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Detroit, 3:59 PM
Sun Nov 22
11 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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09/11/09
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.
09/11/09
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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...
09/11/09
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.
09/11/09
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08/01/09
They're both rolling past the ninth level of the underworld, however, smoke pouring from the electrics.
08/01/09
Oh, these are child's play. where's the challenge?
08/01/09
This one goes out to our leading lady, Murilee.
Never having been terribly afraid of getting the tetanus, you buy the Triumph Herald.
Herald. Just the name makes it sound as if the angels should burst into song whenever it speeds down the road. The sun should shine and unicorns should be pooping rainbows and all that jazz.
The rust won't be a problem, you figure. It's adaptive structural loss, er, I mean, weight reduction!
Yes, that's it.
As soon as you drag the disheveled heap of a Herald into your driveway, it almost seems to ooze charisma, its quirky styling quickly charms you into a sense of being 'friends' with the car. The Herald is your little buddy in the garage, waiting to keep you occupied whenever you have some free time.
Well, ever since your 200k-a-year IT position was eliminated, you've got nothing but time and at least 12 months of FUNemployment benefits.
As you work, you discover that the car's nuts and bolts are no longer separate. The iron oxide has fused them into two weak, but inseparable pieces. As you attempt to bust the nuts that hold the puny 4-cylinder engine in place, the bolts simply snap in half and fall away. The engine practically falls out of the bottom of the car.
Brilliant. Now to remedy this car's heartbreaking lack of power. Oh yes. It needs at least 8 cylinders. Sure, you could do it the British way, and schlep an OHC 4.0L V8 in there, but that's boring, and it's been done so many times before. You need to build a unique engine and transmission combination. Following the precedent set by the swappage of SBC 350's into the former home of Jaguar V12s, you decide the best thing for this car is a big block 454 pulled from an old U-haul truck at the junkyard. Conveniently enough for you, it also came out with the transmission, though that ludicrously long shift lever needed some shortening to fit into the Herald's chassis.
Of course, with such a big engine over the wheels, the front springs (which were all rust anyways) sag, and then collapse, rupturing the tires. Smart idea, installing such a heavy motor into such a lightweight car.
But such is the work of geniuses like Carroll Shelby with the AC roadster, and the first guy who swapped a V8 into a Miata. You even consider yourself their modern day contemporaries, surely those men had to contend with the same issues you now find yourself confronted with.
You sort it out by pirating the front suspension of an early Impala, which was sprung to accomodate a 396, which, for your purposes, is close enough for a 454.
With the springs in place, you continue your journey as your 'little buddy in the garage' becomes your 'sick and twisted tormentor' as issue after issue haunts the car.
Finally, you have the car relatively close to operable condition, and opt to basically re-wire the entire car, and tear out most of the smoke-filled wires of Lucas Manufacture.
You wire up the car, and shockingly, the headlights, taillights, and instrument cluster and turn signals all work!
Huzzah!
You manage to fabricate an exhaust system, and buy a 6" cowl piece, and graft it onto the hood of the car, but ultimately end up finding out you may as well have simply put hinges onto that cowl, it needs so much space cover up that massive 454. You're not going to be surprising anyone, this car is no sleeper.
You finally have the car into drivable condition and take it onto the road for the first time. The ridiculous torque of the 454 threatens to snap the Herald's wafer-thin, er I mean, SENSITIVE chassis in two.
Still, you roll up to a red light, and wait for it to turn green.
You grin as you see the opposing light turn yellow. You get ready to dump the clutch.
The light flashes green, and you gun it. The car takes off like a rocket. Fast and gratifying with the 454 roaring, barely concealed beneath that 6" cowl. Hell, it's not covered at all from your angle. From the driver's seat you can see the engine twist and writhe as you apply throttle and shift.
And then you can smell it. Remember those taillights you'd left rigged up with Lucas wiring? The ones you'd been too lazy to change out, figuring, they're only taillights, what could go wrong?
Everything, as all the smoke inside the taillight wiring escapes and begins to burn through the rest of the wiring harness, catching the trunk ablaze, and then spreads to the fuel tank, whose fumes have been escaping into the trunk. As a grin spreads cross your face from as you shift into 5th, the tank explodes behind you, instantly engulfing you in flames.
But you are not killed instantly. Your flesh sears and burns, hot gases fill your scorched nostrils as you cry out in pain as your flaming, but still moving vehicle careens off the road.
The car smashes into a tree off the side of the road, the frame of the car crumpling behind you, you end up with your face pressed into the carburetor of the big block that ended up being much more robust than the chassis it was mounted in. As your consciousness fades, blacking out the agony, a winged form appears before you.
But these wings aren't feathery and light. Instead, they are black and look like vinyl seats. You instinctively want to recoil, but find yourself paralyzed.
This is not the herald of the angels, but rather the herald of the prince of darkness.
You lose consciousness as your soul slips from the wreckage of the herald, and the vinyl-winged demon who greeted you is all too happy to escort your soul directly to hell.
Uh, the end?
08/02/09
You're filling in for Graverobber part time. I insist.
08/02/09
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08/02/09
Not my best, by far.
08/03/09
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08/01/09