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A lifetime supply of some useless condiment awaits the winner of today’s contest!**
Name that car. Nice dashboard. Should be easy to guess.
Bonus point for naming the car parked just behind it (even easier than the car in the foreground honestly)
HUGE bonus if you can correctly identify every car in the photo.
**Not really. All you get is car-geek credibility.
The purpose of my life is to serve as a warning for others.
I spent the day today trimming various out of control green growing things back to where the wife wanted; assisting my teenage son in various other yard chores; attending to the never-ending home brew fuel system needs; making an attempt at building a box blade drag to keep my gravel driveway looking reasonable (which at the moment, it doesn’t!… too much vegetation and too many big gouges from where I play pseudo-WRC driver doing fun handbrake turns in the Jetta {sssshhh, don’t tell the wife!})
After all was done, I grabbed my youngest son, hopped in the Jag and went into town to the Burger King where the “car guys” hang out on Saturday evenings for an impromptu show n’ shine and general BS session. There is a very nice couple with a Nash-Healey that is fun to talk to, and I met a guy restoring a 1951 (Plymouth or Pontiac… I can’t recall) with a straight-eight side valve engine… hope to see it next week. Anyway, once done there I asked my son if we should swing by the airport and check on the Arlington Fly-In. As we’re about halfway between the BK and the Airport my instinct tells me “something is wrong”… I can hear a knocking sort of rattle, and give the car a sort of once-over look – the temp gauge is rising fast, and the car is starting to overheat. whaaaaa?? This car *never* has cooling problems!!
I immediately pull over and have a look. Sure enough, it is puking coolant via the overflow. Sigh. I run the fan and let it cool down for a while, and start making my way home. My instinct is to get it off the road and into the garage at home to have a look and see what is going on. Every time the temp gauge exceeds 100°C, I pull over and let it cool off. Thankfully I’m not too far from home… maybe 6 miles. The second time we stop, it is at a gas station so I buy a gallon of distilled water to replace what has boiled off. I call home and let them know we will be late. Once it cools I open the tank and pour the water in – it takes about half of the bottle. Nick & I play some turn-based games on my Treo phone to keep ourselves entertained. Take another run and get “almost” there. Maybe two miles now. This time we’re parked along SR 530 with a nice view of Three Fingers Mountain and a rising waxing moon. It is starting to get dark. Nick is trying to catch moths and I’m keeping myself entertained by removing the legend from my dash and inserting the metal strip that goes in between (I found it in the boot under the spare a few weeks ago at the slalom in Vancouver.) It is dark enough that I need a flashlight to do the job. After that is done, I take the flashlight and have a look under the bonnet and what catches my eye but a BRIGHT SHINY pulley at the front of the alternator.
D’oh!
I slap my forehead, and yell to Nick to tell him that his father is an idiot. Run to the boot and grab a spare V-belt (which drives the alternator & the water pump) and a wrench and tell him to come hold the light for his dumbkopf Dad. Less than a minute later the belt is back on and the car fires right up and we’re on our way home – temp gauge looking exceedingly normal again.
I really need to get that “I’m with stupid” shirt, with the arrow pointing up at my face. =P
On the bright side, my old belt was obviously near the end of it’s life, as the new one has the alternator much father away from the frame rail.
I have no idea where it came off… we never heard anything unusual. Weird.
Time to order another one I guess.
