Category: Cars

I am a “car guy”… I love old cars.

Alfa Romeo Montreal

Yesterday’s Car Photo of the Day was a glimpse of an Alfa Romeo Montreal.

Perhaps it is my age, but I really think the Montreal is a beautiful car. Not is an objective sense, as in being a timeless design, but rather for its particular position in its particular time. It captures so well the early 70s Zeitgeist. Like an elegant Pierce-Arrow from the 1930s, a finned GM behemoth from the late 50s, or a VW Mk1 Golf GTI from the 80s, the Montreal just looks right for its time.

Powered by a small-displacement DOHC V-8, it had 200HP and was as fast as a contemporary Porsche 911. The Montreal was displayed as an unnamed concept car at Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada. Sold from 1970 through 1975, it was a significant stylistic departure for Alfa Romeo. Less than 4000 were built. Despite their rarity, and ‘halo car’ status when new, the market has not been kind to them, valuing them only slightly higher than their GTV contemporaries. Perhaps this is due to their lack of racing history compared to their Alfa brethren who were all actively campaigned on the track.

To me the car captures so much of what the early seventies was. It evokes the looks of the sports car racers of the day, from the GT-40 to the 917, while still being a car for the street. Bertone did an excellent job crafting the overall look. The Montreal is just one of those cars that I could not refuse. Not that I’ll ever go out looking for one, but I’d never turn one down if it appeared. Like any other era, the early 70s had its share of dreadfully awful and ugly cars, but this Alfa Romeo certainly sits in the rare category of Beautiful Cars of the Early 70s.

Still Life with Hemi.

This is not a Mopar engine. It is the same Ferrari 4-cam V-12 from yesterday’s bit of engine porn. As much as the Detroit Muscle Heads would like to think the “Hemi” was invented by Chrysler Corporation it just isn’t so. The hemispherical heads have existed almost as long as the internal combustion engine itself. Even my Jaguar, with its XK engine which originated just after WWII uses the design. Yeah, its gotta Hemi.

Car Photo of the Day: A Flight of Fancy

While we’re waiting for the intrepid carspotters to sort out the identity of yesterday’s “CPotD” here’s a car that creates no mystery: The Ubiquitous MG TD. This one was spotted at the All British Field Meet in Vancouver BC a few years back. I have no idea the origin or significance of the hood ornament, but it made this T-series car stand out from all the others. (Though to be honest, it looks cheap and plasticky on the car)

My father always loved MGs, and owned an MG A when he met my mom. So in some odd way I owe my very existence to Morris Garages in Abingdon-on-Thames, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), UK. (So it is a slight irony I ended up living nearby when I moved to the UK in 1997!)

When I was a boy, my father had an MG B that he bought new, and drove every day to work. I don’t recall why he got rid of it, but not long after its departure the old MG fever hit him again and he found a tired old TD. I can still recall driving about an hour or so into Wisconsin from our home in northern Illinois to pick up the car. To my endless disappointment my older sister got to ride home with him and I was left to mope home with my mom in her ugly big blue early 70s Buick. That 1950 MG TD became our “ice cream” run, and “Sunday drive” car around the north Chicago suburbs and back roads. Dad eventually relented and agreed to carry the two of us, with either me or my sister sitting sideways in the TD’s odd little boot behind the seats. My memory is filled by the sound of the exhaust, the tick of the fuel pump, the octagonal motif throughout, the unique smell of the leather and woolen interior. The MG lasted a couple of summers, then the little engine threw a rod and required a complete rebuild. For the next year or so the TD became the subject of a restoration. The engine off at a mechanics shop, and the chassis dismantled and spread all around our suburban home; the garage, the basement, and occasionally to my mother’s chagrin, the family room. My father pored over Moss Motors and MG Mitten catalogs, and spewed all manner of new expletives into my young ears as he struggled with reassembly. While I am a passable mechanic when I put my mind to it, my father (bless his heart if he reads this) is basically a klutz. He did rise to the occasion though, and the car looked fantastic when he completed it; winning a “best in show” at a MG Club concours at it’s debut. The little red MG TD was a part of our family, moving with us to Texas, with MG Club gymkhanas, Sunday drives, and future fond memories. As we reached teenage driving age, it was used less and less though. My father’s job took more of his time and the car sat MG and more in the garage, under its “mitten”. It was shipped off to storage shortly after my parents caught my older sister out driving it around Houston in one of those “Risky Business” teenage moments. The MG TD vanished before I ever got my driver’s license, but it still left an impressive imprint on my mind, shaping a lot of my future.

I still smile whenever I see one.

Still Life with Four Cams, Twelve Cylinders, Twentyfour Valves.

More photos from that finest source of engine pR0n, RPM, the Markowski’s shop in Vermont. Pictured here are the cylinder heads of a Four Cam V-12 engine. Those readers who have turned a wrench in anger will likely have a suspicion why this engine is being rebuilt just by looking at it. Share your armchair diagnosis in the comments.

Cunningham Le Mans Cars

Petit Petaud

Le Monstre

Le Monstre

Briggs Cunningham’s 1950 Le Mans entries came up in a discussion on the Jag-Lovers forums yesterday. Since I have seen them first-hand and have photographs I promised the group there that I’d post them here today. Rather than re-tell the epic tale of the Cunningham/Collier 1950 Le Mans, it is best that I just link over to an excellent write-up on the Radio Le Mans site. It is full of humor, some French snobbery (refusing the “Fordillacs” but allowing all manner of other “mongrels”, and American resourcefulness… such as the brilliant suggestion by driver Miles Collier to make shovels part of the cargo. Go read it.

While we’re on the subject of Cunningham Le Mans cars I can’t NOT post a photo of one of his later C-series machines:

Cunningham C-4RK

Cunningham built and sold his Vignale Coupes (one is visible at the right edge of the photo) at a loss specifically to meet the homologation requirements as an “automobile manufacturer” strictly to be able to race these C-series cars at Le Mans. That is dedication… or at the very least, insanity.