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.

Bond has a new car that isn't, and evo. have done two thirds of a test we'd all like to see.

  More on the above, later.  First bit's first.  evo. magazine have gotten a McLaren P1 and a Porsche 918 together for the first time, and it went... well, not quite like we would have expected.

  For some reason, I keep underestimating the Porsche.  Yes, it's heavy, but it's also very powerful, and very torquey, and everyone who's driven it has taped about how fast it is.  Meanwhile, CAR Magazine is busy with the other bit of this test, managing to smuggle a LaFerrari out of Maranello, for a rendezvous with a P1.  Different drivers, different conditions, roads vs. track; it's not a very good situation, but I fear it will be a while before we get to see all three cars tested together.  Someone needs to do it though, because I need my vicarious throttle-jollies.

  But on to less important matters.  The makers of the next James Bond movie released a bunch of tidbits to the press this morning, and inevitably, the question of Bond's next vehicle came up.  Unsurprisingly, it will be an Aston Martin.  Shockingly (But again, not really surprisingly) Aston have nothing interesting enough in their current stable, so they've had to make something up.  Of course, that's not how Aston themselves put it.  They're building ten of them, and there's no word on any of them being for sale.  There's also no word on specs/drivetrain/chassis/ but I'd be amazed if it turns out to be anything but a dressed up V12 Vantage.  Aston don't really have the money to build an all new car at the moment.  It's a shame really, I'd like to see Bond driving a car to which one could aspire, even one for which I could never hoe to assemble the money.  By removing the car completely from reality, I really feel like something has been lost.  Then again, this all takes place in Bondland, where casting Monica Bellucci at 50 is the kind of incredibly forward thinking decision for which a director "deserves credit," and not the simple technicality of a 25 year old Monica Bellucci not having existed for 25 years.

  The other issue with letting Aston Martin make believe, is that there are a least two perfectly relevant Bond Cars on the market, or hitting it momentarily.  One is Jaguar's F-Type R Coupe.  The other is even more suitable, with one tiny drawback...

  Look, it's not like Bond has never had a German car, but he's only done so when in terrible movies. Still, with the lack of anything British that fits the bill, I think the producers should have given a little consideration to the AMG GT.  This is honestly the first Mercedes-Benz I've found really exciting since... what, the CLK GTR, and it's totally a Bond Car?  Also, it looks like this car actually works.

  On that note, I'm done here for today.  It's been raining for the last two days in  Los Angeles, and I'm eager to go for a ride, and then a drive.

Toyota's First Attempt At Simple Fun:

For everyone who's ever said that the GT-86/FR-S is too slow to be fun.

My First Column For Driven World Magazine

This is a piece I wrote, which appeared in the August 2013 issue of Driven World Magazine:

  It was about 15 miles South of Bakersfield that the Ford began running on three cylinders.  The car had, in the last two years, become the bane of my existence.  Enough so that the Ginetta G15 that Brian and I were going to see, was almost certainly a step up in reliability.  With plans already in the works to scrap the car, we decided to press on, all the way to Fresno and back.  The journey hadn’t exactly been planned, it had just sort of happened.  We should have taken a different car, but left in a rush, in a Focus that often fails to make it across town.  It was going to be a long, hot trip, and the CD player had failed years before.  Somehow, none of it really mattered.  

  Brian has been a friend for decades, but the last few years, since I moved from the O.C., have seen fewer and fewer times to get together.  And so, it was a chance for old friends to talk, and that’s what we did.  We talked about life since high school, and the Army.  We talked about marriages past and present, about the looming borderland of turning forty.  About high school reunions, why we don’t really want to go to them, lost friends, lost cars, and the way that life just never seems to go to plan.  All that time, the landscape changed around us.

  The Eastern San Joaquin Valley is a long, flat pan.  Hwy. 99 moves through it in a series of straight lines, bordered by Oleanders and gigantic Eucalyptus trees.  To the East of the Hwy, row crops run into the distance, flashing by in that distinctive Doppler Effect visual, that seems to curve their straight lines.  On the horizon, the San Emigdio Mountains, recede into Tehachapis, then the sharper peaks of the Sierra Nevada.  The route is dotted with the kind of wide spots in the road that haven’t changed much since they were founded, except to grow a Starbucks or a Quizno’s.  Many of them have strange names like Ducor, and Colinga, having seen them shortened on USGS maps, from proper names like Dutch Corners, and Coaling Station A.  Through all of it, the Focus carried us with a labored sense of dignity.  It’s always been a trusty beast; albeit one that was never put together properly.

  We got to Fresno all right.  After a couple turnarounds, we got to the house we’d been seeking.  The Ginetta, all 875cc and 1200lbs of it, was in great shape.  I was even able to fit in it.  We talked with the owner, and started looking into what was needed for the car to be driven on the road.  The owner had listed a bunch of stuff that he thought the car needed; enough to make a show queen too nice to drive.  As seen, it was the kind of car I love, usable, and original.

  We started for home.  The engine thrummed toward Los Angeles, on three all the way.  The conversation went on as the sun gradually plunged toward the horizon.  It was an adventure, and a re-acquaintance.  We realized that it had been a year since we’d seen each other, and lamented the road trips we hadn’t taken last summer.  It all took place in a room, moving from place to place, through places we would never see, but from the seat of a car.  

My mother once said to me, “I think I did something wrong, raising you.  You’re never comfortable without wheels moving under you.”  I disagree on the former, but the latter is definitely true.  There are many reasons cars appeal to me; probably as many as there are cars.  But one of my favorite things about them is the way they provide time in our lives.  They’re often seen as time wasters.  Who out there likes sitting in traffic?  But on trips like this, cars take on a distinct feel of space moving through space.  They bring us places, so much more quickly than we would be able to get there without them.  Soichiro Honda famously believed that the time your car saved you in travel, could be counted at the end of one’s life as extra years.  But in another way, cars give us time, to think, to talk, and to be away from the world.  Some of my best thinking and ideas come behind the wheel.  Cars have more than a few draw backs.  But I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather sit quietly with a friend, sip a cup of coffee, and chat.

Oh, someone put a deposit on the Ginetta the day before I called back.  Better luck next time…

My Thoughts