Car Thread

[healey36]

Hanging out at the house doing anything I can to avoid looking at my tax stuff. Nothing more depressing than sitting around looking at the documents piling up.

I picked these off the web...a bit of good reading re: Jensen in the 1930's:





A friend of my father's had a Wollesley Hornet from the late 1950's or early 1960's. It was basically a rebadged Mini if memory serves. It certainly wasn't a two or four place sports car.

In high school I had a friend who's father owned an electric appliance store in town. I guess the appliance business was good, as his senior year he starts showing up at school driving a new white Jensen-Healey. I never thought that much of the looks of it...like the last of the MG's they'd hoisted it pretty high off the ground to meet the US height requirements, making it look a bit ungainly. The coolest thing about it was it packed a 4-cylinder 2-liter Lotus engine. Unfortunately it was a weak Lotus power-plant, or the gearbox was poorly designed...it was slowwwwwww... Regardless, it was pretty much the end of the line for Jensen.



Heading out to shovel the end of the driveway again...the plowman is killing me.

Healey

[robert.]

My wife sent this photo to me. Pretty much sums up what Sarge said "sports car season is over"

[sarge]

Yes, Robert, my cars look a bit lonely right now. We await the new season, though, with great anticipation!

Healey: Jensen? they were a company whose GT's looked better than their open cars (which that one you show to me is a very pretty car to my eye). They also had a USA-market rubber bumper that made the MG ones look beautiful.

Give me an Interceptor with a big effing V8 and a Jensen (with all its reputed flakiness) would be welcome in my string. I drove one once and it was an assault on the senses, not well balanced in feel, but they looked good and sounded better!

I had understood the Jensen Healey with the Lotus plant was supposed to be capable of 0-60 in something less than 9 seconds, which wasn't too shabby in that era, and handled almost dead-neutral; was your buddy's in poor nick?

[healey36]

Healey: Jensen? they were a company whose GT's looked much better than their open cars. They also had a USA-market rubber bumper that made the MG ones look beautiful.

Give me an Interceptor with a big effing V8 and a Jensen (with all its reputed flakiness) would be welcome in my string. I drove one once and it was an assault on the senses, not well balanced in feel, but they looked good and sounded better!

Sarge, I don't think I've ever seen an Interceptor in person, but the pic's remind me of a Jag XJS. Similarly it looks like a beast. But you know me, small and light gets my eye over the bigger iron. TVR is another one of which I know virtually nil. I've seen a few Griffiths at meets, but little if anything else. I did read recently that there's a JV between new ownership and Cosworth to return TVR to production next year (2017), with presumably yet another super car far beyond reach.

[sarge]

Oh, yes you have mate!

There were two at the Rocks. Perhaps you are thinking they are bigger than they really are.

Go look at page 16, 26SEP, at the Rocks photos to jog your memory.

[healey36]

Huh??? I must have walked right past that, but isn't that what they called the Jensen GT (hard-top version of the Jensen-Healey drop-top)? I recognize that twin-cam Lotus 907 engine in the pic. I'm confused, see here:

http://www.ridedrive.co.uk/classic-jensen-pt2.htm

I thought the Interceptor looked like this, or similar:



That thing looks looks like it could strip the paint off your car just in passing.

Healey

P.S. Reading up on the Lotus 907 engine makes me understand why they put Toyota mills in Lotuses today.

[sarge]

Oh, $hit, you're right, I was in too much of a hurry labelling that one, wasn't I!

The Interceptor was next to it, or at least in the same row; I'll go back to my pictures and dig it out. I think one of them was also at the Gettysburg meet; don't remember if it was the GT or the Interceptor.

[sarge]

Today was the fortnight's lighting-off-the-cars exercise. See if they start easily, run 'em out onto the forecourt of the workshop, let them warm up and top the batteries up.



In all the older cars I've owned, I find that regimen much better than putting them up for the winter and waking them again in the spring.

Both happily fired off. When does the season start?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

When does the season start?

Your roads are clear unlike mine, so go drive them.

