At Home Mechanic

May 4, 2006

A Natural Progression

Some things in life are natural, expected and in some cases inevitable. Spring follows winter. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Salmon return to their home streams to spawn. And a new driver will crumple a fender within weeks of receiving his or her driver’s license. While it can be unsettling for a new driver to make his or her “mark” on the driving community, a small amount of sheet metal damage should be viewed as an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson about paying attention to detail and not being overly confident behind the wheel.

It only took me less than a week after receiving my driver’s license in the summer of my 16th year to stuff the right front corner on my Mother’s 1971 Pinto Runabout into the wheel well of a parked truck while making a U-turn in a strip mall parking lot. The heavy gauge sheet metal of the truck barely noticed the intrusion of the tiny Ford. The truck driver wiped away the smudge in the paint with the moistened tip of his finger and told me to be more careful. The fiberglass headlight surround and the first three inches of tinny fender on Mom’s Pinto were crushed like my hopes of ever dating the Homecoming Queen.

I do not remember Mom’s reaction to the way I had re-sculpted the compound curves of her car’s front fender, I suspect that she was less than pleased about what I had done to her car. I do remember that Dad was philosophical about it and glad that the damage was not far worse. For my sins I had to buy a new headlight surround and Dad supervised my work with a jar of Bondo to put the fender back into a semblance of order. While the body and fender work I did on the Pinto was something less than perfect, the experience made me a much more careful driver; in the following 35 years I have barely done more than brush a bumper.

I now have a 16-year old son of my own who is a new driver. Rather than have him experience his first accident in a car that I care about I bought him a nearly pristine, though very used, 1990 Honda Prelude. Clean, straight and mechanically sound I figured the Prelude would offer a young man a modicum of style and performance in a reasonably economical and reliable package. Normally I would have insisted that my son use his own hard earned money to acquire a car; I see this as a character building opportunity. But our family’s circumstances are not normal and it is to my advantage to have my son fill in as second driver for the household. I console myself by knowing that I have bought him a car that will serve him well through the remainder of his education through graduate school.

When my son first started to drive I would hold my breath and wait for the cell phone call telling me to come help sweep up the debris from his first accident. A month passed and I never got that call. A second and third month passed with no incidents. By the fourth month I began to relax. But it was while I was lulled into a false sense of security that I finally got the call.

Parking is tight at his high school and he must jockey for a spot on the street. While backing into a spot he lost track of a telephone pole and clipped the corner of his car. The actual damage is minor; it could even be ignored, as the damage does not affect the car’s safety or performance. But my son is proud of his car and the thought of a self-imposed blemish marring the otherwise virgin flanks of his car is more than he could bear.

If we took the car to a body shop the repair shop, I expect that the repair bill would top $500 easily. My son does not have that kind of scratch rattling around in his pockets and I may be an indulgent Dad but even I have my limits. So I have sourced a piece of replacement sheet metal and a generous supply of rattle can spray paint. I will provide the supervision but the boy will supply the labor.

My son will get some hands-on auto repair experience and maybe a life lesson about paying attention. I get the satisfaction of seeing my son learning the consequences of his actions. And my Dad gets see to how life repeats itself.

Posted by Scott at 8:45 AM | Comments (2)

March 3, 2006

Hollywood is different

I had dinner last night in a fancy Hollywood restaurant. The kind of place with a platoon of recent immigrants parking cars out front and no sign to announce that this is restaurant or any other kind of business. A consciously casual patio ambiance belies the scary menu prices this French-cum-Moroccan joint charges. The wait staff sport faux French accents and crisply pressed slacks while the patrons schmooze in the patois of the Movie Biz in their designer denim. The diners are slim and beautiful; the handsome young Best Supporting Actor nominee sitting at the table next to ours blended nearly unnoticed amongst the tables of Actors, Script Doctors and Producers.

At my table I was the only "civilian" not "in the business." My fiancee, the Movie Editor wanted to get together with her friend the Writer/Director who was celebrating his recent Vegas marriage to the Production Designer and so we made two couples to share a table for four. We talked about past productions and future projects, movies we had seen and movies we will see soon. The philosophical content of the evening covered the difference between hiring a stranger for sex or casting an actor to engage in real sex for the camera. The table's majority felt that an Actor in a role is vastly different from a Prostitute in a business transaction. But we all agreed that there is probably no difference between a Pimp and an Agent.

And we talked about cars. Cars we own and cars we will purchase or lease in the coming year. My fiancee the Movie Editor has always driven performance cars, possibly stunting her children's growth by making them ride in the vestigial back seat of her 924 Turbo during their toddler hood. The lease on her G35 Coupe is due to expire at the end of the year and she is reluctantly considering making a BMW M3 her next lease. Reluctantly because she really would rather drive a rear-engine Porsche but its rear seat is too small by even her standards.

The Writer/Director's Maserati and the Production Designer's Audi TT are both two-seat roadsters. The Writer/Director's son from a previous marriage makes three, a potential baby adoption will make four and so they must exchange one of their cars for a more practical four-seater. The Writer/Director has no intentions of loosening his grip on the paddle shifters of the Maserati. The Production Designer has an eye for design and she insists that her primary transportation must not offend her aesthetic sensibilities. She wants something stylish... although she was impressed by the Land Rovers she drove on African safari and could see herself crushing the Los Angeles landscape in a Brit bog-hopper.

I ventured a suggestion that maybe the newly weds might want to consider something less than an Armored Personnel Carrier for the mean streets of Los Angeles. Maybe a Mini would be stylish enough while offering four seats.

"Ooooo," the Production Designer purred happily, "those cars are cute." "Nah," said the Writer/Director, "I've done the Mini thing in a script I sold. It would look bad to revisit old territory."

