up. then i got in to the forum. there was almost no photography on the site. chops were rare, but occasional. i never even thought about doing either. but my post count grew slowly. and i thought i would stay around the site for a little while.


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its now 4 days before my 25th birthday, i am happily married to the same girl i was dating, with my 2nd anniversary fastly approaching. i am living in my first house. i will have my 3rd anniversary in the navy this summer, i have travelled around the world, and seen all of the weird european cars i had only seen here up until that point. and i even have 38,000 miles on my own little mini cooper s. i am now an avid chopper, and my D80 will be at my front door on tuesday. i post waaaay more now then i did when i first joined. and while those new obnoxious 14 year old posters of my porsche and 6'bore are now well respected and older, driving members, i always am waiting for the next surge of young obnoxious kids to come along and discover this hobby we all have.

[pimento]

When I joined UCP, I had to walk 20 miles through the snow to post... no wait, it was in Jan '04. I'd been lurking a bit, but I wanted to say something or look at a picture.. I had a '65 Mini Panelvan with paint that washed off in the rain and I was single. I can't remember who was posting much.. I never really posted much myself.

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It's now been three years... I still don't post much, I'm still single.. but I don't have the mini anymore. It was too broken, and I couldn't afford to make it great. So I have a '96 Volvo 850R Sedan. Manual. It was my birthday last Wednesday, but I didn't do anything for it.

[baddabang]

I joined in August of 2003 which means I just finished my freshman year of High School, and was dating the same girl I ended up with for about 2 1/2 years. The forums IIRC were still green and cream but only for a short time, but I didn't post much until around Christmas time. I started in the whole photoshopping cars thing and actually won one of the competitions. I remember good members like Batmobile Turbo, and whitedevil, and some bad members like R35GTR the biggest skyline fanboy period. At the time I didn't even have my license let alone a car to drive nor a job, and my pops still worked for GM and my mom was a manager for a toy store. I was probably around 6' but I cant remember much of high school. I believed that supercars were the best cars that exist, and if the Veyron existed back then I would probably mess my pants. I dreamed of Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and McLaren F1's. I also didn't know squat about how cars worked technically, and I didn't even know what Formula 1, and Lemans was, only NASCAR.

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Today it's also 4 days untill my 20th birthday, I am a freshman (sophomore if you go by credit hours) majoring in business administration with a 3.66 GPA at SUNY Potsdam. My pops has retired with 30 years under his belt, and my mom is a now a bank supervisor. I obviously have my license now and drive the awesome 98 Blazer my second car (first being a POS Chevy Corsica) and my girlfriend from before is history. I've had 3 jobs since the beginning which include a grocery bagger, and now a delivery man for an Italian restaurant. Now a days I don't photoshop anything but avatars and dream of classic Chevy's, muscle cars, and Corvettes. I can hardly stand NASCAR and the redneck fans that adore it. Instead I like F1 and everything about it. UCP has taught me so much about diversity and opinions from around the world, as well as great chance to learn cars from all makes and models around the globe. Hell if I wasn't a member here I would not know what a 1.8T is.

[bmwpower]

I joined UCP in july of 05. I was 16 and had already been regularly check on ultimate for the picture of the day and to look at the latest cars added. It was also used as a way to reslove the many car-related arugments which would arise between my cousins and myself involving hp, transmisions of cars and such. I switched over to the forumn as a way of viewing the pics that were posted. There was no premium membership at the time and i do believe there was also a different ranking system based on number of posts, but the old system eludes me at this time.

Anyone remember the old rating system??

[2ndclasscitizen]

I joined in Jan 2004 in the library at college whilst I was a 17yr old in Yr12 so I could look at the attachments, didn't start posting for a little while tho. Had only had my P's for 2 months, didn't have my own car, worked at Pizza Hut.

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Now I'm 20, 4mnths 2 days short of being 21. I'm in my final year of uni. I'm working as a roadie. Made a shit load of new friends. I've been through 2 cars much better than the one I have now, gotten my full licence, gotten my motorbike licence, gotten a bike, had it stolen. I've gotten a DSLR and started shooting like mad.

In that time, UCP has had times of massive growth, and it's been really slow. We've had n00bs come and go, pissing people off as they do. And we've plenty of new posters come along who actually make good contributions and make a difference.

[clutch-monkey]

i was 19 when i joined in Nov 2004 because at that time i was confined to home due to a fairly crippling medical condition and spent a fair bit of time on the computer. I joined to participate in an gun control debate, being quite active in the sporting shooting scene (still am to some extent). I was in my second year of university doing a mixture of biology, forensics and human anatomy. I was still on my P plate license and had wrapped my commodore around a tree a few months earlier. I was pretty much just bumming around trying to choose career. didn't really know anyone on ucp but got to know whiteballz better after the music thread.

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I'm now 21 and almost 100% healthy , have met and become friends with a majority of the Australian members, have chosen a career and found the time and resources to dabble with classic cars and bikes on the side. My family as a whole is a lot more stable now as we're not struggling like we used to. let the golden age commence!

[The_Canuck]

Since I joined under the name Acura/Subarufan I've been here for just over two years. (February 2005) My taste in cars has slowy shifted from tuner cars to german sedans. I've learned loads about cars and other things. I was 13 when I joined and was a total n00b but the awesome people on this forum have taught me alot so far and Ill learn alot more (I hope) I was about 105 pounds when I joined and now Im 5,10" and 125lbs. I don't know why thats important but it seems interesting. Ive been going out with the same girl since I started this account.
And I am Canadian.

[Sweeney921]

My UCP 3-year anniversary was actually 12 days ago. I can't believe I've been here for that long. Back then I was a sophomore in high school, and all I did in class was play games and go through these forums. I think my post-per-day count got as high as 8. I was pretty damn single. I didn't care much about track, my only sport at the time, so I didn't excel at it. I also didn't have a job.

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Today, I still do nothing in class but play games and go to UCP, but I don't post as often. Most of the time my posts are now "quality over quantity." My post-per day count is now down to 2.72, and probably still dropping. I usually only post once a day. I had an 18 month relationship with a girl, whom I don't talk to any more. I'm dating someone else now that I like a whole lot, but it's hard because she goes to a different school and we always have very different work schedules......I don't see her nearly as much as I wish i did. Last year I started caring way more about my sports; I've picked up 2 district titles in track and qualified for the state meet once. Many of you may know that I'm an American football kicker; I picked up football the same year I joined UCP. Now I'm gonna kick at Virginia Military Institute, a Division I-AA school.

I'll be here for another 4 years for sure while I'm at VMI, and most likely an occasional visitor when I get to the real world.

[IBrake4Rainbows]

April 2003 - Cruising around on the home computer in Wellington, NZ. stumbled across UCP and thought it might be something interesting. I had just started 5th form at St. Patricks college, looking foward to a day where i was out of school and able to drive, full stop. I started as a moderator with bright eyes and a bushy tail.

25th March - 2007 - I sit on my own laptop in Canberra, Australia - my license in my wallet and a BMW sitting on the gravel outside my house. Finishing school last year i joined the University of Canberra as a student of the Architecture faculty - looking foward to whatever comes up from my life. My role as a moderator has taken me through the problems of members coming and going, the introduction and removal of the Reputation system, forum updates and hundreds of members making their own mark on the forums....and i'm still keen to go on.

I hope you guys have enjoyed the rides as much as me. heres to another 4 years of the forums