Classic doesn't just mean old

Every now and then I taunt myself with the idea of selling my '69 Mustang and '67 Cougar and buying a brand new Detroit muscle car (the new Mustang, Challenger and Camaro are fantastic). The performance, usability and reliability of the new car is really appealing. I would love to have goodies like climate control, heated seats, air conditioning, anti-lock brakes, and even airbags. When I consider the over 30k price tag my little mental exercise abruptly ends....not because its something I can't afford, but because I view it as a waste.....let me explain.

You have 25 grand burning a hole in your pocket today (currently 2013) and there are two cars for sale:

Option one is a 1969 Boss 302 Mustang...

Option two is a 2000 Mustang GT with zero miles on it...

Which do you buy?

Looking at these two options today the choice is a no-brainer. One is a iconic classic and the other is just a used car (even with zero miles).

Yet, when faced with the same choice back in 2000 I chose the other way around! To add insult to injury, now 13 years later, the 2000 GT is worth a whole lot less and well, just not that cool. Meanwhile, the Boss has actually appreciated in value and is still as distinctive and iconic as ever. One factor is that that back in 2000 I actually didn't have $25k in hand so the ability to finance the new Ford played into the equation......but the fact that I still hear this suggestion debated among car guys shows that we don't learn from history. As beautifully executed the new Mustang, Challenger, and Camaro are, in a few years (especially once the big three evolve the body styles) they will be considered used cars....NOT classics!

The phenomenon of an "instant classic" does exist, but its a very rare thing. There is an old notion among collectors that says as soon as something is made to be collectable, it is no longer collectable. For example, have you ever seen how many varieties of baseball cards are available today? They have every sort of special edition, limited edition, foil wrapped, hermetically sealed, holographic gimmick you can think of. They are bought by collectors (not kids) and are immediately stashed into secure collections. Will any of these new cards ever sell for the 2.8 Million that the 1909 Honus Wagner sold for? NO! Because those old cards were bought by kids (even though they were in cigarette packs) who enjoyed them (i.e. ruined them) eventually making the rare item even rarer.

So in summary, love your classic. Not because of its potential monetary value (I'll actually lambaste the notion of cars as investments at a later date) , but because it has already stood the test of time and it takes a special kind of person to own and appreciate it.

Something about old Ford trucks - Part II

My posts have definitely been slowing down. Basically, I've really just been posting about past exploits with hopes to make it through the winter so that I can start a more 'real time' blog in the spring.  The problem is that it won't stop freakin' snowing here in Connecticut. Temperatures are still hovering around freezing and last year at this time spring had sprung and we were in the 70's.

So for now, here's another story about something dumb I did. Just a couple years back I came across a beat up old 64 Ford F-100 locally.  The truck was a mess, but relatively complete.  As I already posted, I have s weak spot for old Ford trucks.  So I made the deal. Rented a trailer and took the family SUV to drag the project home....did I mention I forget to tell my wife? Ultimately, to make a long story short, she went nuts when I brought it home.  I think a part of the reaction what based on the fact that the truck was heinous.   Anyways, I spent some time going down the 'rat rod' theme with the project just using rattle cans and junk already in my garage.  I think it started to shape up but then I received an offer on it and sold it......a very happy day for my wife. So here it is....

Before

After

Engine Before

Engine After

I'm sure there is a Something about old Ford trucks - Part III coming some day.

Something about old Ford trucks

I like old trucks.  Maybe it stems from my brother's old truck that got us started wrenching on stuff? So when a friend of mine wanted to get rid of his 67 F100 in a hurry I was more than happy to oblige.  I just purchased a piece of land in which I was going to build a house on....the perfect justification for a tough old truck. The problem was at the time I was living in a condo complex. 

Eventually, my wife's embarrassment of having it sit in the condo parking area for everyone to see reached a level in which she gave me enough hell to prompt me to unload it.....I should have never sold it.  It was very solid, someone already re-did the body at some point. The interior was mint. The engine ran smooth and the cab was really tight.

The only silver lining is that the guy who bought it was a really interesting car guy. He actually hosts a automotive themed radio show. He had a collection of old fords including a Torino, Ranchero, Falcon wagon, and Cougar.

So basically, I finagled into the 'deal' that I would personally deliver an extra windshield I had for the truck to his house....provided he showed me his other rides.  I spent a while at his house and he traded car stories for a bit. His pride and joy was his Torino (white with blue C-stripes if I remember correctly) and he was active in the Torino enthusiasts community. He bought the Torino on the west coast and attempted to drive it back to Connecticut via Route 66.....I think he said he ran into issues midway and let AAA take care of the rest of the trip.  