"How about a Lexus IS250 or an Acura TSX? They have four doors, 200 horsepower and nice features," I said. "If you are lucky enough to adopt a baby you will really value the back seat access of a set of rear doors."

"Four doors? Forget it," said the Production Designer. "I need something sporty."

I sighed, asked the waiter to bring the desert menu and changed the topic to wondering why the handsome young Academy Award nominee at the next table did not have seem to have a date.

Posted by Scott at 7:21 PM | Comments (2)

February 12, 2006

A Modest Proposal

I have a “modest proposal” to make, something along the lines of Jonathon Swift’s Modest Proposal made back in the late 1700’s. Ol’ Johnny boy was a leading whit and political satirist of 18th century’s London, sort of the Bill Mahr of his time. Swift’s famous proposal was that the best solution to the pressing issue of hunger amongst the working class was to “eat the Irish.” While the joke may not translate today, at the time it was a considered a shocking and obviously satiric answer to a legitimate problem of the time.

While hunger and poverty continue to plague the world today, this is not a political blog but rather one devoted to automotive issues. One of the most pressing concerns in the automotive world is the rash of nasty, unnecessary traffic accidents involving teenaged drivers racing on the streets. Young blood runs hot and rational decision-making is not a long suit of that demographic. The consequence is that young people look to test their cars and the limits of their abilities with illegal and often dangerous street racing.

My modest proposal is that every young driver be compelled to take a driving instruction course on a real racecourse in real racecars and instructed by real racecar drivers. Put the young drivers at speed, allow them to lose control of a car and teach them how to recover. Make practical physics come alive for the kids by showing them how to toss a car into a drift and how to recover from traction loss.

And then let them race. Put them out in groups of a dozen or so in matching sedans with complete safety equipment suites on a track and let them run against each other. Instruct them to run hard, let them run off the road, bask fenders, even roll over if they play too rough. But give them that experience and show them that the track is the place where that kind of behavior belongs. Make auto racing accessible to young people; make sure that there is a drag strip and an autocross course available for “run what ya brung” events that kids can test each other in their street cars.

Showing kids that there is an appropriate place for exercising their youthful enthusiasm for fast cars will only serve to make our street safer.

Posted by Scott at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

The secrets of automobile photography

In the last installment of my rants into the void of the Internet, I gave some pointers on getting your beloved automobile to the attention of journalists and editors who might be persuaded to put your car in their magazine. To get your car into the pages of an enthusiast’s magazine is the pinnacle of achievement for the home automobile hobbyist. It is the recognition for all the hours of labor in the garage devoted to building, restoring or improving your car. Even if your friends, family and significant other can not understand your slavish devotion to a pile of inanimate parts taking up space in the garage and making a dent in the family finances, the thrill of seeing your car in an enthusiast’s magazine is nearly enough to compensate for the abuse you have endured to achieve this confirmation of your automotive addiction.

The major points in my strategy to get your car noticed by the jaded decision-makers of the enthusiast magazines is to have a car that is a bit different from the rest in the crowd; an unusual engine, rare option packages or some other feature to make your car stand out from similar models is always the best attention getter. I also suggested that doing a bit of the work for the hard working journalist who is charged with covering your car for the magazine is always helpful. Provide a well-written background sheet on your car, including details about the restoration/improvement of the car. And be sure to include a bit of background information on yourself as the owner/builder that the magazine readers can relate to. And the extra tidbit that may tip an editor’s choice in your direction of placing your car in his magazine is a well-crafted set of pictures of your car. A picture is worth a thousand words, seeing is believing and all those other clichés will come true if a stunning photo of your car catches that editor’s eye. This entry will help you take great pictures of your car.

Taking good photographs of any subject, including your car, is fun and easy once you really learn how to make a picture. Notice that I say, “make a picture” rather than “take a picture” because good photography is a deliberate act, not something left to chance. And you do not have to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy cameras, trick lens or expensive digital software to create a great picture. A good photographer with an instamatic can take a better picture that a clueless amateur with the most expensive camera equipment.

All photography, digital or film, is about the use of light. The quality of the light you use to illuminate your subject is half the battle to good photography. Soft, low angle light from a sun low on the horizon that occurs early in the morning or late in the afternoon is ideal. What you want to avoid is using the high angle, harsh light of mid-day when photographing anything or anyone. If you cannot shoot in the early or late hours, try to shoot your subject in the covered, even light of the shade. One of the many reasons so many movies are shot in Canada (beyond the very attractive economic inducements the Canadian government provides film makers) is the relatively low angle light of the northern latitudes that is so flattering for photography.

Fill the frame of your photograph with the subject of your picture. Placing the subject of your picture off to one side or in the corner of the frame immediately drains the impact of the subject from the picture. As a photographer I like to shoot my pictures a bit wider than normal to insure that all of the car/person/scenic view/subject of my picture makes it into the frame (you would hate to cut off the top of someone’s head for example). But I use simple digital photography editing software to crop and center the picture on the subject.

A clean, unobtrusive background and foreground will help keep the focus on your picture’s subject. For automobile photography, I like to find a spot that offers an unobstructed vista in the background and a smooth, featureless foreground. Ideally, a grassy hilltop at sunrise or sunset would yield the nicest pictures. If grassy hilltops are in short supply in your neighborhood, consider shooting your car against a neutral background like a brick wall, or a leafy hedge. What you are looking to avoid is things like a telephone pole sticking up through the roof of your car. The foreground should be a stretch of clean pavement, try to find a spot without parking spot stripes or ugly oil stains. If you notice, most professional photographs of cars are on a wet surface. The water covers stains on the pavement and makes a pleasing reflection of the car’s image.

