Cosmetic lowering. Looks really cool - like it would improve lap times. However car can no longer be driven, as driveways are all too steep, cross streets must be taken at a 45 degree angle at 2 MPH to avoid scraping off the exhaust system and/or causing bodywork damage, a pull-tab or frost heave may require dental repair, and somewhere around 55 MPH on the freeway a cyclic porpoising effect can cause collateral brain damage. While looking good, though. ... View more

Agreed.  Jack could probably make the contents panel on a box of Wheaties an entertaining read!! ... View more

Hits close to home, Jack.  Thank You!! ... View more

Rod bolt. First race of the season. Riverside Int'l Raceway. Between the dogleg and T9 @ about 8100 RPM. Blew holes in both sides of the block, cut the oil pan in half, I spun in my own oil and backed 'er into the boilerplate wall still going Goodness Gracious fast. Shortened the car about three feet. The sudden stop jerked the engine off the mounts and punched the starter motor armature and bendix out through the cast aluminium end plate and it rolled down the banking. A thoughtful corner worker tossed it back into the seat. The cherry on top. And yes, I built the engine. ... View more

Good stories and great writing Josh! We are all waiting for more now.  And Thanks for your service!!   And Thanks JB - this guy is yet another Lap Record you have set!! ... View more

The least expensive therapist I have ever had...!   Thank You Jack!!! ... View more

For 17 years I worked in the Parts Department of a Toyota Dealership that also carried Land Rover on the other side. We watched the jaw-dropping carrying-ons that happened on the "other" side with wide-eyed horror. It was like an alternate universe out of a science fiction novel. And I am under no illusions regarding the famous Toyota reliability.   And then my surgeon father-in-law bought a 2004 BMW Range Rover because his wife LOOOVVED it Sooo much!!!!   "What do you mean the water pump IS the alternator??!"   "And a water pump replacement is HOW much...???!!"   Ah, them was the days!   Nailed it Jack. ... View more

1968 Mustang. 302 4 speed. Bought the year I graduated from High School, 1971. 248,000 (hard) miles later my son learned to drive a stick in it and it was his car in High School as well. We both thought we were a Cool Breeze in High School in the same car!!  ... View more

And THIS is why I am here!   Thanks Jack. ... View more

Beautifully said, Jack!! As my kids became teens I began to understand how aggravating I must have been to my parents. Long hair, bell-bottoms, loud cars and motorcycles.  Your kids need to see themselves completely different from you. It's their job. Yesterday I looked at an iphone picture a friend took and I look exactly like my Dad. How cool is THAT?! ... View more

Seattle to Los Angeles 17 hours. No fuss, no stress. Comfy and capable with a slippery holster. ... View more

A parent who worries about being a good parent is a great parent, and they are in short supply....!  My son loved racing dirt bikes but he had to do all his own wrenching. I loved the bikes, he loved the competition, we both loved the speed. He learned to drive in the 4-speed Mustang I bought during my senior year in High School. We both thought we were a cool breeze in the same car in High School! He does the wrenching on that now too. Still has it (to humor me I suspect). Runs a computer tech company now. Always his first love was computers, but he feigns interest in car stuff so we have something in common. He is a good human and I am proud of him. How cool is that?! ... View more

I would be thrilled to drive - let alone own - any of these! They were expensive works of art built by visionary craftsmen for those wealthy few who could afford special cars of outstanding quality. Kept, maintained, and restored down through the years to be enjoyed by those that can afford them and appreciated by the rest of us. And why denigrate those who worked hard and become wealthy?? The "public" these days seems mostly interested in their smartphones. More's the pity......  ... View more

I am pretty clear that Al Unser Jr. was not winning Sprintcar races in 1970...........but Big Al was The Man. ... View more

The "Venturi Effect" leaves an unpleasent mural all down the side of an E350 van and the H-Prod Sprite racecar on the trailer behind it regardless of door position and ground speed. All my Car and Driver magazines are long gone. I will have to search for his book. "No such mewling hangups" indeed. Thanks Jack. ... View more

Bugeye Sprite. ... View more

Roadtrip car. ... View more

My Mom's 1949 Nash Landau Convertible.   Maroon (purple), Yellow wheels and no front bumper. Dad found it in a neighbors yard. Splashed out a dollar for it, towed it to the Flying A gas station. They got it running (sort of...) and Mom drove it for about four years. Said it was better than walking. This was actually not true if you were 16 with a brand new drivers license and wanted to be cool.....   On The Green at Pebble Beach though.....!!! ... View more

Me and my pal Steve Johnson, T6 Riverside Int'l Raceway 1981 ... View more

Thanks Jack! Good stuff. A lot of us like the Real Thing. ... View more

Nice article, fun read - but you youngsters unfamiliar with carburetors should know the pump of the pedal squirts fuel into the venturi FROM the float bowl not INTO the float bowl!   😉 ... View more

Convertibles - but NOT the same! ... View more

I bought a Miata for my daughter. My son had just gotten his drivers license, he and I flew back to Detroit, picked up the Miata and headed home for Los Angeles. Only Two Rules - NO freeways, only two-lanes, and NO restaurants we had ever heard of or seen advertised. We went to every National Park or Monument we could find on the way.  THAT is how to see America!! ... View more

I have red, blue&white. ... View more

At 12 years old I used $15.00 of my paper-route to buy a BMW Isetta 300. Missing a gas cap and with a gas tank half full of brown water that smelled like turpentine. Probably had a lot to do with it not running. A few days later the older brother of the seller turned up and offered to punch my nose if I didn't give him his car back. There was never any paper work so that seemed like a good idea. I was 13 when the Deacon at church offered me a '49 Ford Woody station wagon his former tenants had abandoned in the yard. In pretty decent shape but the transmission and clutch were on the passenger floor. Dad towed it home with Mom driving. Got a $35 ticket for towing a $25 car without a safety chain..... For three years I worked on my dream car. Got it back together properly, running well, refinished the all wood, did the upholstery, interior, everything. Got my license on my 16th birthday - and wrecked it two weeks later in a routine traffic accident with serious consequences. I would like to have that one back.....     ... View more

I have a bit of a weakness for British cars I guess. Here are a couple we raced in Cal Club. The MGB with the Healey 100. ... View more

My '56 Austin Healey 100. BN2, I am the second owner from new. mostly original, not restored just fixed up a bit to make a really nice driver. ... View more

Thanks Jack, another great read. Like a rather more pithy (pissy?) Peter Egan I enjoy your writing. Even when it makes my little pea-brain hurt trying to keep up. And Thanks to Hagerty for this oasis of journalism!   ... View more

My wife and I folded the windscreen down on the Healey and in a brief moment of sunshine between rain clouds here in SoCal had a nice drive - with plenty of fresh air! Surface street traffic seemed fairly normal but freeways are 1960's wide open. Police were apparently all busy down in Malibu issuing $1000 citations to desperado outlaw surfers. ... View more