Car Thread

[rogruth]

Those tonneau covers can be a bitch if caught in the rain.

[John Webster]

An operating replica of Cugnot's 1768 steam artillery tractor:







This was at the fancy car show at Stan Hywett Hall in Akron last fall. It ran at a fast walk. It is based on the original which is in a museum in Paris and period drawings.

[rogruth]

Somewhere I saw a video of this vehicle in operation but don't remember where.

[John Webster]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsEbeCrPcA8

[MurphOnMillerAve]

... I'm turning 76 next week so I want to enjoy my third childhood before I croak.
Tony

Wow, you sure don't look it, Tony. The most I'd have guessed - always figured you at - would have been in your early 60's. Good man. Good for you!
Murph

[healey36]

Those tonneau covers can be a bitch if caught in the rain.

The highway overpass becomes your friend

[sarge]

...as does a rainjacket and speed!

[Tony-h]

Spent the morning tightening the bolts holding the new steering box to the frame on the Model A. Took ten times as long getting those freaking cotter pins out as it took to retorque the nuts. Helped quite a lot! Guess the paint wore down and let the box move up and down slightly when steering.

Went over to my favorite gourmet restaurant---Wegmans Food Store---for some Asian vittles. While selecting a magazine to read upstairs I perused Hemmings. What I can't understand is why Midgets are available for 42 to 84 hundred and an old Bugeye runs in the 5 figures. Almost the same cars?

A 74 chartreuse (YUK) in NJ for $6K obo.
A 76 with 29450 miles and $4k in rebuild parts for $9500 in TN.
A 77 with 2500 miles on a rebuilt engine for $4900 obo in VT.

Now, these prices are more inviting to my exchequer balance! Let's see, got to reserve another 3500 for a supercharger kit. Man! How costs mount up!

[rogruth]

Tony,

I have been to a Wegmans at some time in the past but do not remember where?
Where are they found?

[Tony-h]

Roger, first we had one locally in Dale City, the next one is in Fredericksburg, then Rt. 15 in Frederick, MD., then the latest near Ft. Belvoir. I do not know how extensive the chain is but they seem to be expanding in this area at one per year. Huge stores. Take up a whole city block!

Tony

[webenda]

Thank you for the link John Webster. I kept watching each succeeding video until Jay Leno and his Stanley Racer came on. I wonder how many speeding tickets he gets out of because of his name.

[John Webster]

He probably gets out of some tickets because of his name just like pretty girls get out of them by batting their eyelashes. But he probably gets some tickets so the officer can go back to the station, xerox the ticket and show it to all their friends.

He also probably gets pulled over by officers who are car guys and just want to see what that unusual or cool machine that just went by was.

[sarge]

Tony:

You are right, essentially the same cars rebadged and they all draw back to the original Frogeye Sprites. They were made in the same factory in Abingdon; "Oi! Mates! We's out a MG badges so it's Healeys ware makin' dis week!"

Bugeye/ Frogeye Sprites are stupid money because of the Trailer Toffs. Remember the earlier bit discussing the difference in hobbies (Show/Resto and Survivor). The show people put a premium on Frogeyes because they are the stereotype Sprite, so the price they pay is considered 'the price". They get very snotty about, "Well! I have a real Sprite." and go on about the trophies. In their world, the "Big Healey" people look down their noses at the Sprite people and the Frogeye people look down their noses at the later Sprites.

Same happens in the show world with MGs when the old chrome-bumper vs. rubber bumper hierarchy thing starts up, the T people don't associate with the MGA people who neither one will deign to sniff at the MGB people who think Midgets are pretenders and a rubber bumpered 1500 Midge is the spawn of Satan.

That is their world, though, and we just aren't part of it any more than I was part of the AACA world with the '40 Chev or the MAFCA world with my Model A's. It took far longer for me to learn that than it should, but again the survivor hobby as a distinct "revolution" is rather new.

I admit I'm stereotyping the worst behaviour found at the concours "shows"; the meets that Healey turned me on to are for the most part a mix of Show and Survivor hobbiests who come together for the fun of it, and other than the occasional toff's wife (the "Hyacinth Bouquets") the LBC meets are a unique and very enjoyable feature of this genre of car.