So now you got the spot, you have waited for just the right light, you even hosed down the pavement for that extra special professional look; it is time to start taking your pictures. A front, side and rear views of you car are OK, but frankly they are pretty boring. Move to a ¾ angle, a position where you can see both the front (or rear) of your car along with the side for a more interesting view. Turn the front wheels to better show off your cool wheels and tires. Get down on your belly and take a low angle shot from the ¾ angle. For an even more dynamic angle, bring a step latter and take your ¾ angle shot from above the car so that you can see the roof as well as the front (or rear) of the car as well as the side.

There you have it, all the tips you need to take a really nice set of photos of your car. Polish up your car, find that perfect spot, wait for the soft low angle light of the dawn or sunset and snap away. Package your pictures with a clearly worded, concise history of your car and have them ready to distribute to the journalist covering the car show, track event or show and shine you go to next. The chances are good that a well-prepared car owner can get his car an even shot of being featured in a car magazine.

Posted by Scott at 6:54 AM | Comments (1)

January 21, 2006

Inside the mind of the automotive media

The “Buff Books,” as they are known in the magazine trade, are those titles that appeal primarily to enthusiasts who have a narrow focus; for the purposes of this forum: automobile fans. The Buff Books are deluged with heartfelt offers from readers to begging the editors to please feature the reader's car in their magazine. For a car nut, the pinnacle of achievement is to have his or her car displayed on the pages of their favorite magazine. Let me tell the secrets of getting your car into your favorite magazine. But first, you have to understand what motivates a journalist and his editor.

As a working journalist with nearly thirty years of professional experience with one of the largest and prestigious broadcast media conglomerates in the world, I believe that I can speak with authority about the mind of the media. Although there are many media outlets that approach any topic with a predetermined point of view, the vast majority of American broadcast, print and Internet professionals bring a detached and impartial mindset to the issue or event that they try to illuminate for their audience. And nearly every journalist is a hardworking and diligent seeker of the truth, willing to sacrifice nearly everything (including a decent pay check) to serve the public’s right to know.

The classic image of a journalist is of the “ink stained wretch” that toils long and hard to reveal corruption, criminal intent or breaches in public safety for little remuneration. The satisfaction of seeing one’s word in print, revealing the truth, is the best compensation that a dedicated journalist can hope to receive because the thin margins of most media outlets means that there is not a lot of money in journalism. So while a good journalist is not willing to compromise his principles for a hand full of coins, a good lunch and a well prepared press release will go a very long way to swaying his opinion. A savvy Publicist or Public Relations flack knows that telling the press that food will be served at his press conference/media event/photo opportunity is a cinch to guarantee representatives of the Fourth Estate at his event.

But just getting the journalists to your press conference/media event/photo opportunity is only half the battle. Once you have the members of the working press to attend, you will have to deliver something noteworthy for them to include in their publication/broadcast. “Dog bites Man” is hardly newsworthy, but “Man bites Dog” is unusual enough to be included in the small news hole that most broadcasts and publications have after all the advertising space has been filled. The mundane will never get the attention of the working press.

But an unusual angel to your story may still not be enough to get a cynical editor to assign a writer/cameraman to cover you and your event. Those darn reporters/cameramen are a precious resource to the editor and can only be allocated for the very best prospective news events. But if a well-prepared story with newsworthy features walks into your newsroom on its own, a resource challenged editor is compelled to include that materiel into his publication or broadcast.

Thus armed with the knowledge of how the decisions are made by the editors of major media outlets, it is relatively easy to get your car featured in the pages of your favorite car magazine.

The most important factor to getting your car noticed and featured in a car magazine is to have something unique about your car. An unusual drive train combinations is always an attention getters so consider wedging a Cleveland 351 into your Pinto or powering your shoe box ’56 Chevy with an Allison Aviation motor. In the case of my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si, I have chosen to skip the usual engine swap that many Honda enthusiasts enjoy and have built an Old School performer from my car’s stock EW series engine. This is like making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and the Honda faithful recognize that this is as a special effort due to the scarcity of high performance parts for this old engine design. Playing the unique angle has gotten my car featured in Honda Tuning magazine.

But being different from the crowd is often not enough. Sometimes you need to go the extra step beyond having a talented wrench and a way with chrome polish. This is where your English composition skills come into play. Creating a press release for your car and having that press release available at car shows is a good way to insure that a hurried journalist covering the event gets enough background on your particular car for inclusion in his coverage of the car show.

A press release should be a concise history of the car: How the car has come to be in car show condition, a listing of special or rare parts that you used to create the car, and a profile on any awards that the car has won. You can also include a small biography about you, the owner, and be sure to highlight exactly the work that you did (as opposed to forking out the bucks to have a professional do the work) which always makes a more compelling story for magazine readers. This kind of background information makes the journalist’s job so much easier; it frees him of the task of having to ask the right questions.

But the real kicker to get your car into car magazine, on top of having a unique car that is detailed in a handy press release, is to provide the magazine with quality pictures that illustrate your car. At the very least, a series of good pictures that you can give a journalist to take back to the office will help to induce the editors to give your car more consideration. And if your pictures are good enough, the publication or website may just use them in their story. Rather than just providing a 8½ by 11 sheet of facts and figures about your car, the modern car enthusiast should burn a few CD’s with all the print info and a series of quality pictures that you can make available to any journalist who stumble past you pride and joy at the car show.

Your car needs to stand out from the crowd to get noticed by the reporters and editors of your favorite car magazine. But beyond that, you need to make the journalist’s job that much easier to stand out amongst the outstanding competitors. In my next posting I will detail how even a rank amateur can take great pictures of his car with any camera.

Posted by Scott at 4:52 PM | Comments (2)

January 13, 2006

Six Cylinder Cobra Clone

I have been thinking about building a Cobra kit car, but with a twist. Anyone can build one with a big V8 engine, I am thinking of building one with an alternative choice for the engine. Knowing that the V8's are wide and challenge the cramped engine compartment for space, my idea was to use an Inline Six Cylinder engine in my car. The immediate advantage of a six over a V8 is the smaller engine will weigh a lot less and leave a lot more room for things like allowing the driver's pedal to be mounted straight in front of the driver rather than offset to the left as on V8 Cobras.