Over on the Jag-Lovers E-type forum/mailing list (one of my favorite and most useful “places to hang out”!) there has been a discussion about theft risk for old cars, specifically E-types. The consensus opinion is that the risks are fairly minimal and limited to these possibilities:
Number 1 is pretty easy to deal with. Simple battery and/or fuel cut-off switches are easy to make, and use. Add to this the fact that unlike a Toyota Camry you can’t just climb behind the wheel and start these things up. We figure that greater than 95% of the population could not know, nor figure out the sequence to start up one of these cars in under the few minutes it would take to effectively steal it. Choke needs to be set properly according to ambient temperature, the fuel pump needs to be run for a certain amount of time prior to ignition, the ignition key in most E-types goes into the dashboard, not the steering column, and of course turning the key on the ignition switch does NOT engage the starter motor. I could probably start winning some money by betting people $100 that they couldn’t start my car in under 60 seconds. It could help pay for parts! 😉
Number 2 is tough to prevent, if not impossible. On the risk mitigation side, the reality is that the E-type is not that rare, and not that valuable. This isn’t a Ferrari GTO, or even GTB/4. If you owned a TRULY rare Jaguar, like an XKSS, factory Lightweight E-type or similar racing-heritage Jag, both of which less than 20 were made so they are worth $millions, the risk is real. But for those of us with a mass-produced plain-jane E-type, the risk is minimal. Over 70,000 E-types were built by Jaguar Cars over a 13 year period between 1961 and 1974. While this was small-potatoes compared to Detroit’s output in those days, it is enough to make the E-type somewhat pedestrian in the collector car world. Very few E-types fetch more than $50,000 in reality, especially ones that are driven and make a relatively target-rich environment. But, if a “pro” wants your car, they are going to get it. For that the best bet is to make sure that the world has some way of matching you, with your car. The best place for that is XKEData.com an online registry for Jaguar E-types. It is a great resource and serves as a registry and place to perform research about Jaguar E-types. You can get data about VIN numbers and how to interpret them; see samples of original paint schemes; view wiring diagrams; find other cars in series or your region; etc. If somebody were to steal your XKE, then all the data used to track it is available in this very public spot. The cost involved to CHANGE/FAKE the car to another identity (cost of paint, and changing all the numbers on the car and dataplate) could EASILY exceed the actual monetary value of the car.
That leaves us with Number 3.
That’s a tough one. First of all, let me clear up one misconception right now: owning an old Jag is a personality defect, NOT a marker of a “rich person”… if anything quite the opposite given the cost of parts and maintenance! Like my friend and occasional commentor on this website Dan O’Donnell once said: “From Experience I can say it’s better to have a friend who has an E-type than to have an E-type.” Cars lose their value over time, and adjusted for inflation they represent (if lucky!) a break-even proposition over their lifetime. In the case of my car, it is still, if you’ll pardon the ironic pun, “under water.”
Most of the guys I know who own E-types either fell in love with them, or were lucky to own when back in the days when they were relatively new, and promised themselves that they’d have one, eventually, or in the case of the lucky ones, again. Very few of these people are what you’d call “rich”… like the “you’re my base” people that G. W. Bush talks to. They are people for whom this object has gained entry into their lives and through some passion and financial means, stays there. Now that they are older and have shed the main financial responsibilities (family, etc) of life, they have pursued that dream and made it reality. Most of them have bought a “barely runner” and lovingly restored it back to “driver” or “show” status. There is another group of people, like myself and Paul Wigton for whom these machines are a connection to our parents and our past. These are family heirlooms of sorts, whose value far exceeds monetary indexes. “Tweety” and “the 65E” are cars that go beyond their outer skin and embrace entire lives and histories. You can’t tack a number on that.
So how do you deter the misanthrope who has no clue to such value? Someone who only sees the shallow surface of the car as some symbol of wealth (despite the fact that the new pickup or SUV parked in the same lot probably cost more!) The person who feels the need to lash out at perceived ills and inflict damage? My car does have a “key scrape” on the driver’s door from just such a person. It remains because to fix it would cost me way too much money… money that I don’t have (ironic eh?) I live with it, but it does cause me a bit of pain every time I see it.
