Rock on once again, Austin Healey!

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Anyways, it's mid-engined, wedgy, and penned by Pininfarina. No doubt, I'm going Lancia.

Take it to get a bump and paint and ogle it as it sits in the driveway. Stationary. For all eternity.

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But that scorpion. Hmmmm. The seller says it's accident damage, but that doesn't look right. I think that car was gnawed upon by bears. And you know what they say about grizzlies; once they get a taste for something, there's no stopping their compulsion to have more. Marauding bears loping out on the track in pursuit of your 24HoLMs scorpion may not necessarily be a bad thing. What better motivation to tuck into corners a little more aggressively, to wind out that raucous twin cam a bit more in each gear than an 1800 pound Ursavus Carnivora running after you, saliva dripping from its gaping maw in ropy, foaming strings.

The 24HoLMs is constantly looking for ways to make the event even more engaging to the crowd, and the entry of one of Yogi's cousins tearing the fabric roof off of the lancia like a Rollo candy wrapper in an attempt to get at the crunchy center, which is you.

Eventually you will find that the bear is actually Murilee, unshaven and barrel chested, trying to reach in and twist the key in the ignition to stop your car. The leaking exhaust has filled your lungs with carbon monoxide, causing the hallucination that Murilee is a scorpion-eating bear, and making you ignore all of the flags- first the yellow, then black, and finally the checkered. Now here, an hour after all the other participants have left the track through attrition or the end of the race, you still circle the track, fearful of the ever-closing bear.

Once Murilee gets the key out, and the lancia rolls to a stop, he grabs your helmet by the chin and rips it off your head, as a wave of fresh air fills your lungs, and your blood stream begins to return to non-lethal levels of toxins. You take a deep breath and look sheepishly up at Murilee, who now resembles less a bear and more your grandmother due to his Judges wig and heavy five o-clock shadow. Just then Lieberman runs up to give you grief for delaying the post-race demolition and the opening of the beer garden. Your head isn't quite clear, and instead of Loverman, you see another approaching bear.

Darting a glance at Murilee, he has morphed into a bear cub, and now Leaverman is the mother bear come to protect her wig-wearing offspring. You gulp, and instinctively crap your pants in terror. Murilee jumps back at the sound of your nomex-filling act, and that is your chance: the key twists easily na d a cloud of white smoke emanates from the engine immediately aft of your head. Clanging to the floorboards, your helmet plays pinball between the doors as your saw at the wheel and grind each shift as you attempt to escape the two ursine attackers.

Murilee looks at Lieberman, who is also dressed in a gown and wig, although inexplicably nothing else, and shakes his head. "Why is it always that way with you?" he demands. "What are you talking about? He was already nuts before I got here! Loverman retorts. "No, he was coming down, like that time you did what you thought was coke off that hooker's ass and it turned out to be heroin and you stayed locked in the bathroom for the rest of the night shaving every hair off your body! Remember that?" "Yeah, boy my balls itched for a week after that." They both look at the small, gold car circling the track.

Eventually Letterman asks "So, what do we do now?" Murilee looks at the car, and then to the car-dismantling crane stationed just off of the pit lane. "How many readers do we have? I mean across all the sites?" Lovesabeer furrows his brow and thinks for a minute, counting by tapping his thumb on his fingers. Finally he says "A lot." "So, one less wouldn't hurt, right?" "I guess not." responds Leatherman, and they start trotting to the wrecker . . .

So that scorpion may not be the best choice on this fine Friday afternoon.

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Oh, you can't, can you.

Hey, check out all the rust on the front quarter of the one they're actually selling in this auction... looks like it could snap any minute...

Lancia FTL.

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I had to go with the Lancia on this one. The Sprite is a fairly intense project, but there are people into them. Away from the context of Jalopnik, hardly anyone in NA has heard of Lancia.

I do like the patina of the Sprite, however. It looks like it was parked next to a train car that was being graffiti'ed, then set on fire briefly.

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You will need that whole trailer load of Lancias to keep just one running for any length of time. IF you do find parts you will probably run into things like "Sure we have 50 left brake calipers in stock, but no right ones"

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Sorry, I say it's a tie.

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Then sell the whole thing and buy the Lancia. The obscurity over the Healy puts it several points ahead in the index. Plus, other than the collision damage, it doesn't look too bad.

"not too bad" isn't that the PCH battle cry?

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