So if the engine of choice is to be an inline six-cylinder engine, which one should I use? There is a wealth of powerful inline sixes available and most all of them will fit easily into the Cobra's engine compartment. The choice of engine manufacturer will dictate the choice for transmission mounted just behind the engine. Technically it is possible to connect an engine from manufacturer "A" to a transmission made by manufacturer "B" but it would be a whole lot easier for me, the At Home Mechanic, to use an engine and transmission combination from one manufacturer.

If I were interested in a foreign inline 6-cylinder engine/transmission the three major contenders would be from BMW, Nissan and Toyota. Each makes a long line of beefy inline sixes that come with matching transmissions that could be adapted to the Cobra. BMW engines are legendary for their precision and performance, but frankly BMW transmissions are not up to the same standard as their engines. Plus the cost of BMW parts is enough to remind you why BMW is known amongst enthusiasts as standing for Break My Wallet.

Toyota's inline six-cylinder engine dates from the late 1960's and is proven for strength and reliability. But the port design of the Toyota inline six leaves a bit to be desired. Still the Toyota engine and transmission is a pretty good choice and readily available with parts not being terribly expensive. If a Toyota engine transmission combination were to fall into my lap I would have to seriously consider using it.

Nissan's inline six engine with a factory turbo is the power plant of the legendary Skyline coupe, which is available only as a right hand drive sedan. Never sold in the United States, American enthusiasts have slipped a few used examples into this country but they hardly are common over here. That is a very strong, well proven, engine and transmission combination that would be a natural to make the kind of power I am hoping for in a small light package. But the availability of those engines in the US is fairly slim, even with the importation of cheap used engines from Japan so I will reluctantly take this engine off my list of potentials.

This brings us to the list of domestic engines that I could potentially use. The Jeep inline six has been produced since the 1960's when it debuted as a Rambler engine. Reasonably well supported in the aftermarket, it would not be too hard to make it work for my purposes. Gm has a brand new inline six that it sells in its line of intermediate trucks and has been well received by the motoring press. But being so new I doubt that there is much aftermarket support for that engine and may be pricey to acquire. The older GM "Stove Bolt" six came in a variety of displacements and is reasonably well supported in the aftermarket. At one point this engine was judged to be the best American inline six in terms of power production potential and there was even an Over Head Cam version created by Pontiac back in the 1960's. If I were a rational guy I would give this engine and the wide range of good GM transmissions that easily bolt up to it serious consideration as the inline six that should go into my Cobra. But a GM engine in a Cobra is like suggesting serving a Honey Baked Ham at a Passover dinner; it just is not done. So as attractive as the GM inline six may be to those who wish to defy conventional wisdom with the greatest elan, I will have to take a pass on this idea.

This brings us back to the Ford family of inline six engines. Designed in the late 1950's at about the same time as the small block 260/289/302/351 family of Ford V8's, the inline six can claim to come from the same stable as the heralded engines that powered the original Cobra to initial glory. Two similar versions were created, a smaller inline six of 170, 200 and 250 cubic inches were built for the compact cars of the Ford line that began with the original Falcon and ran through the Mustang, Fairline, Maverick, and Fairmont models. A larger 300-inch version was intended for truck and van use. Dead reliable, cheap to build and cast iron strong the Ford inline six was a solid if unremarkable engine.

The Ford inline six was so successful Ford exported the design for manufacture by their subsidiaries in Argentina and Australia where the Ford Falcon nameplate is still a strong seller (although completely redesigned since the tooling of the original Falcon were shipped overseas for foreign construction). But there was one significant design flaw of the Ford inline six that the Argentines and Australians fixed.

The Ford inline six featured a rather rudimentary engine head. With both intake and exhaust ports on the same side of the head, it did not take advantage of the benefits of cross flow design. And reaching back to the Flat Head days of Ford engine design, the number three and four cylinders shared a common exhaust port. But maybe worst of all, Ford shaved a few pennies per engine by casting the intake manifold as part of the head casting. The intake manifold on a Ford inline six looks roughly similar to a 2" section of pipe that is cast parallel to the head with a small mounting on top for a tiny single throat carburetor. This head design endured for the entire American production run, but the Argies and the Ozzies ditched that design as soon as possible.

Both foreign versions of the Ford inline six soon sprouted home grown heads that featured a more conventional separate intake manifold and a reworking of the port design, although a cross flow head never emerged. Both the Argie and Ozzie head are a huge improvement over the US head and can be bolted to a US block with nearly no modification at all. That is the good news; the bad news is that the foreign heads are not commonly imported to the US. It is not entirely impossible to get a foreign head into this country; a company in Arizona, Ford Six Performance Parts (www.fordsixparts.com), will import you either type of head on an as ordered basis. And the good folks at Ford Six Performance Parts is making noises about designing and selling a cross flow aluminum head for the Ford inline six if there is enough interest.

So the plan for my Cobra would be to source a good foreign head to go on top of a 250 inline six block. Improving the induction a supercharger and fuel injection, a modern electronic fuel and ignition controller and higher compression will create an light, narrow inline six engine with Ford heritage that will easily make 300+ horsepower.

All of the power of a 5.0 V8 at about 150 less pounds. It sounds good to me. What do you think?

Posted by Scott at 6:46 AM | Comments (15)

January 12, 2006

The AARP card is coming

The AARP card will be coming in the mail any day now; this is the year I turn 50. 1956, the year I was born, was the year of the greatest number of births in the United States of any year. That means people of my age represent the fattest lump in the population curve for the country. With so many contemporaries to compete with, the common thread for all of us 1956’ers it has been to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Succeeding in athletics, business, or politics is one way to rise above the herd, but those of us without any particular talents or charisma have to find more devious ways to make our mark on the world. My best shot at fame may be to bask in the reflected glory of my children’s accomplishments but that is not a sure bet at this point.