I love to visit car shows and see old cars. I’ve noted over the years that virtually every car will have a sign on it saying “please don’t touch.” In fact it has become such common practice that the car show identification signs usually even pre-print something similar right on them. Some people take it to extremes, with implied or direct threats should you have the audacity to place so much as a finger on their automobile. Oddly enough these signs frequently adorn cars which are truly common, with ready parts supplies from virtually every NAPA in America. When I see these signs my natural impulse, which of course I must suppress, is to reach out and place my hand on the car. Not damage it mind you, but just lay my hand upon it. I don’t know if everyone feels that impulse, so maybe I’m weird, but the reaction is very strong. It is a car! A hunk of steel and rubber, chrome and aluminum, weighing thousands of pounds. It isn’t a delicate latticework, it is the product of an industrial process capable of propelling itself at speeds which can kill people and damage property. If I touch it, it will NOT break.
So I’ve contemplated that impulse and decided to work it in my favor. I’m sure I’m not the first or only person to do so… heck it is a standard methodology for parenting children and teenagers! I proudly tell everyone on the planet “touch my car!” I’ve made a sign that I place on my dashboard. It is taped to two bits of cardboard, and slides up into the windscreen nicely. It talks about the car in general terms, and this car in specific terms, and invites people to touch it. Provided they are careful, and most people are, there is really zero risk for damage. I’m happy to have people run their hands over it. I am happy to have kids sit behind the wheel and look out over that bonnet. I’ll take anyone who asks for a ride. Honestly, I’ve let friends and even complete strangers drive it, with me in the passenger seat of course. The latter are usually bona-fide “car guys” that I meet, who have a genuine appreciation for the machine. By dropping the paranoia, and embracing people’s native appreciation for beautiful old cars, I minimize the potential for “Risk # 3” listed above.
If you are the caretaker of an old car, give this approach a try. Let me know how it works. Instead of frowns and evil-smirks, it creates smiles. I suspect that happy people don’t vandalize or steal. If you think I’m crazy, feel free to let me know.
A detail photo of the left front wheel of a Bugatti Type 55. I have no idea why there is safety wire on the knock-offs, as I don’t see any logic to the arrangement. But, it certainly seems correct on the very hand-made, but very high-craft, high-quality of the Bugatti. The Type 55 was the road-legal version of the Type 54 Grand Prix racing car… the XK-SS to the Jaguar D-type as it were. I photographed this while visiting Dean & Wendy Edmonds’ collection in Florida. It was a stop along the final running of the Forza Amelia, the only Vintage Rally where my father and I managed an outright win. That was a ton of fun. Seeing the Edmonds’ collection, and the Collier Museum were two amazing highlights to an incredible week.
The old saying goes: “Rolls-Royce’s don’t break down, they fail to proceed.”
And in this case you can add to that: “When in doubt, bring the Honda.”
Photographed in Kensington, London, UK, May 2002.
OK, I’m not a huge fan of Ferraris, but you gotta like this image. I shot it on the Forza Mille in Nova Scotia in autumn 2001. I don’t follow Ferrari models, so somebody will have to fill me in on the model number and name (550 Maranello maybe?)
Along with my collection of “weird car” photos that I already publish under the category of “weird-seen” I figure I’d start sharing my more traditional shots of good stuff too. I’ve called it “car photo of the week” but I reserve the right to publish more, or less than a photo a week. Enjoy.
–chuck
The choices for dining near my office are slim. We are in a sort of no-man’s land between Boeing Field and Sea-Tac airport. The roads, due to topology only run north-south – we are on a steep hillside, with the Duwamish river below us to the east, and the hill behind us is topped with golf courses (in the flight path of Sea-Tac of course!) North of us is the industrial flat-land of the Duwamish valley. As the Puget Sound developed, industry and agriculture dominated the flat surfaces, and business and residence ended up on hills. Downtown is on a steep slope, located there because at the base of the hill is a natural deepwater port that provided a safe place to moor ships with no risk of grounding as the tides dropped sea-level by 20 feet in 6 hours. Industry filled in the flat areas between the hills (glacial moraines) of West Seattle and Beacon Hill. With the twin residential exceptions of Georgetown and South Park, the course of the Duwamish is flanked by industry; Boeing of course being the largest. Boeing has consumed virtually all of the land between us and Georgetown, which does have some good eats. South Park, which has transformed into a Mexican neighborhood has some awesome food from that region, but requires crossing two bridges to get to. That leaves us with going south. International Blvd (nee Pacific Highway South, nee Route 99) has the redundant array of generic fast food, and a few places near the airport (13 coins, and some hotel places.) It also has a relic …a pre-Grunge, pre-historic, pre-boom Seattle throwback that is a time-warp into the past.
