Category: life

where everything else happens

Car Photo of the Day: This car is DRIVEN.

You didn't know the Jaguar diet includes insects?

There is something of a hulabaloo going on within the JCNA (Jaguar Clubs of North America) at the moment, concerning the “Driven” class within the Concours competition. The crux of it is a ruling whereby cars in the “Driven” class are now allowed to be trailered to the competitions. To some people, including your author, this is ludicrous.

JCNA Concours are judged on “originality” and “authenticity”, meaning that as presented a car should be as close to the condition it left the factory at Brown’s Lane, Coventry all those years ago. To win at a concours requires a lot of effort, in preservation, and in restoration (if required.) This is a bit different than the more general and widely known “Concours d’Elegance” competitions such as Pebble Beach and Amelia Island, where subjective issues of beauty, rarity, historical significance, and provenance are thrown into the mix. Theoretically the JCNA style event is objective, where a judge compares a guide (canonical data compiled by JCNA concerning the models) to the physical car, and deducts points for parts judged not original, or not authentic. They have three classes: Championship. Preservation, and Driven. Championship class cars are frequently almost flawless, and are usually freshly restored, or are “trailer queens”… that is they are never driven on public roads if it can be avoided, and often are only driven on and off trailers. They are truly “show cars”. The Preservation class is for older cars who are original, but have gathered that wonderful aging we call “patina” in the car world. The ‘Driven’ class was created for people who actually drive their cars. The point scale is more generous, ignoring things like dings in the paint, and not judging the engine bay or boot of the vehicles. Overall originality is important, but “drive-ability” and “comfort” modifications are allowed, such as contemporary tire sizes and CD players.

To those of us who DRIVE our cars the Concours field is looked at with opinions that range from mild amusement to derision. Terms like “Competitive Car Washing”, “Concours d’Arrogance”, and ‘The Q-tip Brigade” frequently come up. When you drive a car, as it is meant to be driven, it collects dirt, bugs, replacement parts, and often modifications for the sake of driving pleasure, reliability, or economy. My car could NEVER win any JCNA Concours in the Championship or Preservation classes. It is not original, nor is it authentic. I could enter it in the Driven class, but it could never win. It is just not possible. The standards of “originality” and “authenticity” are kind of like the central plot point in that old 80s fantasy flick “Highlander“… there can be only one. So long as your car has even JUST one thing “wrong” with it, you WILL lose.

By allowing “trailer queens” to compete in driven, honest to goodness driven cars will only be driven from the Concours field. It will become merely the second-tier of the Championship class, where older trailer queens go when they can’t compete anymore. The truth here is that a Concours is a competition. Sure, there’s all sorts of joy to be had by hanging out with car guys all day and shooting the breeze… but at the end of the day one car wins and the others don’t. That is the difference between a “show & shine” and a Concours, JCNA or otherwise. If they are going to award a prize at the end of the day then driven has to mean driven. Otherwise it is just a farce.

I love the JCNA Slalom, and literally maintain my membership for that reason only. If they’d have TSD rallies in my region I’d do those too. But if you sever see my car on a JCNA Concours field then you will know I’m dead – the Concours rules as they stand today, are just patently absurd.

I love the history, beauty, and refined rawness that is the Jaguar E-type. It is truly a snapshot of all that was possible in 1961. It is however a machine with utility in mind. Like the horse it replaced, the automobile is a beautiful beast of burden. Just as the horse is meant to be seen at full gallop across a field of grass, a car is meant to be seen roaring over asphalt. To trailer a car to a Concours is akin to having a stuffed horse on display. It is an insult to the viewer, and a mortal injury to the horse.

Car Photo of the Day: Surprised?

Raindrops on a TT

I really like the Audi TT. I know it is just a souped-up VW New Beetle, which is really just a VW Golf with a goofy body. The TT appeals to me because it is such a “F**K Off” vehicle. Unlike Porsche, or even GM, who has to produce a car that fits within a narrow set of parameters which only their “core customers” define, Audi was able to take a small car platform, and adapt it to a unique little car, specific to their brand, that clearly appeals to an automotive enthusiast.

