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Detroit, 12:19 AM
Mon Nov 30
13 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/11/09
Given that how much you'd spend to drive most of these cars maybe one weekend a month, it's a pretty good gig.
Of course, that's only if you want to drive these cars. To be seen in them.
I couldn't do it without the ownership experience. That's part of the draw.
09/11/09
Can't afford to buy or finance or maintain a 308? Then maybe you shouldn't be owning one. I could perhaps excuse fractional ownership with kilo-buck cars, but then again, I know lots of people who have several multi-million dollar cars in their various and sundry garages.
Sole ownership means no worries about d-bags mussing up your headrests with gel. But of course, depending on the car you buy, the frequency, complexity, and costs of repairs may have you end up feeling like you want to slam a driveshaft into your skull.
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Look at the wall and you’ll see a line painting of this very car—executed by none other than Camilo Pardo, designer of the Ford GT"
The painting on the wall is of a 308GTB/GTS, not a 308GT4.
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09/11/09
Although that's about as moist as it'd look if I was anywhere near it... *drools*
09/11/09
@englishwhitetrash: doesn't deserve a star: And for a classic English car as well...
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09/11/09
Labor Day weekend in Portland at the Columbia River Classic. Featured marque was Triumph, and they brought English weather with them. Got soaked most of the weekend.
09/11/09
That's the back stretch at PIR. As with all things in Portland: soaking wet, as Mother Nature intended.
09/11/09
Near Biblical on Saturday and Sunday....
09/11/09
Great pictures, by the way.
09/11/09
Beautiful photos guys, While pristine shops are always impressive, I like that, in spite of gloss and polish up front, our place always has some genuine grit in the back.... You've also captured all my favorite rides ('68 911, GTV, Ferrari 308 GT4, Z4M Coupe, TR6) all the real driver's cars... Even if most of them do spend too much time on the lift in pieces!
09/11/09
09/11/09
For my parent's wedding anniversary, I can't remember which one, my father got it in his head that what my mother really wanted was a classic convertible. Either an MG or an Alfa Romeo from the 80's would do, as that was the bodystyle she liked. So he scours the Atlanta papers, finds her an '83 Spider in red with the original black leather interior for a relative bargain (he thought at the time).
Now, my father is an astute man and has been working on cars, in one form or another, most of his life as a hobby. My mother's saving grace is that she will only drive a manual, but otherwise treats a car much like you treat a servant - no respect, trash everywhere and feed it scraps from the table when you're feeling generous. There's a reason she drives only Hondas and Toyotas these days. At any rate, My father goes up to purchase the Spider, runs fine, drives like an Italian sportscar should, no major mechanical issues detectable, etc. etc. He pays his cash and off he goes to surprise Mom with it.
She loves the car. For two weeks, it runs flawlessly. Until she spills her coffee mug on the floormat driving into work. Note the use of the word 'mug' and not "coffee with a lid so you don't spill it on the expensive italian car'. For those who are uninitiated in Alfas; neither the Milano nor the Spider have ever come with cupholders. By design.
When she got out of work, the car wouldn't start. It wasn't dead, it wasn't doing anything funky, it just wouldn't start. No rhyme or reason. My father gets there, car starts right up, runs like a champ. So began the love/hate relationship of my mother and what increasingly became my father's "Damned Alfa." This was par for the course, actually. The car would tolerate my mother driving it when it was aware it had no other option... but would only do so grudgingly- you could feel the loathing and the dread emanating from the dashboard. It would throw all kinds of fits when my mother decided to take it out on a whim, destroying it's own slave cylinder, spark-plug wires coming loose for no reason, e-brake cable detaching itself from the lever, not releasing the key from the ignition, so on and so forth. Neither my father nor I have ever had a malfunction when driving that car.
But, then, my father wears his english cabby driving hat when he drives it and I have a special set of sunglasses just for driving. And we both know better than to eat or drink in an Italian car.
Wankelin'
09/11/09
Who would even want a cupholder in a car that requires double-clutching or rev-matching and is happiest running between 3500 and 4500 rpm?
09/11/09
Wankelin'
09/11/09
A friend of mine came very close to making a similar purchase for a girlfriend who soon became his ex-girlfriend. Wise call to hold off on handing over the cash.
Although perhaps she would not have gotten far from his driveway in the Alfa.
09/11/09
There really is a heaven.
The more I think about it though, its really like hell. All these wonderful machines, just aching to be driven and washed. But your stuck in Manhattan and there is no where to open it up and not a single hose or driveway.
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09/03/09
It needs to lose the sissy roll bar and go back to the original atom hoop. Man up America!
09/04/09
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09/02/09
Also, non-street legal unless you go through hoops, and Brammo takes a $20K kit car from the UK and charges you $40K for a $4K engine, while also making an agreement that you can't buy kits in the US anymore, which totally sucks.
Buy a used Elise for less than half the price, supercharge it, and you have a car you can drive on the street legally, has airbags, real crush zones, and a windshield and only weighs a couple hundred more.
09/03/09
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