As I age, gracefully or otherwise, regular readers (both of you) will remember that I am struggling with the decision about what kit car to build. I am working up the courage to build a car from scratch in my suburban garage; I see this as a way to stave off Alzheimer’s Disease by mentally challenging myself with a large project during my rapidly approaching Silver Years. But I do not want to build just any kit car; I want to do something a bit different.

I do know that the car I want to build is going to be a roadster of some sort. Light, simple, open topped, nothing suggests the freedom of the road like a snug two seat sports car to blast down the highway of life into the impending sunset of my life. I may be on the road to Hell, but I am planning on enjoying the ride in style. Maybe at the end of my useful years I will give myself an automotive version of the Viking Funeral. With my last breath, I give The Man the finger and launch myself and my special hand built vehicle into an abyss of blazing glory.

But what exactly will that hand built be? I have already dismissed the idea of building a VW based dune buggy, not enough power to fulfill my lust for a low power to weight ratio. The other candidates are the speedy roller skate of the Lotus Seven or the brute power of the Shelby Cobra with a huge honking Ford V8 rumbling under the hood.

The Lotus Seven initially got short shrift from me because I thought that the kits only came from England and the mechanicals were difficult to come by. Thankfully my readers pointed me in the right direction toward some American kit suppliers who use greasy bits from easily obtainable sources in the US. And because the Lotus Seven kit yields a very small roadster, the enterprise would fit nicely in my 20’x 20’ suburban garage. But as cool as a Lotus Seven would be to build and own, it is not a Shelby Cobra.

Ah, the Cobra. To my generation of Ford-loving gear heads, the Cobra represents the apogee of the car culture. The Cobra is all that is good and light in the world of my generation. Other cars were faster and some were prettier, but no other cars strike a sympathetic cord in our souls like the coke-bottled shape of the Cobra. But the true attraction of the Cobra was the caged fury of the engine compartment. At the height of the madness, 427 cubic inches of pushrod powered Detroit Iron thumped within its breast. Seven litres of the finest in cutting edge, 1958 technology throbbed out a menacing sound and nearly unlimited torque. Imagine, if you will, more power than you can realistically put down onto the road through street tires. That is the essence of the Cobra.

But unlimited power comes at a price, as Saddam Hussein has come to discover. The Cobra is a relatively small car and shoehorning a huge lump of American V8 iron into the engine compartment is a very tight fit. Even if you opt for the smaller and lighter 5.0-liter V8 engine instead of the 7-litre monster, the engine compartment is challenged for daylight let alone space to work. And the weight of all that metal under the hood makes any suspension choice a compromise between effectiveness and heft to handle the load. The space for a V8 engine is so limited in the cobra that the driver’s foot pedals are off set to the left rather than straight ahead of the driver to make room for that monster engine.

Now here is where my latest epiphany comes into play. What if? What if instead of a massive V8 in the Cobra I built it with some other power plant? Something lighter and physically smaller that would make up for its lack of absolute power with a more compact and light package that would keep the power to weight ratio in the Insane Region?

My first thought was to adapt a V6 engine for use in the Cobra. While it would be lighter and shorter from front to back, the V6 arrangement makes the engine as wide as a V8 and the space issues of offsetting the driver’s pedals remain. If not a V6, then why not an Inline 6 engine? Long and narrow, an Inline 6 would leave lots of room at the sides of the engine and save hundreds of pounds over a large block V8. And imagine the novelty of opening the hood to reveal not just another boring V8, but the unique sight of a Six Cylinder engine in the engine compartment.

My next entry will examine the Inline Six engines I am considering for this project. Tell me what you think of a Cobra without a thumping Ford V8 in the engine compartment.

Posted by Scott at 6:32 AM | Comments (2)

January 9, 2006

LA Auto show report

Just a quick note about our journey to the LA Auto Show. Long story short: we saw a bunch of shiny cars for sale to the general public, concept cars that the public may be offered at some time in the future and a few hyper expensive exotic cars that mere mortals can only dream of owning. The most crowded display at the show was the Bugatti stand which featured the 1.2 million dollar, 252 mph dream machine that only 300 rich morons will have the privilege of owning. The least crowded display was the GM exhibit which largely deserted except for the curious who wanted to see a Pontiac Solstice in the flesh.

My Beloved Fiancée made a beeline for the BMW/Mini display and declared the Mini cute but that her next car will probably be a BMW M3 in full zoot. The teenaged boys were torn between the exotics and the food court as their highlights of the show. And I got a chance to lay my hands (and my back side in the seat) of a new Honda Civic Si. I must say that the romance of a shiny new car with 200-horse power and a standard Limited Slip Differential nearly worked its magic on my jaded soul. But at 3,000 pounds, the new Civic coupe is about 200 pounds too much car for my tastes.

I can resist the temptation to trade in my Accord daily driver for a new Civic Si and hope that the rumors are true that a new version of the enthusiast’s favorite, the CRX, will come to market in a year or two. And maybe the Fiancée will let me drive her M3 once in a while.

Posted by Scott at 8:02 PM | Comments (1)

January 7, 2006

A trip to the LA Auto show

I generally try to avoid large, crowded areas. Not because on any kind of phobia, but because I have been there, done that in my life. When you get old and grumpy like me, your tolerance for being herded like cattle diminishes with time. Consequently I am not much of a concert goer, professional sporting event attendee, or amusement park patron. The LA Auto Show is as big and crowded an event as I would normally hope to avoid, but circumstances this year compel me to go today.

