What You Bring With You.

  

All the way out Hwy. 170 on the way to Bodie, I was thinking to myself how nice it would have been to have brought my car instead of hers.  How fun the little Alfa would have been on the twisting mountain road, fresh, high altitude air spilling into the cockpit, warm sun reflecting off chrome.  How charming the whole experience would be, without all the casual modernity of my girlfriend’s Saturn Ion.  Then she drove right off the end of the pavement as the “highway” rather suddenly turned to dirt.  Where the Alfa would have shaken its doors off moments before beaching itself on a small rock, the little Saturn continued untroubled along an increasingly unsurfaced surface.  It wasn’t the first time, nor the last that weekend, that having a modern, practical car was something for which to be thankful.  

Human beings can bond with just about anything, but the charm-free zone that is the interior of a Saturn Ion sedan should test that theory to its limits.  On this trip however, the little car performed all that was asked of it, and in so doing, enabled one of the nicest, most fulfilling road trips of my life.  The eastern Sierra Nevada are an amazing collective experience; In three days that Saturn took us to everything from a former concentration camp, to the oldest trees on Earth.  In between, there was a ghost town, four volcanoes, a huge salt lake, and many hours of excellent bird watching.  In the process, the car was transformed from a basic utility into a repository for memories of a great adventure.

  As an enthusiast, I’ve spent countless hours thinking about what car I wanted to drive where.  Although I love racing, I have little time for dreaming about racing cars, or track days, because to me cars are about where they can take you, and how they get you there.  Like, I suspect, a lot of us, I’ve tended to emphasize the conveyance over the destination.  But for all its romance, a good road trip will scrap most of your idyllic daydreaming for more practical concerns, and in the process, remind you that the road matters as much as the car.  For every mile of seductively sinuous asphalt that weekend, there came a point where we would have had to stop and get out of the sports car, and into an inconveniently unavailable off-roader.  The Saturn never missed a beat, never made a fuss, never even seemed to notice that it was being used for something far beyond its maker’s intent.

  Cars are storytellers in their way; they carry their history with them wherever they go.  Some of them come to you with stories already hanging from their mirrors, and it can be easy to forget that an old car was once new, and not suffused with the weight of memories.  What will one day become period charm is usually the practicality of simply building a new car at the time, and treasured patina the buildup of years of constant use.

  A Saturn Ion sedan may never be a sought-after classic.  It is unlikely that one of the worst-regarded products of GM’s history will transcend its troubled birth to find fond remembrance in popular culture.  At best, it’s likely to be relegated to the kitsch status afforded the likes of Nash Ramblers and Ford Pintos.

  For me though, this one example of the car has already become something more.  Kitsch is often just a veneer of irony, covering genuinely positive feelings for a a faithful appliance.  In this sense, this particular Ion has acquired a charm which my Spider, for all the history instilled in it from day one, and all the patina wrested from the years since, has yet to replicate.  It has joined the ranks of  the sky blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser and yellow Volkswagen Super Beetle that were the first cars of my life.  It has, by enabling through practicality, become a part of what may be one of the nicest chapters of my own story, and ours.

  Sometimes, it’s not how you get there, it’s simply the act of going that matters, and the stories of others, no matter how dramatic, are no substitute for miles rolled off under you own wheels, on the way to wherever you’re going, and who you’ll be when you get there.

Just a few shots.

A couple shows happened in the last two weeks.  I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I thought I'd share a few.  I'm pretty sure that's the first Lea-Francis Twin High Camshaft engine I've ever seen.  If memory serves, that was the motor in the first Ginetta.  So there's a quite trivial bit of trivia for you...

Book Review:

I recently wrote a review of Michael Keyser's new book, Eighty Four Hours of Endurance, for MMR/Racemaker Press, and here it is.

A Test That Makes Me Think. Mostly About Why I Care, But Also Other Things.