There was a time when Seattle was a very working-class, very industrial, very white place. “Ethnic minorities” consisted of Danes amongst the Norwegians and Swedes. Yeah, there has always been a significant Native American and Asian/Pacific population, but the area up the hill south of my office 40 years ago was not the ethic mishmash it is today. They didn’t have Mexican, Ethiopian, or Somalian groceries; no “Bollywood Video” store; no Halal meat market. They could never have called it “International Boulevard” in the 1960s unless it was a reference to the airport. Oddly enough, the street sees enough traffic that rents are too high for small “mom & pop” ethnic restaurants, so it is basically a long stretch of gas stations and fast food. There is a little Mexican place called “El Rinconsito” … the food is good, but they play the Mexi-pop tunes so loud I can barely stand it. Oh well.
But to take a trip back in time, drive to where I.B. and Military Road S. meet. There you will find “The Pancake Chef.” It is a snapshot of Seattle, before the World’s Fair. At a time when the intersection of Highway 99 and Military Road was as important as where I-5 and I-405 meet today, except unlike the Interstate you could pull over an eat anywhere in those days, instead of either flying along (or more often, staring at the license plate of the car in front of you as you stop, shuffle, stop, shuffle, stop, etc your way along.) The patrons at The Pancake Chef look like they’ve been eating here since 1962 as well. They don’t fit the demographic of the neighborhood as it stands in 2006, that’s for sure. They are pretty much all white, and all very old. The food is excellent, and deserving of that long-term loyalty, but sitting inside I’m reminded of visiting the old Fredrick & Nelson department store on 5th Avenue circa 1987… looking around and knowing that the establishment was doomed because all their customers were going to die… soon. Every time I go there I drop the median age by 25 years, and I’m not that young! Walkers and portable oxygen gear surrounds several tables. There is artwork on the wall for sale, with the business card of the artist. On that card is a phone number without an area code… dating from the days when all of western Washington was “206”. It was almost 20 years ago when 360, 256, and 425 arrived. I wonder if the artist still draws breath? The loudspeakers play a style of music that hasn’t been heard since KBRD… “as beautiful as a bird in flight. K-bird, FM 104 KBRD Seattle”… went off the air goodness knows when! String arrangements of Beatles hits, 70s TV themes, and show tunes. It is surreal to sit and play mental “name that tune” games as the playlist moves on to the next song. I get flashbacks to the dentist office waiting rooms of my childhood… all that is missing is the fish tank.
Despite the time-warp decor and surroundings, the food is excellent. I bet the menu hasn’t changed, other than prices, since the day it opened four years or so before my birth. They close early (3pm!) so it is strictly breakfast and lunch. Odd-hour meals, a staple of the 7/24/365 business I’m in, are off the menu (for that, we have 13 Coins, which I’ll have to write about someday.) Everything I’ve ordered has been fresh, tasty and served swiftly. The Club Sandwich is excellent, with buttery toasted bread, thick bacon, and tasty smoked turkey. Breakfasts are awesome. I need to work my way through their specialty pancakes and waffles at some point. My sons say their pancakes are great.
I hope The Pancake Chef doesn’t suffer the same fate as F&N, but I suspect it is inevitable. If some good breakfasts and an old-Seattle flashback is in order, I suggest a run down to Sea-Tac.