It is not that I need to go to the auto show to see all the new and exotic cars. Living on the affluent West Side of Los Angeles I see every car on the market (exotics included) and some that are not on the market yet. Ferrari's and Lambo's are yawn inducers and classics are an every day occurrences. Thinly disguised factory prototypes are tested on LA streets and brand new models are thick on the roads. I am ready to declare the Pontiac Solstice the official car of West LA, because they seem to be on every side street these days.

I am going to the auto show because my dearly beloved fiancée is shopping for a car to replace her G35 Coupe whose lease will expire soon. Some of you may remember that my fiancée is a lead-footed car enthusiast. I have unleashed a Pandora's Box of racing desire in that woman when I introduced her to Autocross racing and now she is looking for something "hot" to replace the G35.

She has always wanted a 911 Porsche; her 924 Turbo was one of her favorite cars and she wants to relive the Porsche experience. But a 911 may be a bit pricey so she has her eye on a M3 BMW. As much as I respect the BMW, I think she will get more car for her lease dollar with a Mercedes CLK500. Anyway, this will be a chance for her to kick some tires for comparison sake without having to brave a gauntlet of car salesmen on the dealer’s lot. Oh and yes, she wants to see the new Bugatti, which is advertised as the fastest, and the most expensive car on the market today.

The other compelling reason to schlep downtown to the massive LA convention center is to show my Welsh brother in-law what an American auto show can be. The Grateful Dead's fans used to say that, "There is nothing in the world like a Dead concert," and the same can be said for an American auto show. Part circus, part salesroom, and part life affirming survival experience, an American auto show on the massive scale of the LA Auto Show is significant milestone in anyone’s life time. The crowd, the cars, the models in spectacularly revealing costumes decorating the manufacturers displays are all worth seeing even if one has no interest in cars.

The Welsh brother in-law is a man of the world, he has traveled extensively, seen the wonders of modern and ancient civilizations but I am willing to bet that he has never seen anything quite like LA Auto Show. The LA Convention Center building is a wonder unto itself, its lobby is often used in movies to represent what living and working habitats of the future will look like. And the main halls are large enough to swallow a fleet of 747’s with plenty of room left over for a parade of elephants to comfortably swing their trunks. The massive scale of the building’s interior is humbling as an empty structure, but to fill it with new car sales hubris is truly a staggering accomplishment in human achievement.
We are also taking my 16 year old son, the ’90 Prelude Driver and my fiancée’s 16 year old son, the ’78 Camaro Driver. The boys are LA Auto show veterans, they have been before and know what to expect. The Camaro Driver is very impressed with the exotic cars and has expressed an interest in seeing all of the cars that claim to exceed 200 mile per hour. The Prelude Driver has a passing interest in cars, but he has a dedicated interest in eating. He sees the Auto Show in the same light as sporting events, concerts or an evening at the cinema: a chance to sample a wide variety of concession stand food.

I expect an afternoon crawling through the crowds, the visual and aural assault on my senses by the manufacturers displays and the hole left in my pocket by paying for the privilege of the sensory overload I may suffer. I will let you know how it goes.

Posted by Scott at 8:33 PM | Comments (3)

January 6, 2006

A rant for the New Year

I am a professional television watcher. Literally, I am paid (and paid well) to watch TV for eight hours a day, five days a week. My compensation package includes a generous (by modern standards) health package, 401K benefits, six weeks of paid vacation and lots of paid time off for illness. Not a bad job, huh? I bet you would like a job like that. All I can say is, “Beware of what you wish for. It may come true.”

Not that I am complaining, it sure beats digging ditches for a living. But part of the deal is that I have no choice about what I watch; I have to watch my employer’s local TV station in a major metropolitan area. Part of my workday includes watching daytime television: Soap Operas, Game Shows, Judge Shows, Local News. And Dr. Phil.

Before I get to Dr. Phil (and how this rant relates to automotive affairs) let me vent about the crap you guys watch. And do not tell me that you are not watching this crap, because we make a LOT of money from this programming so somebody is watching it.

Before I found myself propped in front to a wall of video monitors like Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, forced to watch local television programming, I used to make my living as a photojournalist at a TV station, shooting local news. I took pride in journalistic standards and my ability to fulfill the public’s right to know about issues of importance. But I left the glamour and excitement of news photography years ago for the regular hours of studio work to accommodate the responsibilities of a young family. Now, part of my workday is devoted to watching local television news, which is a constant parade of dead bodies, house fires, and car chases that passes for “informing the public” these days. Local TV news is as mindless as the rest of the broadcast schedule because YOU, the viewing public, do not demand anything more challenging than crying widows being asked to tell us, “How do you feel right now?”

Soap Operas are as timeless as human civilization. Every culture has fables, legends or myths that concern the foibles of the rich and powerful, the modern Soap Opera is just another version of these cautionary tales that are passed from generation to generation. But instead of warning of the metaphoric dangers of flying too close to the sun, or to not incur the wrath of the gods by being too proud, the Soap Opera uses the example of beautiful and fabulously wealthy perfume/couture clothing/publishing magnates to teach us that their yacht/country house/mistress/secret love child do always bring happiness.

The game shows are frustrating for me to watch; because I work “In the Business” I am automatically ineligible from ever being a contestant. I know that I could clean up on any of these shows because I have a secret weapon. An education that extends beyond the sixth grade. Apparently the producers of game shows troll the trailer parks of America to find the most telegenic slack jawed yokels. Come on people! We all know that that The Skipper’s real name was Jonas Grumby, Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln both had Vice Presidents named Johnson, and that the Panama Canal runs North/South (look it up).

A side note. Here at work we get game shows a few days in advance of their airing. We had a guy who would scan that day’s show and memorize all the answers. On his lunch break he would walk across the street to a bar and win bets answering every question on the show as it was broadcast without ever making a mistake. We elected that guy to be the President of our union.

