Tag: Cars

Two Kinds

Drive Time, Sports

Some guy at RedState got ahead of himself and had a go at my favorite motorsport (F1, for those who’ve been away living on the Planet Zarg for the past twenty years).

Saith Jerry:

[O]ur taste in auto racing leans heavily toward the NASCAR and IndyCar side of things. Not to slight F1, but it’s long been overly snobbish and high roller hoidy-toidy for our taste. If NASCAR is auto racing’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, F1 is its Dave Matthews Band. You get the idea.

Not quite;  the comparison is more apt if expressed that NASCAR/Indy are more like a garage band:

and F1 like smooth jazz:

Yeah, F1 is a high-roller sport;  I would have thought that Americans would understand that concept better than our European cousins, who are always just one regulation away from Pure Marxism.  (Then again, considering the Biden Maladministration, maybe we’re not doing too badly ourselves.)

Whatever.  The fact is that F1, especially with its all-new formula for 2022, is far more exciting to watch than the parabolic antics of NASCAR — and yesterday’s maligned Saudi GP at Jeddah was one of the most exciting races I’ve ever watched, of any type, despite the sideshow provided by Houthi missiles:

(And despite my dislike of Mr. Woke Lewis Hamilton, he was robbed of a higher finish by pure bad luck.)

I know that given my readership profile I’m going to get a whole lot of stick about this, but I don’t care.  2022 looks like being a brilliant F1 season.

And I don’t even like smooth jazz.

Semi-Retraction

Drive Time

As Loyal Readers know, I’m always banging on about how uniform all modern cars’ designs are — “The Wind-Tunnel School of Design” — and all that.

However.

Take a look at this picture of old Los Angeles (I think, from the bus’s color), and see what you notice about the cars (right-click to embiggen):

And this before wind tunnels…

I stand corrected.

Return To Italy

Drive Time, Travels

You will recall my last post on driving the Mille Miglia course:

…and the difficult choices listed from which one would make for a companion, and the car for the journey.

Forget the companion.  The topic is a perennial favorite of mine (I believe my first post on the topic was back in 2017), and I was thinking about it again over the past weekend.

For one thing, I can’t help but think that in doing this particular trip, the choice of car should be exclusively Italian, for the same reason that one should eat at little trattorias  along the route rather than searching for McDonalds, and drinking Chianti rather than Diet Coke.  It’s all about Italy, and one should take the opportunity to immerse oneself in the complete esperienza italiana.

Given that I don’t like most modern cars — both their homogeneous wind-tunnel shapes, and their overpowered engines — I keep going back to the cars of my youth, and was assisted in this thought by pics of a car on sale this week at a Sotheby’s auction:  a ground-up restoration of a 1974 Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV.

 

It’s neat, it’s shapely, and that little 2-liter engine is as capable of purring along at a leisurely pace through the many narrow village streets as snarling at 75mph through mountain passes and along deserted country roads.

By 1974, Alfa had pretty much worked out all the niggles typically associated with their earlier models of the Tipo 105, and I know several guys who were still driving their GTVs of that vintage when I left South Africa in 1986, a dozen years after the car’s release.  So while there would always be a threat (promise?) of some kind of Alfa-related breakdown en route, I would still be willing to take the chance.

And in the end, if I were to become marooned in some little Italian village while the local mechanic waited for spares to arrive, I’d just have to grit my teeth and endure the experience with my translator:

She’d have to be a petite lil’ thing to fit into the GTV, you see…

Okay, so maybe she’s not that petite:

So ignoring the companion, which model Italian car (e.g. 1967 Fiat Dino 2000 GT) would you choose to make the drive?  Here’s a suggested list, just to give you ideas to draw from:

  • Alfa Romeo
  • Cisitalia
  • Ferrari
  • Fiat
  • Lamborghini
  • Lancia
  • Maserati and
  • Pagani.

And if you feel like doing a little research for an hour or two before making your final decision, let DuckDuckGo be your friend… as I did.

Opulence

Drive Time, Law and Order

Combat Controller sends me these pics under the heading:  “I think someone’s police department has too much money”:

“…compared to the Sheriff’s department…”:

When you think of how often the city cop cars will be in the shop for repairs (five times per month, average) compared to the Sheriff’s cars (twice a year, average), it’s an even worse picture.

The Real Grand Tour

Drive Time

You’ve just won the Grand Prize of a big raffle.  The prize is that you get to tour  the United States AND Western/Central Europe for six months (in any combination you wish, e.g. four months in the U.S, two in Europe).  All expenses and accommodation are paid for.  You have your choice of companion:  wife, mistress, girlfriend, best buddy, Carol Vorderman, or nobody.

You also have to choose only one car for each continental leg of this trip, which may prove problematic, because they’re all classic cars.  However, in the same spirit of the Clarkson trio, you will have a support vehicle driving a couple of miles behind you, so forget about car trouble.

Also:  because of the age of the cars, interstate highways and autobahns are not recommended, so you’ll have to use lesser roads e.g. US-50 or US-287, etc.

Here are your choices for the U.S. leg (pick one only):

1932 Stutz DV-32  (5.0-liter straight eight, top speed ~ 100mph)

1934 Packard 1101 Eight Coupe (319 cub.in straight 8, top speed ~ 120mph)

1935 Duesenberg J Walker Grand Torpedo (6.9-liter straight 8, top speed ~ 115mph)

1936 Auburn Boat Tail Speedster (5.3-liter straight 8, top speed ~ 120mph)

 

Now for the “European leg”.  You can choose to tour only the U.K. in one of the three right-hand drive cars — OR only the European continent in one of the three left-hand drive cars:

United Kingdom

1936 MG SA Tourer (2-liter inline 4, top speed ~ 80mph)

1938 SS-100 Jaguar Roadster (2.5-liter inline 6, top speed ~ 100mph)

1938 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 B (2.3-liter inline 6, top speed ~ 105mph)

(I know, it’s not a Brit car;  but it is one of the most beautiful Alfas ever made, it’s RHD, and you’ll have a support team, remember?)

 

Continental Europe

1936 Horch 853 A (4.9-liter straight 8, top speed ~ 120mph)

1938 BMW 328 Cabriolet (1.9-liter inline 4, top speed ~ 110mph)

1938 Mercedes 540K Cabrio A (4.9-liter inline 8, top speed ~ 125mph)

Enjoy the trips…