Hell on Two Wheels

I have owned a couple motorcycles over the the years. Bikes have always been a very unpopular topic with the family.  Everyone from my wife to my mother to even my father disapproved. That's right, this guy here didn't like the idea of me riding:

My first foray into bikes was through a group of guys at work. A bunch of guys from the office rode, the majority had Harley's or import cruisers.  At the time I was more interested in crotch rockets than cruisers but my good friend/co-worker sold his Ninja ZX11 and bought a Kawasaki Mean Streak. I didn't know much about the 'metric cruiser' scene. He picked up the bike and installed pipes, a intake system and had it re-programmed and the result was impressive. Shiny, kinda fast and very loud. The other performance metric cruisers at the time were the Yamaha Warrior and the massive Honda VTX 1800....so I started scheming.  That's when I came across the brand new Honda VTX 1300 Retro.  It was big (but not as uncontrollable as the 1800) and had very classic lines (unlike the Yamaha Warrior). It had floor boards with a floor shifter, full fenders and a single pin crank engine to give it a nice lumpy idle.

My only complaint about the Honda was that it was too maintenance free. Actually, the issue was probably more that it was such a new model that there was no aftermarket for it.....so the only thing I could do to it was put gas in it and ride it (sounds horrible doesn't it).  Eventually, I came to the point where I didn't ride it enough to warrant owning it.....so I sold it.

At this time the chopper building TV shows caught fire...so I decided I was going to build myself a chopper. I decided to go British twin even though I knew nothing about them because they seemed affordable (and yet cool).  I started with a old 67 Triumph Bonneville frame that I bought on eBay and showed up at my front door.  I found a sick girder front end, a 750 engine, twin carb head, and invader rear wheel.  Here it is at some point during the build:

My last bike was bought on a whim. I found a dirt cheap Yamaha XS 750 from the late 70's and figured I could do something in the cafe racer motif (way before the Cafe Racer TV show) to make it cool.   I took it home and got it running. I then slapped on some clubman bars and removed whatever other parts I could.  My next step was to modify seat  but then someone made me an offer I could refuse so I sold it.

So as of now I'm bikeless. Will I own another motorcycle at some point? I'm sure of it. I'm still interested in building a cafe racer style bike, I just think I would like to do it with a 60's European bike as by starting point.  Maybe something Italian like a vintage Ducati or Benelli.  I'm also getting into the board track racer replicas people are building and am getting interested in taking a crack at one of those. We'll just have to wait and see what crosses my path.

Happy Valentine's Day to our Poor Wives

Just a quick note of appreciation for the significant others in our lives. This goes out to the people who let us name our children and pets after racing icons. To the people who tolerate us spending time on our romantic getaway to San Francisco re-tracing Steve McQueen's route from Bullitt. To the people who don't get too nutty when we drag a new project car home and to the people who have their daily driver sit in the snowy driveway while our projects stay warm and dry in the garage. To you....we say Love You.

Here's our dog Shelby...

Grandpa's Stainless Steel Car

My wife's grandfather loved to tell stories (usually the same ones over and over again).  To the surprise of my wife's family, I actually liked listening to them.  I think I was the lone participant in the story sessions for a combination of reasons. First and foremost, unlike the rest of the family, I hadn't been listening to the same tales for the last 30+ years. Secondly, my wife's grandfather (Gene) was a pretty interesting guy.  He was a technical guy who was an engineer at a local steel plant.  Many of his stories involved cars.

One time he told me about the stainless steel Fords his company produced and that he drove. Of course I questioned the validity of the story. When I think stainless steel car I think DeLorean (flux capacitor not included) made famous by the movie Back to the Future. But it turns out in 1935, officials at Allegheny Ludlum Steel Division (where Gene worked) and the Ford Motor Company collaborated on an interesting experiment.

Allegheny Ludlum, a pioneer producer of stainless steel, proposed the idea of creating a stainless steel car to Ford. The idea took shape in the form of a 1936 Deluxe Sedan. That car became the centerpiece of a campaign to expose the public to the new metal and its many uses. The stainless steel cars were perfect vehicles for increasing awareness of the quality of the metal. And over the years, this quality has been shown in its stainless performance.

Of the six stainless steel cars that rolled off the Ford assembly line in Detroit in 1936, four exist today as living proof of the durability of stainless steel.  Each of the original six logged at least 200,000 miles in the hands of Allegheny Ludlum officials before "retiring" to private ownership in 1946. Thousands of additional miles have been logged on the odometers since, and the shiny bodies have outlasted most of their non-stainless steel parts.

The idea was repeated at the end of the run of 1958 to1960 Thunderbirds, since those cars in stock form used a great deal of stainless steel for their trim. Two 1960 Thunderbirds were built in stainless steel. It was necessary to wait until the end of the production run, because the harder stainless steel would wipe out the stamping dies. With the exception of the body skin, bumpers and grille, which are made of T302 stainless steel, every other component is standard 1960 Thunderbird equipment. Also included is the first T409 solid stainless steel muffler released on a production vehicle. Both cars still have their original mufflers and T304 exhaust pipes after 25 years on the road!

Lastly, in 1966, the collaboration produced three amazing stainless steel 1966 Lincoln convertibles.

Of the 11 cars originally built, nine are still in use.  Interestingly, out of the 8600 DeLoreans produced, it is estimated that over 6400 still around today.  That says something about stainless steel.

Last note, only one of the four remaining '36 Fords is presently in road-worthy condition and was allegedly insured for 1.5 million dollars. This would have blown Gene's mind!

