The Whip of Theze-E

Street legend tells of a young driver whose mom named Theseus but was known amongst his friends as Theze-E.

I share this here for in some tellings of the story Theze drove a Camaro, but in others it was a Civic, or a Foxbody Mustang, or an M3. In Japan they say he drove an RX7 but to hear my grandfather tell it, it had to have been a ’32 deuce coupe.

Theze got a reputation quickly for winning all the races he entered. His whip was unbeatable and word spread. Still, Theze knew his competition wouldn’t take things lying down so he began on the path of modification.

At first the simple bolt-ons for power and handling were enough to keep him on top, but as his fame grew the challengers appeared better and better equipped. So steel gave way to carbon fiber, glass to lexan, comfort to raw speed. The original powerplant was no longer enough so a stronger one was installed, in a better place than the original had been. The chassis was re-engineered stronger and lighter, suspension pickup points were moved to optimize geometry, and the car’s shape changed to improve aerodynamics.

By the time Theze’s Whip achieved its final state, there wasn’t a single atom of it that remained from when he started.

Those following his journey (in the newspaper, magazine articles, message boards, or TikToks, depending on the generation) knew its latest form to be his Whip. But then there was his buddy Hobbes, who’d been happy to collect all the parts of Theze’s car as he’d been modding. Hobbes had preserved all the original bits, and managed to put together his own Whip, exactly identical to Theze-E’s original – the one he’d originally been famous for.

So which one is the Whip of Theze-E? And at what point did Theze’s ride lose its identity as the model of car it started as?

Something I think about often with this car.

As a 5-year update, it was stolen a couple years ago (the trailer it’s stored in was stolen out of a secured RV facility, with the car inside), and as it wasn’t strapped down, ping-pong’d around inside the trailer. Hence the new carbon trunklid, spoiler, and header panel.

Can’t help but wonder though, if those mods are like Anakin losing his arm on the way to becoming Darth Vader. Cruising and shows aren’t my jam so haven’t done anything enjoyable with it since 2013. Have ideas, but that path parallels Theze-E’s journey – the end result bearing little resemblance to the starting point, with almost every characteristic of the original modified away. It’d be a whole different car.

What to do, what to do.