The shows (as opposed to meets) are very very serious and competitive affairs. You might remember the photos of the Austin Healey show in Gettysburg I posted up earlier this year. There were probably over 100 cars there, and only one later non-Frogeye Sprite. The parking lot behind the hotel where this was going on was full of (go figure) trailers; I'd bet the quantity was within an ace of the number of cars out front.

When I showed up in "Piddles" that evening (it was after suppertime) there was one guy trailering up his car and he was frazzled. It was obvious he was done in by the pressure of the affair and openly admired my old crock of an MGB which actually mystified me as there was absolutely no-one else who came off the porch/bar to talk to this interloper with the hideous old MG. Then the stories came out about how he had one once and it was fun to just drive it around and you weren't married to the dam thing and he'd love to do just that with NO PRESSURE. That in a nutshell is their world vs. ours.

Back to pricing, this is a two edge sword. You noticed the Frogeyes are now no longer available to us, being an iconic show car subject. However, the Midgets and later Sprites (we collectively call Spridgets) are available to us at very attractive prices because the toffs don't identify with them as a icon. That's why the price disparity.

A 74 chartreuse (YUK) in NJ for $6K obo.
A 76 with 29450 miles and $4k in rebuild parts for $9500 in TN.
A 77 with 2500 miles on a rebuilt engine for $4900 obo in VT.

Some commentary here. The 76 is way out of price range for your locale or anywhere else. It's a $5500 car here as a show car (restored to trailer queen standard and not of the survivor world) tops. Like any old car, the parts invested in a resto are moot to the price; when someone is trying to justify stupid money by their parts investment, run.

The 77 is a good price, but in New England and assuming a solid car. Prices vary according to locale. The 74 is about a grand high for New Jersey again assuming a solid car.

These are unibody cars so "solid" is key. If the underside is rotted the car is trash. A floor or inner fender or other non-structural part can have some bubbles, sure. The basic tub of the car though, you need as "solid".

Next top tip, look local, not national. The above is something you need to be assiduous about or you can end up with a tarted up car with no structural integrity, so first-hand inspection is key. Your gut (since you know old machinery) is also key. Drive it. Listen to it; don't be too afraid of valve tap at idle so long as it's even (solid tappets so they should click away) and the engine otherwise is strong and the oil pressure stays between 25-30 lbs at idle and 45 and above loaded (3000RPM).

Drive it (or reduce the offer accordingly). Here you check the gearbox. Put it in each gear, run it up to 3000RPM or so and drop your foot off the accelerator. If it pops out of gear then you're looking at gearbox work. Drop your offer accordingly or walk away as you see fit knowing that.

You have a complete car with a solid tub, strong engine and sound gearbox, you have something you can work with. The rest is readily fixed and maintainable after that, but again you decide your level of spanner-investment.

Local shopping gets you a good intimate look at the car and local pricing. Where you are (I'm guessing where you are), a look in the Valley should get you better pricing than looking to the Beltway. As a benchmark:










You can see it's got a few little niggles, but you should be able to handily rope in something of this level with strong engine and good gearbox out of the Valley for no more than $4500.

Nice thing about the '70s you noted about the chartreause car, and this one too, cars actually had a colour then.

[John Webster]

The five cars you would like to drive is much too limiting as there are so many great cars out there. The top of my list would be turning some hot laps in a Miller 91 FWD.



Unfortunately, to get the full experience you would need to turn those laps on one of the great board tracks like Sheepshead Bay, Ascot, Atlanta or Altoona and they were all gone by 1932. Indianapolis is the other option but it was all brick back then.

The engine is a double overhead cam straight eight of 91 cubic inches with a gear driven centrifugal supercharger with a finned aluminum intercooler running on home brewed methanol based fuel. The output was in the neighborhood of 305 horsepower. Braking was by internal expanding shoes on drum brakes operated by mechanical links (just like a model A Ford).

In an effort to reduce the cost of racing the AAA (yes they were the sanctioning body for racing in the U.S. between the wars) changed the rules to make the Millers obsolete. This car and another like it was taken to Italy and entered in the Monza Grand Prix. It set a lap record but did not start because the transmission had been broken in the attempt. Ettore Bugatti was there and bought the two cars to see what made them so quick. When the contents of the Bugatti factory went up for auction in 1955 Grif Borgeson recognized them and made long distance phone calls home to mortgage his home to raise money to buy the cars. This one is in the Indianapolis Speedway Museum.

[sarge]

That is a rather enticing and lovely bit o' kit isn't it!