Audi has occasionally talked of doing what I think is my dream car: A TDI-powered TT. Audi developed the TDI into a Le Mans winning technology, so it only makes sense to offer it as an option in their product line, especially in a sports car like the TT. I’d love to commute to my job in an open-topped 2-seater sports car, powered by my own home-brewed fuel… “smelling the french fries” as it were. The torquey little 1.9L TDI, even at 90HP is good enough to motivate the little roadster. I don’t need to have 300HP to race from light to light! 50 MPG is reward in an of itself. The original roadsters, images of which often grace these pages, that is little British cars from the 50s and 60s, were rarely considered “overpowered” in fact quite the opposite. Tiny A-series engines of diminutive displacement provided plenty of smiles per mile back then, I don’t see why those days are not worth reliving, this time with Diesel.

This particular Audi TT was photographed on the 2007 Classic Motorcar Rally, which includes a division for “Contemporary” (that is post 1976) cars. It draws machines such as this Audi, many BMWs, Mistubishis, etc. If you love TSD rallying, then there’s no excuse not to join us, as any car will do. It is a fun group, with great meals, great people, tours of classic car collections, awesome roads, and lots of fun. This year the event will take place on Vancouver Island in late June. It’s not too late to sign up! Head on over to their website and check it out: The Classic Motorcar Rally.

E-type 2+2 roofline lowering examples.

The Series 1 Jaguar E-type 2+2

On the Jag-Lover’s lists/forums a discussion arises often about the odd car out of the E-type sphere, namely the 2+2. Introduced in 1966, it offered a back seat to a previously 2-seat-only car. The wheelbase was lengthened and the coupe’s top was sort of bowed upward and extended rearward. This enabled the option of an automatic transmission in the long wheelbase cars. Initially everything else remained the same; bumpers, windscreen, etc. A bit over a year later, Jaguar changed the windshield with a more raked back angle, and eventually with the Series 3 V-12 cars made it wider as well. The convertible V-12s were all based on this longer wheelbase, and wider 2+2 basic design. The 2+2 was actually a huge sales success for Jaguar and sold in better numbers in its day, but today is considered by the market to be of lesser value than the OTS & FHC. Given this position in the market the 2+2 has become sort of the canvas by which people play “what if”… many have been converted to convertibles for example. The other variation often thought of is a “chopped” roof. Many believe the bulbous roofline combined with the steep Series 1 windscreen makes for a funny beluga whale profile and wonder if Jaguar would have been better off with a lower roofline.

I grabbed a photo of an early (1966) 2+2 and ran it through Photoshop, bending and warping pixels in two ways to create a “what if” study for a few guys in the Jag-Lovers “pub” who wanted to see what it might look like. The low angle of the photo makes for subtlety that is hard to grasp, but it is a start. I may try it again with a different photo, but lets have a look…

First I just lowered the roof across the board:

Lowered

Assuming that task might be too hard to actually achieve in sheet metal, I tried a sort of cut-n-shut method where the front was lowered more than the back, with a “pivot point” fairly low on the back deck to accommodate the glass and hatch:

pivoted

Whaddya think guys?

(Honestly as I have no skin in this game beyond the pixels above I have no opinion either way.)

Two more!

For this one, I basically flattened the back-seat’s “hump” in the roof, trying to replicate the lines of the FHC:

FHC-like

The guys on the J-L pub have been comparing the process to chopping a Mercury, so I had to go that way… really LOW:

Ferrari Daytona?

…and it sort of looks like a Ferrari Daytona to me!

Werke continueth on Ye Olde Jaguar.

What's wrong with this picture?

In an hour here, and an hour there I’ve snuck out to the barn to work and tinker a bit with the 65E. My primary job is to get the filthy thing cleaned up for Spring. Between fits of that job, I’m trying to start a few minor repairs. The most annoying issue for the past year has been a wobble in the steering column. It has gotten to the point where i can’t take another frikking minute of it and I have to get it fixed before I’ll drive the car again.