  Ah, here they are.  Two not-quite-natural competitors, reconfigured to produce- faster not-quite-natural competitors...
  And yet, it feels somehow inevitable that the Nissan GTR Nismo, and Chevrolet Corvettte Z06 should meet, and do battle in the media.  By being top-tier, uprated products, and flagships for their respective brands, they meet at a nexus of marketing philosophy, and corporate peacocking.  They are the identity cars for the current incarnations of the marques from which they spring.
  They are also both cars that I, as an unemployed car blogger, cannot hope to afford, and which I would be unlikely to purchase if I could. With the near $80K it would take to buy a new Z06, I would be looking everywhere for both a Matra Djet, and a Tornado Talisman.  Had I the $150K necessary to secure a Nismo, I would drop nearly everything else in life, and go in search of a derelict De Tomaso Valellunga, the services of an old guard race engineer/fabricator, and a drivetrian composed of a Cosworth FVA, and a Hewland MKIX in a effort to produce my dream fast road/track day beast.
  And yet, I find myself thinking about which car I'd want.  Maybe it's because neither tick all the right boxes.  Maybe it's because I like variety.  Somehow, this completely irrelevant video caught my attention this morning, and kept it.  These two are poles apart in the way they go about creating speed.  They're also quite close in terms of overall performance.  Neither is really my thing, both are quite neat, and for once the test doesn't succeed in making me want the loser more, except maybe when I listen to it.  Both are quite expensive.  Both are relatively cheap.  And both are more than fast enough to render which is faster a moot point; which is fortunate, because as points go, it's far from clear.
  Some days all it takes is a couple neat cars, a nice road, an open, fast track, and a racing driver who talks like your conspiracy theory spouting uncle...

My Car Get's New Springs, And I Contemplate A New Car...

I think I've mentioned my Alfa Romeo in passing, but since I basically stopped writing this blog for more than two years, I should probably explain that i bought an Alfa Romeo.  So here goes.

  I bought an Alfa Romeo.

  It's a Spider, a 1972, and I had to look for it for about five months, and get it back from San Francisco to SoCal.  That was August of 2013, a few months after my terminally unreliable Ford Focus SVT finally stopped breaking down because it stopped running at all.
  So far, it's worked out to be more reliable than the Ford, and it's a complete car, which is more than I can say for the first Alfa Spider I bought, a 1974 which has since moved along to a friend who can weld.  The car was, and continues to be in terrific shape, especially considering the price I paid for it. I love driving it.  I love looking at it.  It's my only car, which contributes nicely to the development of my bicycling skills.  The previous owner had lavished a lot of time, money, and care on the car.  The only thing he did wrong, was lower the front via a set of mismatched IAP springs.
  To a degree, this is an understandable impulse with a 105-series Alfa Spider.  The cars have a nose up stance that some find off putting.  I'll agree that it's not the most sporty pose to strike, but I actually rather like it, and think it fits the upright elegance of the car.  More importantly, lowering the front of the car has functional drawbacks.  It throws the camber out of whack, and it reduces the already marginal ground clearance.  This aspect is made all the more potentially catastrophic by the fact that the lowest part on the front of a 105-Series is the sump.  The finned, cast aluminum sump.  Were it not for the add-on sump guard, I would have gone through about fifteen of these things in the last year.  The car would ground out over anything from speed bumps, to freeway compressions.  All for the aesthetically dubious goal of making an Alfa Romeo Spider mimic the stance of a Charger Daytona.

  Yesterday, I picked up the car with the IAP springs in the trunk, and the original set nestled in their perches, and now the car looks like this.

  So that's nice.  It also rides a lot better, steers lighter and sweeter, and should stop eating front tires.  Yes, I should have done this months ago.  All the car needs now is a couple front tires, and a new speedo cable, and it's good until it breaks again.  Which makes the next thing I have to say, a bit odd.

  I think I might let the Alfa go, at least for a bit, and get another car.  The reasons why are complicated, and a bit unpleasant.  It involves someone stealing my father's car from in front of my apartment while on loan to me, and the idea of letting him have my car.  He now says he does' want it, but in the interim, an interesting alternative presented itself in the form of a 1974 Fiat X1/9.

  I recently wrote an article for Driven World Magazine (it's on page 25) about these little cars, and the fact that they're among the least appreciated (financially at least) of all classic sports cars.  More to the point, I've wanted to own one for almost as long as I've wanted an Alfa Romeo Spider.