I have to admit that I like the Judge Shows, even that obnoxious bitch Judge Judy. No, I do not like the parade of morons who need to adjudicate their petty disputes over whether it was a loan or a gift. But every case comes with a lesson in contract law, which means that I can skip the first year of Law School if I ever decide to abandon my convictions and become a lawyer.

But the reason for this rant and its relevance to the topic of the At Home Mechanic is something I was forced to watch on the Dr. Phil show the other day. Dr. Phil gets all the losers that Oprah does not want on her show and this episode just about killed me. A pair of sisters came on the show with a paralyzing problem: They were deathly afraid to learn how to drive. Conditioned from youth by an equally fearful mother to believe that they were incapable of safely controlling a car they are reduced to quivering mess when behind the wheel of a car. But they felt that they were missing something in life and so they wanted Dr. Phil to help them over come this fear. Being the self-righteous, smug bastard that he is, Dr. Phil held their hand while they drove around the Paramount Pictures movie lot and declared that they were “Cured!”

Not everyone is capable of safely driving a car; the roads are filled classic examples of people who should NEVER be allowed behind the wheel. Tentative, indecisive drivers are as dangerous as drunks and speeders because they are most likely to make the wrong decision at the right time. The fearful women on Dr. Phil’s show are the type of person who should never be driving, and just because they are inconvenienced by their lack of transportation, they feel a need to overcome their fears and inflict their inability on the rest of us who CAN drive. In fact we should be airing shows that takes incompetent drivers OFF the road. The world would be a better, if not safer place if the timid and irresolute drivers were swept from the highways.

Ahhh, I have released the rage that was building inside me and I feel much better now.

Have a happy and safe New Year.

Posted by Scott at 7:22 AM | Comments (3)

December 29, 2005

I am wrong

I have a confession to make. I drive faster than the posted speed limit. Shocking, I know. But it is true. It may be hard to believe that someone would willfully violate the law of the land, but I freely admit that I am an outlaw.

Are you smirking with self-righteous indignation at my transgressions? Are you furrowing your brow with concern for my wanton disregard for the health and safety of the rest of the general public? Before you condemn me, ask yourself if your hands are completely clean. I suppose that none of you have EVER driven faster than the posted limit. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

No stoning? Just as I thought, you are all equally guilty. We all drive faster than the posted limit SOMETIMES. Some of us do it more often; some of us exercise better judgment than others when making the decision to speed down a street, road or highway. But we all do it. Some of us (me in particular) will ridicule a driver for slavishly adhering to the speed limit when the speed of traffic would logically suggest that a driving a bit faster may be courteous to the driver's stacked behind the good citizen poking along at the legal speed.

"But Scott, you are such a pain in the ass about street racing. Isn't it hypocritical of you to be so vehemently against all forms of street racing, including the "safe" forms of street racing, and then admit that you are common speeder yourself?"

Any kind of driving is inherently dangerous, even when you are driving down a quiet suburban side street there is a chance that injury can occur when you least expect it. Racing raises the danger quotient by several factors. With as many safety precautions as we take in organized racing, there still is no form of completely "safe" racing. When you race on the street, even on a "completely deserted road with no other traffic," you are endangering yourself plus innocent bystanders. Frankly, there is no justification for racing on the street and I have no problem with Prosecutors who pursue the harshest punishment for convicted street racers.

Going a little faster than the posted limit is not racing; racing involves more than one vehicle. Making a choice to exceed the posted limit, the limit that has been deemed to be the safest maximum for that road, is a choice to violate the law. The degree of how incorrect that choice is can be rated by the amount that you exceed the posted speed limit. The faster you go, the more wrong you are.

But if loving my car by driving a bit too fast is wrong, then I never want to be right.

Posted by Scott at 1:19 PM | Comments (2)

December 24, 2005

Season's Greetings to everyone

My tradition is to compose a rhyming verse for the CRX community this time of year. This is this year's version:

'Twas the night before CRX-mas and all through the 'hood,
Not a creature was stirring, the bad and the good.

Away in their garage, carport or parking spot,
The Hondas were dry and secure, no chance of rust's rot.

Dreaming of a visit from an old jolly elf,
And of winning trophies to put on the shelf.

When from out of my sleep, a noise I did hear,
Someone was in the house, messing with my stuff, I did fear.

Out of bed and down the hall I did creep,
Getting the shotgun, and not making a peep.

Peering around the corner, who did I spy?
Some fat sweaty bastard, a red suited-guy.

Pointing my blaster, I told him to freeze.
And to put down my stuff, but move slowly if you please.

"You've got it wrong, I bring presents, I'm not here to loot
I am a good guy, I bring cheer, so please do not shoot."

Not wearing my glasses, I had to look twice.
Because his face looked familiar, he seemed kind of nice.

"Normally I work as a greeter at the Wal-Mart down the block,
I got a second job working for Santa, I got debt and I'm in deep hock."

"Santa would like to have been here, to travel his usual course.
But to save money and lower his costs, he used labor from an out-source."

"I've brought presents for the Car Guy in the family.
Parts that will bring performance, as you can clearly see."

My eyes lit up, at the sight of what he brought
The entire list of parts, stuff that I have so long sought.

With delight he described stuff that his sack did hold,
Although his voice was a bit rough, I think he was catching a cold.

"Sticky tires, light wheels and brand new bushings,
Because all cars, on the track or the road, can use those things."

"A turbo, NOS and a super charger
For those who need to go even harder."

But as he continued I thought I saw him nearly cry,
For the next thing phrase he said, he said with a sigh.

"For Ricers and Poseurs it is always hard to find stuff,
Because wings, stripes and stickers are never enough."

And so it was time for him to continue his rounds
He slipped out of the house, without making a sound.