Anyways, I miss that truck and what could have been.  And since then (to my wife's dismay) I have dabbled in old ford trucks again...so stay tuned for "Something about old Ford trucks - Part 2"

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

The Falcon Fiasco

I've always had a soft spot for the Mustang's forgotten sibling.  The Ford Falcon to me has the same appeal as matchbox Novas.  They are small, simple, clean and when tastefully modded just scream purpose built street machine.

One day in my journey through cyberspace I came across a guy unloading two Falcons in upstate New York. So that weekend I hooked up a trailer to the family SUV and headed north. When I found the cars they were in the middle of nowhere!  It was rural farmland and the two cars sat in a field next to what looked like an abandoned schoolhouse.  My plan was to take one of the cars (the blue one in the photos below) and whatever parts I could from the other (the gold one).  As I inspected the cars I found shed snake skins almost everywhere I looked.  Seriously, fold the visor down, snake skins. Open the ashtray, snake skins. Open the air cleaner, snake skins! This should have been enough to make me second guess my plan, but I was determined.  After all, I had already spent days envisioning myself fixing and driving this car.

Both cars were full of boxes of junk, so I started to quickly move the junk from the blue car (the keeper) to the gold car.  As I started moving the stuff I kept finding more and more shed snake skins.  At this point it started to have a minor psychological impact as I started to itch for no apparent reason! I reached a point in the junk migration where I could start to see the car's floor and that's when it happened. It was like a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom....live snakes everywhere!  I'm not scared of snakes, but the quantity of them, the fact that I couldn't identify them, and the uneasiness of not knowing where else they were became a deal breaker. I quickly shut the car. Once I regained composure I methodically stripped enough parts off the outside of the cars to make me feel like my trip was worthwhile and split.  

So my dream of building a sweet Ford Falcon is on hold, but I do have sheet metal and trim waiting in the garage for when a reptile free candidate presents itself.

How I found them...

The donor...

The keeper. Tons of potential!

The surprise!

Remember when NASCAR was cool?

The Daytona 500 kicks off the 2013 NASCAR season in a month....but I don't care! First some eye candy and then my rant....

I grew up as an avid follower of NASCAR in the 80's. However, I have zero interest in current day NASCAR. What happened? I firmly believe that in its efforts to broaden the appeal of the spectacle (which I cannot fault them for), NASCAR ultimately alienated car guys. 

"Two decades ago everybody had their own unique cars," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition and racing development. "Much of the sheet metal was out of the box from the factories and the dealerships, and you built them in a way to get your advantages however you could. You saw quite a menu of spoiler sizes and nose changes and a constant leapfrogging of technology to get an advantage. One car would run good at Michigan and then wouldn't run good at Daytona."

Everything Pemberton described in this quote is exactly why I used to like NASCAR....and it is missing from today's version of the sport.

Coupled with NASCAR's marketing machine keying in on the drivers (both their skills and personalities), the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt triggered a tremendous effort into improving driver safety (with amazing success). This ultimately culminated in the introduction of the generic race car dubbed the "Car of Tomorrow."  Without question, the COT accomplished many of NASCAR's safety goals, but it was also the final nail in the coffin in essentially removing the importance of the car, engineering and technology (all stuff I love) from the equation of determining a race's winner.

 

The crazy thing is I didn't even grow up in NASCAR's glory years (think winged warriors!). I picked it up in the mid 80's. But even then, the Monte Carlos and T-Birds were far more interesting than  today's sterile "Car of Tomorrow." Back then, we all knew people with a mid 80's G-body (Chevy Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Regal, Olds Cutlass) and if you squinted when you looked at them they looked like their racing counterparts.  My brother's first car was a '83 Monte Carlo and we loved that it had race car DNA.  In the 80's we even got a taste of the homologation days as we saw quirky stuff hit the showroom like the Monte Carlo and Gram Prix Aerocoupes...

To me, the beginning of the end wasn't the "Car of Tomorrow."  The writing was on the wall with the introduction of the Chevy Lumina. The second a showroom product that was a unit body, front wheel drive, V6 (at best) automobile appeared on the track as a rear wheel drive, V8 powered race car I knew whatever remained of the illusion of 'stock car racing' was completely gone.  Then the Ford Taurus added insult to injury by proving the showroom variant didn't even have to have the same number of doors as the racing version.  At this point, manufactures don't even offer cars with push rod V8's (but they race them).

But there is a glimmer of hope (just a glimmer).  NASCAR has announced that it intends to reintroduce some diversity among the models being raced in 2013. Its a baby step but its just never going to be what it was. 

    

I will summarize my whole point in 5 words and 2 pictures:

This...

made this...

very cool.