Blerv's Car Chit-Chat

[awa54]

In the late '60s, I was driving through the hot, gritty town of Victoria, Texas when I spotted a faded, red fender peeking out from under a tarp behind a gas station. It seduced me faster than Angelina Jolie in a slit dress.

The gas station manager did not know much about it except that the owner had put a Corvette engine in it. Then he confessed that vandals had stolen the top and bucket seats. A yellow, wooden Coca-Cola crate was now the driver's seat and he fired it up for me. The body was aluminum and it had only one small badge to help identify it. The asking price was $400.

When I got back to Texas A&M I did some research in the library (the only research I ever did in college) and determined that the sensuously styled sports car was a rare Arnolt Bristol. The Italian designed body was originally wrapped around a British Bristol straight six and they competed in road races like the Mille Miglia in the '50s.

Sadly, I did not have $400 nor the time or place to take on a project. The Army was waiting for me after graduation. Here is an article from 2009 where one sold for $165,000.

http://jalopnik.com/5287718/1956-arnolt ... sic-165000

lol, the top comment on that jalopnik thread you linked is my brother! he voted crack pipe...

[Evil D]

The sound of this thing at 17:53 is enough to make me want to put stock car style side exit exhaust on my Mustang. I don't know how they drive this thing around LA and not get pulled over, I couldn't make it off my street without someone calling the cops.

https://youtu.be/UonisqLOnXo

[jmh58]

So.. Today I take my Tacoma to a friends garage to rotate the tires as my floor jack don't go up enough.. Ray has been a mechanic for close to 50yrs.. Last week a fellow showed up at his shop with a 64 Malibu looking for someone to replace his points/condenser.. Seems he had been looking for a while and could not find anyone!! WOW!! Talk about feeling old.. Looks like another lost art.. A screwdriver and a dollar bill and 15 min and you are down the road.. These young guys need to look back and maybe learn a few things.. Other wise the old car hobby is going to slowly disappear.. Computers/laptops are taking over.. John :)

[Blerv]

The sound of this thing at 17:53 is enough to make me want to put stock car style side exit exhaust on my Mustang. I don't know how they drive this thing around LA and not get pulled over, I couldn't make it off my street without someone calling the cops.

Haha, I'm sure they get a pass as it's an old classic. Decibel laws are pretty dang restrictive; most Honda's can violate it with a race muffler let alone a large V8. Also for some reason Harley Davidson can make bikes that far exceed the volume (and emissions) without problem. Maybe it's the same same way they rate leaf blowers :p Just kidding.

So.. Today I take my Tacoma to a friends garage to rotate the tires as my floor jack don't go up enough.. Ray has been a mechanic for close to 50yrs.. Last week a fellow showed up at his shop with a 64 Malibu looking for someone to replace his points/condenser.. Seems he had been looking for a while and could not find anyone!! WOW!! Talk about feeling old.. Looks like another lost art.. A screwdriver and a dollar bill and 15 min and you are down the road.. These young guys need to look back and maybe learn a few things.. Other wise the old car hobby is going to slowly disappear.. Computers/laptops are taking over.. John :)

Geeze. A world where you can't find someone to change points in a car or tune a carb...seems like we are going there. Luckily Pertronix makes a drop-in eliminator for the points. The carb situation is a bit more difficult; I would probably find a good mechanic to tune it and pay him/her with expensive cuts of steak and scotch. :D

[Evil D]

Haha, I'm sure they get a pass as it's an old classic. Decibel laws are pretty dang restrictive; most Honda's can violate it with a race muffler let alone a large V8. Also for some reason Harley Davidson can make bikes that far exceed the volume (and emissions) without problem. Maybe it's the same same way they rate leaf blowers :p Just kidding.

Jay probably gets a pass because he's Jay Leno. My car isn't as old as that one but it is 31 years old. I'm just not famous.

[v8r]

I actually thought about buying a reman points distributor just in case a EMP got dropped on us. I figured I could swap the distributor in, and I would have a vehicle.....then I wised up. It would probably be difficult to buy gasoline if the pumps were out......not to mention everyone's car would be dead in the road, and all in the way!

