Mark J Bradakis wrote:
>
> I just took
> the liberty of adding Scott to this list, though he currently owns no Triumph.
> This message will be his first from the Friends of Triumph list.
And I thank you, even though I didn't follow up on the inquiry that
started this latest round of Toad-like automania, originally asking
about the cost of a Spitfire like that shiny red one on his Web page...
> I do see a certain bright yellow MG Midget in his future come the Memorial Day
> weekend, but no Triumphs.
Well, not this year anyway. I'm about to have enough cars to play with
for the next 12 to 18 months, at least. But it hasn't escaped my
attention that a pre-73 TR6 would, in California, be easily upgraded to
triple Weber carburetion now that the smog-check cutoff has been
moved... Not this year, not this year.
> Anyway, Scott is one of us, regardless of what he's driving at the
> moment.
Wow. That says a powerful, and somewhat frightening, lot about the rest
of the folks on this list. :-) Reminds me of the scene in Braveheart
where Stephen, the Irish loony, first meets William Wallace and the
whole lot of them get these idiot grins and just laugh for about ten
seconds.
> Could it be this *Honda* is threatening to join the ranks of cars
> that only an oddball enthusiast would consider keeping around?
I have to admit that the engine in the Integra R Type gets my attention
in a fairly stiff way. But then any engine with an 8400-rpm redline
*from the factory* says that the folks working the CAD systems have
about the right proportion of iso-octane to hemoglobin.
As for cars that only oddball enthusiasts would keep around and daily
drivers: about eight months ago, I acquired an old Audi Coupe from a
friend of mine (some of you may know Daren Stone, prior owner of the
famous "Redcar" Bugeye and current president of the Golden Gate Lotus
Club). Found an Audi mailing list, joined it originally for tech advice
and parts sources.
There are folks on that list who talk about Audis as though they were
LBCs. I was amazed to find the same level of enthusiasm about old Audis
-- especially the 4000 Quattro versions, oddly enough -- as you'd find
here about Coventry's finest, or in the little knots of owners who
congregate every September for my "day before the Britcars day" tour.
People who just won't happily own or drive any other kind of car. Now,
I don't feel that way about *any* car -- though there are some specific
marques that, if I don't at least have one in the garage (even if the
garage in question is two states away), I'm just a little... restless.
The more I drive cars, especially older cars, the more I'm convinced
that *every* car has character. The trick is whether you *like* that
car's character or not. The vinyl and plastic molded dash of a Miata
says as much about its character as the peeling teak on a GT6, or the
chipped crinkle-finish black on a Sixties-era M.G. I just happen to be
bent for teak, crinkle-finish, toggle switches and round black gauges
with a certain typeface and the word SMITHS in the middle. (Or Jaeger,
printed in Italian and with metric increments...)
But the enthusiasm on the Audi list is partly derived from the shared
pains and triumphs (no pun, here, intended) of making weird old cars do
things that most others can't. It's a camaraderie of spilt blood and
hurled invective, capped by the rush of motoring in a car that you put
together, at least in part, with your own hands, at a cost of skinned
knuckles and sore shoulders. It brings to mind, as so many things do
for me, the plays of Shakespeare, in particular the speech that Henry V
gives in front of Agincourt:
Then shall he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin's Day. [...]
This story shall the good man teach his son
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
>From this day till the ending of the world
But we in it shall be remembered:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,
For he that sheds his blood with me today
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
Who fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day!
--Scott "Funny, now I've got 'Nessun Dorma' stuck in my head too" Fisher
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