[v8vega]

Once at a car show a guy had a Ford GT-40. I remarked to him that the interior looked just like my fiero's interior because it did. He got mad I could see.

[sarge]

When does the season start?

Your roads are clear unlike mine, so go drive them.

Actually, they are. It's one thing PennDot does very well out here in the hinterland. We had 3 feet drifted up with winds in places over 6 feet and in other places bare. We were moving freely in the Mini 12 hours or so after it was done. School is in session, live is quite normal. It is one hugely noticeable difference from the DC area.

I would be driving them except for the salt still on the roads...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

When does the season start?

Your roads are clear unlike mine, so go drive them.

Actually, they are. It's one thing PennDot does very well out here in the hinterland. We had 3 feet drifted up with winds in places over 6 feet and in other places bare. We were moving freely in the Mini 12 hours or so after it was done. School is in session, live is quite normal. It is one hugely noticeable difference from the DC area.

I am very well aware of PennDOT's excellence out in the wilderness - uncle of mine and his son worked/work for PennDot and the PA TP.

Of course, PennDot does not have to deal with the hordes of total morons that can't be bothered to get their frelling cars off the roads so that they can get plows in and about.... I am surrounded by barely human primates that can't outwit a turnip....that put all their cars in the street, not in their garages, nor in their driveways. And, then they complain that they can't get out because they have not been plowed yet. Some have yet to figure out which end of an idiot stick to hold......... At least Montgomery Co. opened up their parking garages to get cars off the roads - some smattering of intelligence from an unlikely location,

I would be driving them except for the salt still on the roads...

Well, that is another bit of excellence from PennDot, They don't have car washes in PA anymore? used to be one over in the 'burg...

I had my uncle's F-250....that he used when working for PennDot.....that the body eventually was about to fall off the frame, with holes in the fenders, and a bumper that was welded into place after getting wrapped around a tree.......wife liked to drive it just for the intimidation factor in expressed.

[healey36]

Here's another one of those 1/64 Kyosho kits assembled, this time a 365 GTB4 "Competizione" in a weird metallic blue:



This one was a bit fiddly as it came with a complete roll-cage enclosure for the interior.

The 365 was frequently referred to as the "Daytona". Years ago I recall watching a red 365 sit outside in the weather at a service station in Pikesville, Maryland. It sat there for three or four years, gradually crumbling to bits, then one time when I drove by it was gone. I should have stopped earlier and checked on it...could have had a Ferrari planter for the yard.

The 365 frequently rings up as one of the fan-favorite Ferrari's...I don't see it. Can't get past those weird headlights. Later they changed over to retractable which looked a bit better. Then again, who cares...it still packed a 4.4L V-12.

Healey

[healey36]

Of course, PennDot does not have to deal with the hordes of total morons that can't be bothered to get their frelling cars off the roads so that they can get plows in and about.... I am surrounded by barely human primates that can't outwit a turnip....that put all their cars in the street, not in their garages, nor in their driveways. And, then they complain that they can't get out because they have not been plowed yet. Some have yet to figure out which end of an idiot stick to hold......... At least Montgomery Co. opened up their parking garages to get cars off the roads - some smattering of intelligence from an unlikely location,

Wow, somebody's having a rough winter, and it's just been the one storm...

I'm not missin' it one bit Ruf...

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Of course, PennDot does not have to deal with the hordes of total morons that can't be bothered to get their frelling cars off the roads so that they can get plows in and about.... I am surrounded by barely human primates that can't outwit a turnip....that put all their cars in the street, not in their garages, nor in their driveways. And, then they complain that they can't get out because they have not been plowed yet. Some have yet to figure out which end of an idiot stick to hold......... At least Montgomery Co. opened up their parking garages to get cars off the roads - some smattering of intelligence from an unlikely location,

Wow, somebody's having a rough winter, and it's just been the one storm...

I'm not missin' it one bit Ruf...

Healey

I like the snow......some (many) of my neighbors are smegheads....

And, now I have another month in wrist splint and another month of PT.....