[Mad Mac]

A used, 1962 Buick Skylark convertible was my first car. Very similar in appearance to the one pictured below, it had the tiny Buick 215 cubic inch aluminum V8 engine with a four barrel carburetor and the GM two speed automatic. That was a fun car for a college student in the late '60s, but met an ignominious end when I had to trade it in for a boxy Plymouth Fury four-door sedan, appropriate for a responsible married man expecting a baby.



The 215 V8 was discontinued by GM in 1964, sold to Rover in 1965 and used in Rover sedans, Range Rovers and Defenders up until 2004. Along the way, it also powered the Triumph TR8 and MGB V8. It is somewhat of a cult engine and still popular.

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

I love cars, same as you Blerv - anything that's been designed as an enthusiast's vehicle instead of a shopping trolley.

Ford Falcon xr6t (DOHC 4.0 inline 6 cylinder w/Garrett gt3582r).

Factory 245kw/480nm. Mine had injectors, cat, custom flash tune 280rwkw.




Toyota Corolla. With the help of friends it was given a 4age+t. (DOHC 1.6 4cylinder w/HKS 2540). Haltech tune 130rwkw, weighing in at 850kg.





Current car is a Volvo V50 AWD (DOHC 2.5 inline 5 w/ Borg Warner ? Turbo) 169kw / 330nm
It's a bit different but I really like it.

[Blerv]

I love cars, same as you Blerv - anything that's been designed as an enthusiast's vehicle instead of a shopping trolley.

Ford Falcon xr6t (DOHC 4.0 inline 6 cylinder w/Garrett gt3582r). Factory 245kw/480nm. Mine had injectors, cat, custom flash tune 280rwkw.

Toyota Corolla. With the help of friends it was given a 4age+t. (DOHC 1.6 4cylinder w/HKS 2540). Haltech tune 130rwkw, weighing in at 850kg.

Current car is a Volvo V50 AWD (DOHC 2.5 inline 5 w/ Borg Warner ? Turbo) 169kw / 330nm
It's a bit different but I really like it.

Wow sir, my hat is off to you :D. That Falcon is my dream car; I just live in the wrong country and Ford started doing world platforms too late . The other cars are great too!

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

They are good cars, better than most give them credit for. They aren't as polished overall as some but that engine/gearbox!!

I really wish my wife was paying more attention earlier in the year. It's gone

[Mad Mac]

The statute of limitations has run out on my old car stories, but I shall press on. Because they are BD (Before Digital) my own photographs are packed away somewhere in boxes and the pictures below are facsimiles. Click on the images to visit the web site from which they were scraped.

When I was stationed in Wurzburg, West Germany in the early '70s, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, I yearned for a BMW 1600, but being the practical family man that I was, bought a VW Squareback instead. However, even on the meager salary of a Second Lieutenant, I was able to buy a used second car.

In the 1960s, Fiat in conjunction with Abarth built factory racers to compete with the Austin Mini-Cooper. Abarth exhaust systems were also available for European hotrodders.

The 1965 Fiat 850 Abarth I bought was not a factory edition, but was modified by an enthusiast to look like one. A form fitting, thinly padded, fiberglass bucket seat ensconced the driver, a state of the art Halda Speed Pilot mechanical rally instrument (no GPS back then) dominated the dashboard and a Spider transaxle filled the rear fenders. That rorty little car was a blast.

Here is a picture of a factory car that mine was painted to look like.



The front of mine was simply painted flat black and had the requisite Scorpion decal in the middle.



Here is a Halda Speed Pilot like the one I had.



A few months ago, a new Fiat Abarth 500 pulled into my small town. I casually mentioned to the driver that I had a Fiat Abarth once, in 1970. The young man's expression was the same one you get when you show a card trick to a rooster.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

What do you think of the DeLorean and if you could own a DeLorean are there any design changes you would make on it or would you leave it as it stands?

[Mad Mac]

My son's podiatrist had a DeLorean. His license plate read FOOT DR.

The stainless steel was so difficult to keep looking nice, some people painted theirs.

They will probably become collectibles and were a bargain when you could find them for $15,000.

The Texas company that bought out DeLorean may be able to start producing them again,
but this time with 300-400 hp.
Now there's a design change.

[Blerv]

What do you think of the DeLorean and if you could own a DeLorean are there any design changes you would make on it or would you leave it as it stands?

The DeLorean had a bunch of problems from the beginning. An underpowered Peugeot-Renault-Volvo engine and a stainless body that was heavy. Like Mad Mac said the SS oxidized over time so many people (back in the day) painted them. If I had one I would have to at least gut the drivetrain.

