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This car was famous in its era for podium finishes at prestigious international sports car races, yet it comes from an unlikely place. Can you name the car, and the place?
Corvairdad nailed it on the first try: It is a 1952 Nash-Healey roadster. Here are some additional photos:
It belongs to John Gumbinger of Lake Stevens, WA, and he brings it out to our local cruise-ins at the Burger King in Arlington on sunny Saturday evenings.
Whilst driving southbound in the I-5 Express Lanes on my commute yesterday morning I spotted the above … um… thing ahead of me as we merged into the I-5 mainline. First of all, if it is 65°F and sunny outside, I would not be driving my convertible with the roof raised. But perhaps the driver of this particular Boxtser wished to remain hidden from view due to the absurd wing stuck to the ass of the Stuttgart Spyder.
I had to get a better shot of this inane Parts Store accessory aisle travesty, unfortunately the driver and the angle of the sun did not cooperate.
The driver was a left-lane sitter (the lane to his left in the shot is an HOV lane), and sat there until he approached his exit, at which point he traversed 5 lanes in front of me and I was able to grab this one:
The mind boggles. Your thoughts?
A nice MG A showing off their hard-earned Gold badge, indicating a top-10 finish at the Monte Shelton rally.
I have lots of work to do to prep the car for rallying season, which opens in a few weeks with the Seattle Jag Club “Spring Thing” followed by theTulip Rallye (put on by the MG Club!). I think Nick will be my Navigator for both of those unless any locals wish to volunteer. Let me know if you are interested.
It looks like the “Run to the Gorge” won’t be running or returning this year, as there is no info on the ABFM website.
The REAL warm-up for the Monte Shelton will be the 2009 Annie & Steve Norman Classic Motorcar Rally which will be on Vancouver Island this year. I’m really looking forward to it. I say “Real” because all the other rallies are just a casual drive, whereas the Classic Motorcar rally is a serious TSD like the Monte Shelton. It isn’t TOO serious, but it is a great shakedown for the Monte Shelton as it follows a very similar format. If you want to just have fun, it is a great time, with fun people, nice cars, good food, and great diversionary events such as tours of amazing car collections. It is much smaller than the Monte Shelton, so it has a more casual atmosphere. For those of you who don’t have a vintage car (or like John, your vintage car isn’t ready yet!) this rally has a “modern” division where you can bring whatever you like. In past years there have been modern BMWs, Audis, Mitsubishis, Jaguars, etc. Come on out, we could some (weaker) competition. 😉
Now I know just HOW off.
From the cheesy 80s spy movie spoof ‘Top Secret’. I recall that when I first saw it in college this one had me laughing out loud. The little “ting” sound is perfect.
The German truck should have been had four interlocked circles on the grille though. 😉
Indeed Spring arrived mid-day Saturday. It froze Friday night. I know this because I encountered ice in all the puddles on my walk out to the barn on Saturday morning to tend to BioDiesel production. The forecast called for sun and temps in the high 50s F. By Monday we could see temps in the low 60sF. (low teens to mid/high teens for you Celsius thinkers.)
Saturday evening I fixed one of the Jaguar’s minor ailments and went to the BK Cruise-in. While there I made plans via telephone to do a Sunday drive with Greg Bilyeau from Bellingham. We agreed to meet in north Skagit County and go to La Conner (“B” on the map)for lunch. We met at Edison Station on Chuckanut Drive at the north side of the valley. (“A” on the map:)
Being the first day of good weather in a long time the bikers were out, both motorized and non-motorized. I stopped where Greg was waiting for me and we chatted for a bit, with a show-&-tell about my recent thermoswitch repair. Our presence caused quite a few people to stop and check out our cars, including several bikers and two guys in a modern Jaguar XK8, who were on a gimmick rally out of Bellingham.
Greg and I saddled up and went south (with a stop for photos at Padilla Bay) to La Conner, only to find it packed with tourists. No tulips yet, but the warm weather brought them all out and up from Seattle for the day. We bailed, with Greg’s backup to head towards Fidalgo & Whidbey Islands for some lunch somewhere.
