Category: Cars

I am a “car guy”… I love old cars.

Car Photo of the Day: This is NOT the Mulsanne Straight!

I don't think this is what Sir William had in mind.

“I don’t think this is what Sir William had in mind.”

The above quote is something I said to my father as I man-handled his old XK 120 down a gravel road at over 70 MPH as we hurled through a forgotten valley in the Nevada outback in June of 2000. That was over eight years ago yet somehow the theme of finding myself in the left-hand seat of one of Coventry’s finest, bumping along a rutted track keeps reoccurring in my life! In the above photo you can reconcile the lusciously sensuous curves of the bonnet of an XK SS Jaguar as it bumps along some forgotten backroad of Montana. It was the 2007 Going To The Sun Rally when Philippe Reyns offered me a ride in his factory-modified for street-legality D-type race car, and the route instructions sent us the wrong way. It ended up being something like a 6 mile detour along a gravel road… not exactly what they had in mind when the D-type was purpose-built for winning Le Mans.

Here is another shot on the same road, with a one-lane bridge:

Car Photo of the Day.

This car appeared at my little hometown “Show n’ Shine”, and event put on by the downtown merchants association. They close down Olympic Avenue, the main street through town, and it becomes a big pedestrian mall for the day. The show has prizes, but given the small-town nature my car doesn’t have a chance. They have no classes for non-American cars (does an E-type fit in “60s stock” or “Specialty Cars”?) so for me it is a day to take photos and chat with car guys… and shock the crowds by inviting people to sit in my car.

One of the challenges of photographing in this venue is shooting in crowds, and avoiding the standard ¾ shot of the car against the curb. I take one of those for every car, if only to catalog it as a car… but honestly those PHOTOGRAPHS are dull.

This photograph though, is not dull and those are the sorts of photos I like.

Car Photo of the Day: A Cat just for Mad Dog.

Just for “Mad Dog” who didn’t like the hot-rod Buick posted earlier I present this XJS taken at the same show, “Cruzin to Colby” car show in Everett, WA. BTW it is primarily a hot rod show so don’t go John if seeing Hot Rods gets your knickers knotted! 😉

Anyway, this XJS was parked here to get a pin-stripe job applied, so maybe even this will raise your BP, who knows.

To be honest, I’ve never liked the XJS. They have always appeared to be large and heavy to me. Their shape looks as if they are so heavy that they are drooping earthwards under their own significant mass. Light bends around them as they lumber down the road.

60 Minutes on THE Lamborghini

For those of us who spent the 70s as boys, with posters of Farah Fawcett on our walls, only one object of lust turned our heads faster than a Charlie’s Angel and that was a Lamborghini Countach. For a certain generation there are no other Lambos really. As a more mature gentleman in my middle age I now have a far greater appreciation of other products from Ferruccio’s tractor factory, but we all must give the Countach its due respect. In this mid-80s era video the ironically named Morely Safer provides tribute to the ferocious bull in that unique 60 Minutes style. David E. Davis provides his insight as well.

I stumbled upon this video while perusing the blog “coldtrackdays” after I saw them send a link over here for a recent CPotD. Go have a look, they have some good stuff over there.

Car Photo of the Day: Name That Car.

It has been customized a bit, and I’d bet you all a sushi lunch that there’s a small-block Chevy in there, but a lot remains of this car’s original “look & feel”… you can almost see a Thompson Gunner on that running board, speeding through Chicago in a pin-striped suit, no?

Can you name this car?

Bonus Points available for ID’ing the car on the left! 😉

I hate politics.

I really do. Politics, along with Religion, are the two things I almost never discuss with anyone save my close friends, and even then I am very guarded in what I say. These two things are very private and I feel they color the way people view one another, and that coloration deeply affects lives. If you look back at history (something I do often) those two subjects are far and above #3 (which is of course, Money) on the Big List Of Reasons Why Human Beings Kill Each Other.

A great man, that very few Americans know about unfortunately, once summed it up best with this quote:

“Politics is the seedbed of social enmity, evil suspicions, shameless lies, morbid ambitions, and disrespect for the individual. Name anything bad in man, and it is precisely in the soil of political struggle that it grows with abundance.”
–Maxim Gorky, April 20, 1917

I agree with Mr. Gorky, whose life and work were literally destroyed by the politics and political struggle that swirled around him. You can even swap “Religion” & “religious” for “Politics” & “political” in the above quote and it still stands true. They are an unstable compound that act as accelerators with each other’s combustibility. Think C3H5N3O9. So unlike most of the Internet I’m not going to bore you with punditry on the day after an election.

That said, I love this country and relish the Constitution, which I believe is one of the finest works of societal architecture ever created. I re-read it several times a year (it is even on my iPod) and it forever inspires me and gives me hope. I am neither a Democrat, nor a Republican. Neither party represents me or my views very well and their machinations frequently disgust me. Oddly enough though most Americans fall into those two camps and narrowly define each other with those two labels, unable to comprehend somebody existing outside of them. For example, my liberal friends & family assume I’m a Republican and all my conservative friends & family assume I’m a Democrat. I’m neither. I have viewpoints that intersect theirs here and there, but I do not share even 50% of their platforms.

But I do vote, and I did vote. I look forward to the peaceful transfer of power that is the hallmark of our democracy.

I will however point you to the best bit of punditry on the web today, the irrepressible Onion: Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

Gotta love, and laugh at that!