IMHO, I would find a similar looking car and build on it. You would have a better platform for a fraction of the money since it's not a "collector car".

[Evil D]

They're building DeLoreans again out of all new old stock. You can basically buy one brand now now.

[Mad Mac]

They're building DeLoreans again out of all new old stock. You can basically buy one brand now now.

In 2017 you can buy a brand new one for about $100,000 or one their restored ones for about $50,000.

[Mad Mac]

This is a real Saab story.

To reward myself for passing the CPA exam, I decided to finally get a sports car like I had always wanted. The one that fit my price range had a few problems, which is what made it affordable. $1,400 and I was the proud owner of a svelte two-seater Saab Sonett III like the one pictured below.



The first and easiest thing to fix that helped with the appearance a lot was that one headlight was lazy and would not line up with the other, giving it a resemblance to the late Jack Elam, a popular character actor of that era you may remember as the deliciously funny, self-medicated anesthesiologist in Cannonball Run.



A mechanical lever connected to one end of a metal tube raised the headlights. Judicious heat and calibrated force applied to the tube brought the errant lens back into alignment. The next problem was a little tougher.

The poor thing was sagging on the right front corner. One scary slip with a spring compressor later, I handed it off to a spring building and restoring company in Houston which brought it back to the correct ride height, or at least the same height as the left side. The third problem was the most difficult.

In the 1960s and '70s, the Saab 96 and the Sonett I and some of the IIs had three-cylinder two-stroke engines. Yes, you read that right. The driver had to add 2-stroke oil to the gas tank at every fill up. In the middle of the Sonett II production, Saab acquired the Ford of Germany Taunus V4 engine. An ugly bulge in the hood provided clearance until the advent of the slippery Sonett III. And that's not all.

When attempting to use engine braking with a two-stroke while descending a hill, the driver would instead be met with the familiar two-stroke ring-a-ding-ding and plume of blue smoke. To prevent this, Saab added a coasting mechanism in the transaxle. But wait, there's more.

When the torquey little V4 with its dual exhaust was mated to the transaxle, it did not take long to mangle the coasting ring which resulted in an unsatisfactory motoring experience. To resolve this problem permanently, the solution was to weld up the coasting thingy. To accomplish that, the engine and transaxle had to be pulled.

A rental engine lift and a good natured wife made it possible to do the job in the garage. A quick trip to the Saab dealer with the transaxle and they welded it up for me. Stuffing everything back in was a little tricky, what with lining up two half shafts and all. At one point I had a handful of grease and needle bearings. There were probably more needle bearings than it needed anyway. To cap it all off, I bought a custom license plate.

Orange and other "safety" colors were popular in the '70s and the Datsun 240Z shared that color as well as the silhouette of the Sonett. People would look confused and ask me if it was a 240Z. It was at that time that there was a popular TV commercial describing 7Up as "the un-cola". The license plate read "THE UNZ". Then people would look confused and say, "the uns?".

My sports car itch had been scratched. When it came time to sell my project, however, not everyone seemed as enthusiastic about the Sonett III as I was. Might have had something to do with the fact it had no air conditioning, in Houston. Ultimately sold it for $1,700. My out of pocket expenses were only $160 so I made a profit of $140, checked one off the bucket list and had some fun.

[Blerv]

Very cool car and build :). Honestly I like the old Saabs far more than the new ones. At least they seem funky and reliable :D

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

I've never seen one of those Saabs here in Australia.
Great colour, I had an E30 Bmw in hennarot which is similar

[Blerv]

A week from now this will be in the driveway :). Buying Dad's 2005 Mazdaspeed Miata. 7,000 original miles.

Has a Magnaflow muffler, Sparco Sprint seats, and fresh Conti ExtremeContact tires.

Black hardtop, Flyin Miata downpipe, FM intercooler, FM intake kit/Recirc turbo valve in the storage unit waiting for the day. Going to replace radiator hoses and do a fresh fluid change (coolant and tran and diff oil).

The intake kit includes a boost controller and boost gauge. I think I'm going to shelf them for now. Would be going from only like 7 to 10psi but I want to install a water/meth injection kit as a safeguard. "Grown-ups" can't afford to blow engines when they are busy buying knives :p.