Gene's photo of the car in front of his plant:

Gene is the guy with the top hat:

Gene at the Indy 500 (I think):

Arrival of Big Bird

At one point ( I was probably 18) I decided I wanted to swap out the tired old 302 in my '69 Mustang.   I started combing the local paper for engines and came across an old Thunderbird that had a 429 in it.  For some reason,  I thought the 429 would be perfect for my car.   The car was local and the asking price was around $600. I exclaimed to my brother, forget an engine, I'm getting a whole car.   

The T-bird was a 1969 model which I was unfamiliar with. I was thinking it would look like the early 60's square birds...which I liked. Unfortunately, when I went to look at the car I found this monster:  



It turns out that with the arrival of the Mustang in 1964 Ford decided it had to change the direction of the T-bird. To differentiate the T-bird product,  it went upscale with many luxury appointments. It also went 'up scale' as Ford abandoned the unit body construction and reverted to a massive body of frame design.  To call the car big is an understatement.....it was gargantuan.  And it was a two door to boot. One cool thing is that the four door version of these beasts utilized suicide doors.

One of the first things I learned about this car (and quickly came to appreciate) was how hard 'luxury' was back in the 60's. The T-bird was loaded with little simple features that we take for granted today. One example was intermittent wipers. When sitting in the T-bird I realized that the wiper switch in my Mustang only had three settings (off, slow and fast).  Today, we'd hardly consider intermittent wipers worthy of a check box on a new car's option sheet....but back in 1969 this was cutting edge technology.  The scary thing is how Ford executed things like the intermittent wipers, tilt away steering wheel, remote trunk release, sequential tail lights, recessed headlights, etc. They were mostly complex electro-mechanical devices (not solid state) and often depended on what appeared to be countless vacuum reservoirs located throughout the car connected by seemingly miles of vacuum tubing.    

As I became a fan of the quirkiness of the T-bird, the vision of pilfering the engine, transmission, rear end and possibly brakes for my Mustang faded.   I just couldn't bring myself to part out this obscure luxury liner.  This was further complicated by my father's reaction to the beast.  I didn't exactly tell him I was buying it. I just bought it, drove it home, parked it the driveway and split for a couple hours (to avoid the initial reaction).  When I arrived home I thought for sure I was going to get read the riot act.  In fact, when I first saw him I swear I was able to read his lips and it had something to do with killing me.   But as I approached him, ready to face the music for parking a two ton monster in his yard (unannounced), he went into raving about what a nice car it was.  Later at one point, when my brother and I were working on it, we told him our plan to remove the drive train and scrap the car....he just looked at us and said "Fix it."  For years after that, my brother and I would use the "Fix it" quote on each other as a mantra whenever working on projects. 

I never had the time or resources to finish that project (I was focused on the Mustang) but I never had the heart to scrap or part that car out. Instead, my brother eventually finagled a deal to trade it for a Porsche 924....a story I'll tell at a later date. 

  

Drive of a Lifetime - Amalfi Coast

I just received my copy of National Geographic's book called Drives of a Lifetime.  It details 500 of the world's best road trips.

Going through the NatGeo book I came across one of my favorite drives: The Costiera Amalfitana, or Amalfi Coast

The popular Amalfi Coast route follows the shoreline from Sorrento south to Salerno. The roads along the Amalfi Coast are famously winding, narrow, and challenging to drive. Add in drop-dead views and daring Italian drivers, known for their behind-the-wheel bravado, and this road trip offers one of the more exciting driving experiences in Europe.

For the greater part of its route, the road is carved out of the side of the coastal cliffs (built by the Romans), giving spectacular views down to the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the other side up to the towering cliffs above. Add tour buses, cars and scooters all fighting for space on hairpin turns along cliffs and you have a memorable drive. Yet every corner seems to reveal an even more stunning view of the ocean, the villages, the rows of lemon trees and even the clouds above.

  

 In 1953, American writer John Steinbeck, described the road as "...a road, high, high above the blue sea, that hooked and corkscrewed on the edge of nothing, a road carefully designed to be a little narrower than two cars side by side. And on this road, the buses, the trucks, the motor scooters ...!"

A couple of conventional pointers on making the trip...

Locals recommend planning a drive of the Amalfi Coast during the off tourist season, mid-September to October and May, when the road is less crowded and lumbering tour buses are fewer.

It is also recommended to make the drive starting in Salerno (and driving north to Sorrento).  This is because supposedly the tour buses are only allowed to drive north on the route, and this avoids you having to deal with them head on.....by the way, when I made the drive I went south and passing the buses was very interesting.

Here is a list of less conventional rules I found on the internet for driving the Amalfi Coast. They are not likely to be found in any of the standard tourists' guides but I can honestly vouch for each one:

1. Don't look down. 
2. Don't look up. 
3. Don't look--it's easier that way. 
4. Forget about camels not passing through the eye of a needle.
5. Timidness will get you nowhere--literally. 
6. The solid center line in the middle of the road is merely a suggestion. 
7. Whoever gets to a lane first has the right of way--it doesn't matter whose side the lane is on. 
8. Traffic mirrors are put there so that you can see what you are about to hit head on. 
9. Tour buses WILL back up. (This one is true; they don't want a fender bender that will upset the itinerary of all their passengers.) 
10. Garbage trucks WON'T back up. 
11. Motorcyclists are fearless. 
12. Pedestrians are fearlesser.
13. Five headlights coming toward you equal two cars plus one motorcycle, or one car plus three motorcycles, or five motorcycles, all equally probable.
14. The probability of an accident is very low; at 40 mph around a hairpin curve 1000 ft above the sea EVERYONE pays attention. (Same is true for the Autostrada: at 130 mph, nobody's attention wanders.) 
15. Have plenty of limoncello on hand at the end of a day spent driving the Coast.

 

The book also features quite a few routes in the States and I will highlight a few more of them over the next few months. But if world travel isn't your thing you can try Reader's Digest publication called The Most Scenic Drives in America