Last I saw this was a good year and a half ago, so I think it's time
the article was reposted, in the faint hope that it might have some
effect. It obviously didn't keep me from getting into British cars.
But then I own an MGA, not a Spitfire :-).
BTW: thanks to the loyal Scion who posted the marques. As you can
see, I've appriopriated The Octagon for my own use...
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RITES OF PASSAGE - In which Bob discovers that, in large part, it is
both unsafe and illegal to drive old sports cars - By David J. Bedard,
from Automobile Magazine, February 1988.
I see it coming, but there isn't anything I can do to talk him out of
it. It's a rite of passage every male endures, a kind of mechanical
Bar Mitzvah, only it comes enough years past thirteen that the victim
ought to know better. My friend Bob Wheeler is about to buy an old
sports car, a 1972 Triumph Spitfire.
Bob's migration toward the financial cliff begins when he sees such a
car, complete with a golden-haired goddess who is engaged in
demonstrating her fondness for the driver. The Spitfire is sold to
Bob by a man with an extraordinarily firm handshake, suede loafers,
and a Jackie Stewart cap, who could sell Mr. Coffees to devout
Mormons.
Four days after the purchase, Bob is exiting his driveway and toes the
brake pedal, as is his custom before venturing into a busy street
backward. The brake pedal slaps uselessly to the floorboard, but not
before the piston in the master cylinder, which has ruptured, squirts
eight ounces of hydraulic fluid through the firewall and onto his
feet, causing the shoe polish on his Kinneys to curdle. Bob does not
notice. He is busy pumping the pedal and eyeing a yellow Pontiac
bearing down on him at an alarming rate. When the futility of this
action strikes home, Bob grabs the emergency brake and yanks mightily
toward his armpit. The ratchet in the lever makes a busy noise, the
return spring offers comforting resistance, and the car slows not at
all. Bob gives up and steers toward his mailbox. This stops the car.
When Bob attempts to drive the Spitfire to the brake shop, using the
engine's compression for deceleration by turning the ignition key on
and off, he learns two things: (1) When he turns the key off, it locks
the steering column; and (2) switching the ignition on and off with
the car in gear causes a backfire that can be heard for many blocks,
which blows off the aft two-thirds of the exhaust system and attracts
the police, who tell him, "It is both unsafe and illegal to drive a
car without brakes and a muffler."
A few weeks and many phone calls later, Bob's car is rolling again,
until there erupts a carrots-in-a-blender noise from between the
seats. Bob spends the following Saturday at a junkyard, scrounging
for a usable gearbox at a reasonable price. He is not able to find
one anywhere. Ever. But within two weeks, he has collected two
95-percent complete gearboxes for a '71 Spitfire, one 80-percent
transmission from a '69 model that obviously won't fit but which his
shop swears is interchangeable, one 50-percent shift linkage, and two
baskets of what he thinks may represent a '73 gearbox in poor repair
but is in reality the overdrive unit from a bus.
Bob also discovers that the owner of transmission number three had
sufferd a similar misfortune and had reamed out the cases and
substituted a gear cluster from a '66 GMC pickup truck.
Weeks later, the car runs well enough that Bob unwittingly drives far
from any possible source of help. As darkness falls, he is not
annoyed that the headlights are blinking on and off, or that the
dimmer switch sounds the horn. He is annoyed that the car is emitting
an odor like burning track shoes. It is just as well that he cannot
see the short in his electrical system that began beneath his oiled
wooden dashboard and is now spreading down the wiring harness toward
the headlights and is about to supernova beneath the hood.
He pulls to the shoulder and discovers a crackling fire running the
length of the main wiring bundle. It looks like a glowing snake and
smells like Akron. Wheeler removes his $200 suede jacket and tries to
beat out the flames and then retreats to the safety of the middle of
the road, where he discovers that part of the evil scent was his hair,
which now looks like the outcome of a bizarre electrolysis mishap.
Furious, Wheeler kicks the car, and the vibration of his blows causes
the now crispy harness to drop harmlessly to the ground. The fire
goes out.
Although the Spitfire is still idling, Bob suspects the necessary
wiring for the starter has melted. He is afraid to turn the car off
so he can liberate the ignition key to open the trunk, where there is
a flashlight. Instead, he uses a length of pipe from the gutter to
jimmy the trunk handle.
Bob sets out toward home, hanging his head out the side of the car,
aiming the flashlight's pitiful beam down the road. This operation
goes well until Bob's foot slips off the clutch and he stalls in the
middle of an intersection. Only then does he confirm his suspicion
that the starter wiring has indeed burned up, and he is unable to
restart the car. He sits patiently and awaits the arrival of the
police. They tell him, "It is both unsafe and illegal to drive a car
at night without any headlights at all."
Bob agrees, wholeheartedly, imploringly, ingenuously. The policeman
softens and confesses, "I always dreamed of buying a Spitfire." Bob's
brow unwrinkles as he introduces himself with an extraordinarily firm
handshake.
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markl
----------
Mark L. Lambert
Architecture Group, Network Products Division
Oracle Corporation
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"The parts falling off this car are of the finest British quality..."
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