  So there's a potential deal, and it may or may not happen, and I can only afford to keep and house one car...  The Fiat isn't a long-term prospect, and I'd have to put the interior and trim back on the car, but it does come with a nice set of Campagnolo wheels.  It also comes with some of the best handling of any car I've driven, and styling courtesy of one of my favorite pens of the period, Marcello Gandini.

  So, there's that.  And I'm kind of excited at the prospect of owning a real driver's car for the first time since my lamented Nissan 240 SX went away on the back of a truck.  It's not that the Alfa isn't a drivers car in most respects, but it's chassis isn't the stiffest, and it's so nice to just sit back and enjoy cruising around in it that you tend to adopt a pace rather than dictate one.  The Fiat is a more focused beast.  It's also almost irrationally underrated, and under priced, so I don't think I'll get hurt on the investment.

  And now I really want the thing.  I want to drive around in a tiny, baby Lamborghini for a while.  in basic template it matches so many of my favorite cars.  I've driven the car before, and I know just how fun it can be.  I just don't want to give up my Alfa to do it...

Alfa's New, Terrible Ad

  Alfa Romeo may hold the record for glorious failure.  I struggle to think of another major manufacturer that has survived on laurels past for as long, has managed to move as much inferior product by comparing it to all-but-forgottten triumphs, and has produced as many happy owners of cars that slowly ruin their lives.
  I say all of the above as a proud Alfa Romeo owner, whose car is sitting at home right now, because it's a little cold out by the standards of Southern California, and it all but refuses to start.  This is the classic Alfa owner dynamic.  It long ago became cliche; especially in the US, where the youngest cars are now aged some twenty years since the marque packed up its things in 1994.  In the rest of the world, the company has long moved on to producing cars of greater quality and reliability, but far less character; to the point where the glories of old have perhaps never been more important, or less relevant.
  So perhaps it's not surprising to watch Fiat-Chrysler bring this bullshit...

... in an effort of re-launch the brand in the US.

  I'm... I'm honestly not sure where to begin; with the hackneyed automotive cliches, or the fact that the people writing and speaking about the cliches, clearly don't even understand them.  Talking about how the essence of your brand "defies description" is just lazy and melodramatic.  The appeal of Alfa Romeo's cars isn't an unsolvable mystery.  Alfas are cars that place an emphasis on enjoyment, style, and character, and over time their quirks reenforce a Stockholm Syndrome-like bond with their owners.  The 4C stands to add proudly to that tradition.
  Unfortunately, Fiat-Chrysler seem to think you only want to buy it because it looks like a butt, specifically, a female butt.  This point is rammed home as the throaty narrator speaks about the "inexplicable design of the 4C" while a female butt slides across the frame, and onto a man.  Her butt is only one of several female body parts in the commercial, all of them bringing a man some kind of pleasure and arousal.

This post is making me angry, so I put this here to remind me that I actually like these cars.