Before last night I figured I’d narrowed it down to bushing failure in the upper steering column. Last summer on the GTTSR I crawled under the dashboard at a rainy rest stop and confirmed that the u-joint and lower column were OK. Mark Collien my co-driver helpfully shot this photo of me in this ridiculous position:

ah... could you hand me a flashlight? ...Hello?...

I should have addressed this last winter but never got around to it. Last night I went at it. With the car on the lift it actually became an easy task, as the steering column is already above my head. A few minutes with a flashlight and a few ½” combination wrenches and presto! The steering wheel is out, and here is all I found left behind:

All that's left of something vitally important.

The above bits fell out onto the floorboard, or were fished out of the steering column bracket. Looking at my shop manual, also known as ‘The Bentley Big Book of Lies’ (pictured above holding up the bushing bits) it shows that the column is supposed to be held still by two clips, four rubber washers, and two felt bushings. “Except for later cars, where two rubber bushings are used.” Of course no indicator whatsoever as to how a “later car” might be defined. Given that the E-type was in production from 1961 through 1974 it is hard to pin down exactly when “later” could be. My ground up rubber leavings could be a bushing OR a washer. Who knows?

So I turned to the Learned Elders of the E-type forum/list onJag-Lovers.org. If anyone can help, they can.

They’ve helped beyond my wildest dreams.

They narrow down Mr. Bentley’s vague generalization to a specific time-frame, namely the Series 1 switch from 3.8 to 4.2 engines. This happened 715 cars before mine was built, specifically in late 1964. How three years after the beginning and ten years before the end is considered “late” by Bentley boggles my mind, but there you have it. The joys of classic car ownership.

But wait, there’s more! Not only did I find that I needed two rubber bushings (not the felt+rubber+clips) but that a guy on the list named Keith had a spare set and he’d send them to me for the cost of postage. So by the weekend I should have the steering column back together again, and wobble-free.

This proves once again that old cars are a great destroyer of social barriers. Having an old car is a ticket to a kinder, gentler era, where people are friendly and don’t hesitate to help you out when you are in need. Like Todd Sudick in Priest River, Idaho, who helped me when a bolt fell out of my brake caliper. Even when not on the road the community that surrounds old cars is always here to help. Wonderful.

Cleaning continues, with all the wheel wells done:

Squeaky clean and quietly lubricated

Along with scrubbing off lots of road grime, I also gave all the suspension bits and wheel bearings their yearly greasing. Next I raise the car up a bit more and clean off the visible parts of the underside: exhaust resonators, rocker panels, etc. Finally I’ll grease the splines, re-mount the wheels, put her on her feet again, polish up the cam covers, clean the glass, and the interior. And then…

…go get it dirty all over again!

An unusual week.

My week started out normal enough. I went out for a beer with John “Mad Dog” Morrow (who is nothing at all like his moniker BTW) on Tuesday night, at the Diamond Knot Brewpub in Mukilteo, right by the ferry dock. (that begins a sort of nautical theme for the week!)

Wednesday evening I met my sister, her husband, and my nephew, along with my parents, (here in town for a few days,) at Chinooks at Fisherman’s Terminal on Salmon Bay near the Ballard Bridge.

My little sister MP, and her son Ian.

Carol Goolsbee and her grandson, Ian Gotschall.

It was fun to see them, and after dinner we went to their home in the North Beach area of Ballard. Ballard was our home from 1987 through 1999 and I have a lot of fond memories of the place. However it has changed a lot, with urban sprawl overrunning the place. It was a quiet neighborhood when we lived there, and now it seems to be getting overbuilt and gentrified. No longer home to small industry (usually relating to fishing or boats) it is being overrun with apartments, condos & coffeehouses. For example the little grocery store where we used to shop is now a HUGE condo complex.

After I left my sister’s home I drove by my old house, then stopped at my favorite little park on Sunset Hill, overlooking Shilshole Bay. It was just as I remembered it: Quiet, contemplative, and one of the best (unknown!) views in Seattle:

twilight over Shilshole Bay and Puget Sound.

Hard to see in the darkness, but trust me, it is amazing.