The photo was taken as we left La Conner heading for SR 20 to take us to Deception Pass. This is typical lower Skagit Valley farmland, which in a week or two will be awash in tulips. Of course next fall it be awash in the Skagit River, but I digress. In the background you can see the top of the Cascade volcano Mt. Baker. The Primrose yellow S3 OTS in the foreground is Greg’s 1974 E-type.
We crossed onto Fidalgo Island, then south to Whidbey over the Deception Pass Bridge. A ways past it Greg pulled over and suggested we go to Coupeville on Penn Cove (home to those tasty Penn Cove Mussels!) for lunch. We weaved down Whidbey to Coupeville, found parking and walked to a tavern, whose service was the slowest on planet earth. Eventually we had lunch, Greg a sandwich, and me some clams.
Afterwards, we hopped in the Jags and went home, splitting up on Fidalgo, with me going south through the Swinomish Reservation to La Conner, then through Conway, and Lake McMurray, and SR9 to Arlington.
You can see all my photos from the Sunday Drive here.
Today is Christopher Goolsbee’s 19th birthday. Happy Birthday Chris!
He’s away at college, so we celebrated last weekend when he was home from Spring Break.
Nicholas & I took his second drive on public roads today. Here’s a shot of him at the wheel, on our driveway about to depart:
He did well. In our first drive last week we went around the driveway a lot, then did two laps around our neighborhood. This time we went straight onto the road, and after some warm-up in the neighborhood, we went down the hill to SR 530 for some highway miles. Over to the Trafton General Store, then down into Arlington for a run to the hardware store, the Co-op for some fence materials, and then out SR 530 almost to I-5 to buy some Diesel for the Jeep. (It is still not warm enough for B100 driving and I like to keep the Jeep’s max mixture @ B80 anyway.) Sue drove my Jetta today just so Nick & I could take the Jeep. The Jeep has a slushbox, while the VW has a manual transmission. I’ll teach him to drive a stick soon, and in fact, like Chris he’ll likely take his driver’s test with the Jetta, but for now I’m easing him into the fundamentals without the complications of clutch/throttle interplay.
After we got home and emptied the stuff we bought, I tended to the BioDiesel batch in process, then went to the garage to work on the Jaguar. The big cat has been slumbering most of the winter in the garage since the barn hibernation last winter was interrupted by mice. I did take it out for a drive one sunny but COLD day in January. I meant to address a long list of minor issues with the car over the winter, but never did. I figured now is as good a time as any to get started! First Item: Fix my cooling fan for good.
Here is a view of the critical bits. The red/black wire is part of my “hack” that put a fused wire from the dashboard “map light” toggle switch directly to the fan. This allowed me to manually operate it. The fan SHOULD be temperature activated using a thermoswitch in the radiator header tank, wired to that relay you can see below the header tank at the top of the photo above. via that blue wire you see at the bottom of the photo. The “T” shaped connector drives the fan. I’m pretty sure none of this stuff is stock, beyond the thermoswitch (called an” Otter Switch” by Jaguar). You can’t see the Otter Switch installed in any of my photos as it is put in the most difficult spot to reach on the header tank and requires you to lie on top of the engine and use a mirror to see it! I used a turkey baster to suck out the coolant from the header tank, then climbed atop the XK and using a mirror and flat screwdriver removed the old Otter Switch. Here it is with the new CoolCat replacement thermoswitch:
Above: Old Otter switch on the left, new CoolCat Thermoswitch on the right. New relay (yet to be installed) upper right.
With a bit of struggle I was able to get the new switch installed. I re-wired up the fan and old relay, and decided to go for a test drive. It was a nice Saturday, so Nick & I went to the Burger King Cruise-In:
There I ran into some old friends…
John Gumbinger was there with his Pontiac Le Mans that he’s owned from the early 70s. Restored in the mid-90s, it still looks great. John USUALLY drives a Nash of some sort, but not today.
Rob McLane, one of my neighbors and whose son played little league baseball with Nick many many years ago, finally has his Model A pickup running. It is sort of a rat rod with lots of homebuilt fabrication and cut/paste going on. I like it, in a crazy sort of way.
Parked next to us was a Volvo p1800 I had not seen before:
I spoke briefly with the owner, but we had to get home to take the whole family out to dinner, so we had to dash. Nick drove us all down to La Hacienda for Cadillac Margaritas and a yummy dinner. He then drove us back, so now he has 4 drives under his belt.