  This is perhaps the number one cliche about Italian cars; that they somehow equate to women, and that driving them is like great sex.
  Here though, is an ad that plays on that idiotic notion to an extent I have never seen.  Alfa couldn't spell the idea out any clearer had they intercut the scene where the (Male, because of course he is.) customer avatar uses his mad driving skills to switch on launch control, and let the car do all the work of getting from 0-60, with footage of an ejaculating penis, and overdubbed the engine with a satisfied grunt.  Why not just come out and say "It looks like a cute ass!  And you can drive it, dudez!  You can drive that sweet ass!"  They could also point out that this ass never wants to talk about your relationship while you're trying to eat a sandwich (Amirite?!), and only makes appropriate purring (no muffler), and gasping (wastegate chuff) noises, in response to your masterful caresses.
  Your car, any car, is not an attractive woman.  Driving it, no matter how fun, is not like having great sex.  And if you think it is, then you've never had great sex, because no matter how much fun you're having while driving, the car isn't getting anything out of it.  Everything you feel from the car was put there by an engineer.  All the feel, all the performance, the car is an appliance designed and built with the intent of giving you that.  If that's what you think great sex is, then you're not looking for sex at all, you're looking to masturbate against another human being.
  If that's a bit much from a car blog, well, this ad really gets under my skin.  I love Alfa Romeo, and I like when other people love it.  This ad makes that all more difficult, and it's completely unnecessary.  The 4C is a car that sells itself.  It's a tiny bauble of a thing.  It's exceptionally pretty, obviously quick, and designed to be enjoyable first, and useful, well, last.  All Alfa had to do was take a few nice photos of the car, and put them on TV.  Job done.  People of all walks of life could create all the fantasy and pretense needed to justify the purchase price.  And a lot of those people, would have been women.
  They still might be, but for every woman who has seen this ad, the purchase will now carry an extra cost, a need to overcome the message, and an understanding that they're not the customer Alfa is looking for, but are at best another lifestyle accessory, that customer might wish to acquire.
  On my ridiculously limited friends list there are female Robotics Engineers, College Administrators,  Archeologists, Story Producers, Writers, Editors, Executives...  Many of them would have liked this car.  Some might have bought one because they had the means, and loved it.  Some would have made sacrifices to buy one, and loved it all the more.  In short, they are no different from the men I know, and Alfa has just told all of them that they don't matter as customers, only as props in advertising.
  All of which leaves me feeling more than a little sad.  I really wanted this car to be a success, to be Alfa's actual glorious relaunch in the US.  Sure, it already turned out to weigh more than the new Mazda MX5, and the steering isn't nearly as good as it should be, and it's not exactly inexpensive, but it stood a chance of introducing a new generation of Americans to the joy having Alfa Romeos around.  It could have made people want beautiful, exciting cars.  Now though, I sort of want the whole thing to backfire.
  I just don't want a company who excludes half my friends to succeed.  So ladies look into a Porsche Cayman, or a new MX5; they're better driver's cars anyway.

Why Don't I Ever Find These Barns?

  Well, the world of seriously expensive classic cars, just got a big shock.  It turns out that about 60 lost classics, some of them of quite serious value, have been rotting away in France for decades, while no one was paying attention.  They are now.  The collection, which includes the Ferrari California and Maserati A6G/2000 that appear in the picture, will be sold at Retromobile, in February.  The list of cars includes just about every name you've ever wanted to see in your garage (With the notable exception of ATS), and several you probably never knew to want, including a Mathis, which I still have to look up.  There are an almost silly number of Talbot T26s listed.

  And thankfully, someone made a nice video of the cars before moving them.  It's a bit haunting, and very pretty, and it's not every day that these sorts of finds get documented so wonderfully before being moved, and broken up.  Anyway, here it is.

  It'll be interesting to see how much of a feeding frenzy happens when these cars hit the block.  I sort of assume that they weren't sold at the collections original liquidation because they weren't in a condition that would make the sale profitable.  But with process of reiteration projects rapidly approaching parity with those of perfect cars, we could see money changing hands on an amazing/depressing scale.

  The discovery is timely, because it turns out that the LaFerrari-based FXX K that Ferrari debuted yesterday, has already sold out.  This would have left the billionaire enthusiasts of the world scratching their heads, looking for something to buy themselves for Christmas.  A problem which is now solved also by this not-at-all-vaporware resurrection of the Willys-Interlagos version of the Renault-Alpine A-108, on which you can absolutely, factually spend a not-at-all-unreasonable $466K.  It's nice to have choices...

As for the FXX K, well, I'm still really not sure about these track day dominators.  You could buy and run an obsolete F1 car for about the same money, and get stuck behind slower cars even more of the time, if that's your goal.  I do wonder if anyone will ever manage to bring this and McLaren's P1 GTR together, but I gather Ferrari have strictly forbade the event.  My other problem with it, is that I actually think LaFerrari is a pretty car, and they've gone and done this to it...

  Speaking of LaFerrari, I haven't seen one yet.  I've ridden in a P1, but the prancingest of horses, along with Porsche's 918, has so far eluded even my sight.  It's a situation I'm hoping to resolve this Sunday, at the 11th annual Motor4Toys car show in Woodland Hills.  It's always a great event, and it supports a great cause.  If you're in the area, I recommend checking it out.

  I plan on bringing an unwrapped toy and my Alfa Spider, bald front tires and all.