The worst of British engineering and British build quality. No thanks. I was pounded on the earlier thread regarding good looking crap cars for picking the TR7. It is hard to remember, but these were very exciting when they came out. They were an affordable design icon. Until you actually wanted to use the car on a daily basis. For my 1980 PCH I am going for my father's MGB that needs a major redo. For less than this TR7 I can get the MGB up to snuff and even go for the Moss fuel injection that will cure much of the unreliability of the malaise SU single carb.
TR7
When they came out they were stunning. But absolutely horribly built. I would also add late 70's MGB's. Pretty much anything late 70's British as crap underneath.
I had been eying this book at the local Borders and Motor Books near Trafalgar Square, London (Motor Books is worth a review of its own, a whole book store devoted to things with engines.) When I saw you were going to review it I gave in and blew the £30. This is a fabulous book, the pictures are high quality and the text really educates you on an area of car-dom most of us will never see let alone hear about. For those in the UK, there is a nice description of Lada sales in Britain and even includes British Lada jokes. Of special interest to the Jalopnik crew are the sheer number of car based pickups. Finally, my favourites were the 40's cars with 4x4 chassis' and the Packard look a like that could ford 550mm of water! A true indicator of Soviet road building.
Cosworth Vega. 4 valve per cylinder engine, fuel injection, header, etc. The suspension was actually well done, but it was in the dissolves in a light mist rust bucket Vega body. Add bizzare features like the optional stereo having one channel in front and the other in the back since they didn't want to add more speakers and you get the idea.
(But I love my Firethorn Red '76 with the 5 speed)
It looks like a TR3 at 3:55 and the oddest one I checked a couple of times is at about 1:20 I swear that is a Jaguar. Very fun thanks for the posting.
Wow, I learned to drive in a 131, they were named Brava later. (The 131's initially had a 1.8 if memory serves). It was even the same pale lemony yellow. Like all Fiats it eventually dissolved and dropped the drivers seat through the floor while being driven down the street. Even when relatively new the electronics were a horror, the car did not like to drive in any kind of damp weather. It would be a true hell to keep it from rusting away faster than you could replace the metal and would only run semi-reliably in a desert. Still, those few moments of motion would be bliss.
After 4 years living in the UK we move back to the US this summer. So my list is:
1. Get the 81 Reliant Robin in my garage home,
2. Start a serious restoration of my 42 Ford pickup that I owned since I was 17 and was my first vehicle in high school. Oddly, being overseas gave me time to find on eBay a dual carb intake and an Isky cam for the flathead 6.
1. Get the 81 Reliant Robin in my garage home,
2. Start a serious restoration of my 42 Ford pickup that I owned since I was 17 and was my first vehicle in high school. Oddly, being overseas gave me time to find on eBay a dual carb intake and an Isky cam for the flathead 6.
Middle class Americans made decent wages and had benefits, it is so terrible we should wreck the country to prevent it happening. (We should resent this. The fact that median wages were hi meant those with educations would earn more. Not anymore, our wages will fall too) Oh, and all the engineers, designers and other highly educated jobs at the Big 3 will go too. (Hmmm, why would you go into engineering if there are no jobs. Friedman and the other idiots haven't answered that one. Students will take on huge loans for degrees where there are no jobs but somehow magically "innovate" our way into the future? Duh, no.) Same with all all the suppliers (by the way, these suppliers typically supply multiple manufacturers so those of you who think Ford will be fine if GM and Chrysler fail haven't been paying any attention). It is also worth mentioning that those overseas companies are supported by their own governments. And theri plants here were often very heavily subisdized by local govenments. Instead we should have a system where only low payed assemblers exist in the US while all the highly skilled jobs and profits go overseas. That is we got with this vote. What a disaster for us now and our children.
Yes! We have a baby blue 72 Glaspar 16 foot tri-hull with the original Mercury 80 hanging off the back. With a summer house on an island it serves pick truck duty to haul supplies, building materials etc. in between tubing, water skiing and sunset cruises. We always get comments when we roll into a marina for gas. I only wish I still had my 72 LTD that I used to pull it. It was a real 70's combo. And I would not mind a snow plow or a tractor once in a while.
I love how the problem is that the autoworkers get reasonable wages and benefits. The problem ought to be that the rest of us are not getting them and how to fix that. It's just the politics of resentment that has been pushed for the last 40 years. Interestingly, Germany has strong unions and all their auto workers are well paid and have benefits. I don't see anyone here complaining about that and denying themselves their precious BMW or Mercedes.