The next morning I left work early and hopped aboard a ferry going cross-sound to Bainbridge Island. From there I drove across Agate Pass, through the Kitsap, and over the Hood Canal bridge to the south end of Discovery Bay near Port Townsend.

The Bremerton Ferry off the Duwamish Head, shot from the Bainbridge run.

The TDI sits on the Bainbridge ferry. Seattle fades away behind.

At Discovery Bay I went to the home of Doug & Vicki Breithaupt, which is an old schoolhouse (where Doug attended in 1st grade.) I was there to attend a celebration of Vicki’s life, as she passed away on April 21st after a long struggle with breast cancer.

the Breithaupt home, on a hill above Discovery Bay

The turnout was amazing, with well over one hundred people attending. Thankfully given the nature of their home, we could all fit inside:

Doug Breithaupt sharing memories of Vicki.

The ceremony itself was very nice, with Doug presenting images of Vicki through her life and their marriage, followed by memorials provided by friends and family. Following this, three of their four children provided us with some music:

Sophia Breithaupt smiles after playing her recorder for us.

Amelia Breithaupt plays the violin, while her brother Bentley waits to accompany her on trumpet.

Afterwards we all enjoyed a potluck meal. Doug & Vicki have participated in, and organized many vintage car rallies here in the Pacific Northwest and it seemed that at least a quarter of the attendees were car people. Doug works for a non-profit that is involved in higher education scholarships and they announced that two scholarship funds were being set up; one in Vicki’s memory, to be awarded to students usually overlooked in traditional scholarship programs. The scholarship will seek out achieving students who might not qualify for traditional awards based on financial need or high-GPA. The other fund will specifically help the four Breithaupt children.

After the celebration ended I headed to Port Townsend to catch a ferry home, via Whidbey Island and Deception Pass. After a short wait, I boarded a very small ferry, the MV Steilacoom II. It seems to be far too small a vessel to be plying the waters at the mouth of Puget Sound, which is open to the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north and northwest. If any waters are going to get rough on any route the WSF runs it is this one. This evening however the weather was truly spectacular.

Rowers in Port Townsend wait for the ferry to depart.

Mid-Sound, as we crossed the main shipping channel a VERY large Ro-Ro (car carrier) appeared on our starboard bow, traveling northward at high speed. It is always impressive to see such a large vessel at speed. The Steilacoom’s skipper had to slow, and give way to the behemoth, even making a sharp turn as we crossed the wake in order to take it bow-on.

The large car carrier is the Swedish ship M/S Elektra, out of Stockholm sailing for Wallenius Wilhelmsen Lines. The photos do not adequately show how truly immense this ship is (228 meters/750 feet long) A bit of googling revealed that she’s recently been elongated and can cary 7194 cars. I watched her cross our bow, and sail off into the sunset.

Here’s a brief digicam movie from the Steilacoom II’s stern. A 360° view around, starting from NE, counterclockwise around:

You can see the Elektra there near the sun. Sorry about the bad sound and shakey-cam at the start.

The drive up Whidbey to Deception Pass, then south through Skagit county was wonderful. The sun setting behind me the whole time, as twilight is beginning to last longer and longer here at the higher latitudes. I’m blessed to live in such a beautiful place.

Name that flu… Schweinerdämmerung!

A bit of a meme has popped up on Twitter, with people trying to come up with a better name for the swine flu and its accompanying media pandemonium. My friend Damian Amrhein tweeted this one he had heard: “porkulinum panicausinus”

I used to work with Damian and his Germanic origins were always a source of geek humor around the office, so this one popped into my mind: Schweinerdämmerung!

Schweinerdämmerung!

It just seems to fit, given the whole “end of the world” hysteria being whipped up by the media. I came home yesterday to a Seattle Times headline in 72pt type “SWINE FLU FOUND HERE” … c’mon folks. More people have died falling off ladders in the last week than have been killed by this illness. But you don’t see any mass panic about the danger of ladders do you?

I don’t watch TV, especially not the news, and barely read the paper or listen to the radio. The 24hr news cycle is just too worthless to spend time on when all they can do is work into a lather about completely pointless things.