The black Lincoln stripped of all the chrome but the bumbers and grill, slightly chopped and with the motor and wheels from the orange Lincoln would be the definition of an evil ride. I want.
One was single handedly in one weekend swapping a small block V8 with a spun bearing in a 74 Caprice with a rebuilt long block. I had only a tree limb and a come-along as an engine hoist. Firing it up Sunday afternoon felt great.
The other was getting a 42 Ford 1.5 Ton truck with a flathead V8 running for the first time in decades with only new plugs and a lot tinkering. I had got it cheap because the previous owner thought it would never run again.
Really sad to see the Ford line go. Ford made dedicated trucks (not the pickups) from almost the beginning. I have a 42 1+1/2 Ton, but these were very beefy for the supposed capacity. Dually 20 inch wheels on a massive floating axle differential and big frame with a 12 foot flatbed. They ran the car engines but made up for it with a lot of gear. Top speed was less than 45, but with the granny first gear on the 4 speed they could get rolling with a massive load on the bed. Mine had the extra springs (it was a former Pepsi delivery truck) but it was assumed that most of these would be bought by farmers who would load them to until the springs sank. Another bit of Americana gone.
I want to weep with joy at seeing a 131 in America that hasn't dissolved to the basic elements. I learned to drive in a 131, it was one of the most fun cars I have ever driven. The engine revved beautifully (well, when it wasn't raining or cold or a Tuesday or...)and the handling was light and predictable. When the best American competition was maybe the Monza, this was a shocking joy. What said fun more than grab handles above the doors, so you could hang on as you threw is around a corner. It even had that weird Fiat driving position where your arms were straight out. The five speed was smooth, it was good in every way (again except for starting in the morning or afternoon or evening or...) It finally returned to mother nature like almost all Fiats of that vintage, rusting away until the seat fell through the floor while being driven one day. The rear axle mounts failed, and with a bad clutch what little remained went to the junk yard. But here is one today. I feel better about the world than I have in long time.
Motor Trend or Car and Driver did a review on these in the 80's during the hight of everything American is crap and everything Japanese/German is great. They admitted it lifted the rear wheels off the ground under emergency braking with two people in front. Despite a clear safety problem they recommended it since it was a Toyota. I lost all respect that their car reviews were remotely objective.
This reminds me of years ago, Hot Rod or Car Craft had an article on a guy who got an original unmolested 57 fuelie Nomad from some relative or such, a really great deal. He sold off the injection unit and did the pro-street thing to the rest of the car. I felt ill reading the article. I let my subscriptions lapse and haven't read them since. It was a really long time before I came back to being interested in hot rods again. I was just sick of the mega dollar cars and the whole pro-street thing. It wasn't until the old school hot rod thing came in that I was interested again. Rat rods are now over-blown too, but there again seems to be a place for the guy working on his own car on a limited budget.
£71, multiply by 1.8 to convert that to Uncle Sam's currency.
The Model T let people finally travel for the first time when and where they wanted. The horse was slow, the train only went a few places and on it's own schedule. Up to the T, cars were for the wealthy because of cost and complexity. But with the T, the average person could travel beyond the circle of their town or farm. There are fabulous pictures of people converting their T into a camper or pulling homemade trailers and traveling to see what was over the hill. It made the US, already a nation of wanderers into even more a nation of wanderers. Whole industries, food service, hotels, expanded because we could suddenly travel. The Model T started a very democratic process where the average person could travel farther and faster than their parents ever dreamed of going. We should all be grateful for the Model T.
The M25 around London. Traffic all the time, I have been stuck in a jam at 1 in the morning. Speed cameras every 100 metres and any accident results in them closing the entire highway (for health and safety they won't do the US thing of closing a couple of lanes). The choas on the surrounding roads when this happens is unbelievable. After I come back to the US I promise to never complain about the roads again. At least the M25 doesn't use a giant roundabout when two motorways cross (instead of a cloverleaf ) like most of the other UK intersections.
I thought I was only one that likes the Pontiac rally wheels. I had a nice set off a 72 Pontiac Granville that I ran on my 74 Chevy Caprice Convertible. They held about the biggest passenger tire made at at the time. Freshened up with black, polish the shiny parts, trim rings and some generic centers. Finding the deep dish chrome trim rings could be a bit of a challenge today though.