And into his ride, a funky old car
I was not sure it would take him very far.

He fired it up and I could hear that it was actually a keeper
It was fixed up under the hood, the car was deceptively a sleeper.

So away he did drive, around the corner and out of sight
As he left I heard him say, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

Posted by Scott at 2:59 PM | Comments (4)

More on kit cars

My recent postings about building a kit car apparently struck a nerve with a lot of readers because that has generated a lot of private email and comments on this site. Of the responses I have received, most of them are of the, "Gee, I always wanted to do that," variety. Others have been helpful with suggestions about donor car for major parts.

I have to admit that I have not done much research on currently offered kits before I wrote that posting, the last time I looked into building one was more than a few years ago. At that time, Lotus Seven kits came from England and used European-market engines and transmissions.

Regular reader Dave Darling wrote to tell me:

"There are a whole lot of (Lotus) Seven replica kits around. Grassroots Motorsports magazine (or their sister pub, Classic Motorsports, I forget which one) did a comparo of a half-dozen or so of them earlier this year. They even threw a real vintage Lotus 7 for grins."

I did some research and discovered that there are at least two kit car companies in the United States that offer a Lotus Seven clone. One is based upon General Motors S-10 pick-up truck mechanicals and features a pushrod V-6 engine. The other is based upon the guts of the Mazda Miata and its DOHC four banger. Both kits seem to be reasonably well engineered. And it is possible to coax a lot of power of either the GM V-6 or the Mazda I-4 with commonly available after market parts.

All of this new information changes my attitude toward the Lotus clone kits. I had previously said that I was leaning toward the Cobra kit from Factory Five, which has been demonstrated to be reasonably easy to put together and results in a fairly close interpretation of the original cobra with some cleaver modern revisions. The Cobra evokes a visceral reaction from most observers; it fairly bulges with muscles and suggests that it could deliver a brutal beating on unsuspecting drivers who do not respect its power potential.

More importantly, like a duckling that imprints upon the first creature it encounters out of the nest, the Ford-powered Cobra grabbed my imagination at and early age and sparked my first interest all things automotive as a child. I was born to be a Ford fan; the family cars were all Fords, Grandpa drove a Ford, the new Ford Mustang was wowing the country and Ford-powered Cobras were kicking Ferrari hinny on the sports car circuits of the world. The ultimate achievement in Ford-dom was the sexy Cobra roadster hand built by Carroll Shelby's company in relatively primitive conditions in Los Angeles.

But there was another facet to my Ford fascination; there is a English tinge to all of this. Dear old Dad and all of his family were born in England. The Cobra was only Ford-powered; the body came from the AC car company of England. And the Beatles were raising America's consciousness of all things happening with our cousins over the sea.

Over in England another small time car builder and racer was tinkering with Ford power in a factory that was little more than a glorified barn. Colin Chapman's Lotus Motor Car Company was turning out clever little racecars, sporty roadsters and built-it-at home kits that used a variety of sturdy Ford four-cylinder engines. Most important of all, Chapman's Lotus racecars were using Ford power to dominate racing at the Indy 500 and Europe's Formula at the same time. The closest a consumer could come to driving an open wheeled Lotus was to build a Lotus Seven roadster from a kit. So while the "American" Cobra was the ultimate in my boyhood consciousness, the Lotus Seven from England was certainly on my mind.

So knowing that the Lotus Seven kit is equally available as the Cobra kit I have to reconsider my previous decision to lean toward the Cobra. From an assembly point of view, the more basic Seven is an easier to construct and the smaller size of components makes it easier for a lone workman to muscle the parts into place. And size would be a big factor for me because I have limited floor space in my suburban garage to assemble the kit.

Secondary considerations would be that the Seven would be easier for my lead-footed fiancee to drive, as she is a petite lady. The racing clutch on my 1.5 litre Honda is challenging enough for her; the clutch on a five-litre Cobra engine would probably beyond her comfort level. And it would not be fair to her if she were physically excluded from driving the new toy car in the garage. And the Seven kits and all the parts needed to complete the car are a lot cheaper than the corresponding Cobra kits. It is possible to drive a complete Seven kit car out of your garage for less than ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars barely buys you the kit for a Cobra and realistically needs nearly twice that much money to put it in driving trim.

At this point I am a long ways from making a final decision about building a kit car. I have not mentioned that I have a bunch of other important life events coming up in the next year or so, including purchasing a new home, getting married and sending my oldest off to college. All of these considerations will be factored into the decision process and I will be sure to share that process with all of you.

But if you had to choose between a Cobra and a Seven, which would you build?

Posted by Scott at 2:58 PM | Comments (3)

December 13, 2005

Daydream'n 'bout cars

It is a slow day in the office and my mind starts to wander. Besides the topics that I cannot mention on a family web site like this one, I tend to daydream about cars. Cars that I have a realistic chance of owning. Cars I could own if feeding, clothing and educating my children were not important to me. And cars that would require matching six lucky numbers for me to own.

Owning a dream car would always be nice. But it seems to me that the act of purchasing that car and then driving it home would be only satisfying for the moment. A relatively brief feeling of Sisyphean pleasure would wash over me and then I would need to go find some other consumer satisfaction fix to keep my automotive Jones alive.

What is the alternative to the transitory pleasure of buying your dream car? Perhaps building your own dream car would be more satisfying. The process could take months or even years depending upon the level of sophistication of the car and the ability of the owner/builder. Certainly it could become a long-term process that has no definitive "end" but rather a never-ending journey of discovery. Sometimes the goal is not the destination but rather the passage to that destination is experience that one should seek.

All this philosophical claptrap leads back to a dream car that I could realistically own. And because I enjoy the process of improving existing cars yet seek a greater challenge, I am aiming toward building my own car from the ground up. It certainly will not be a transitory pleasure to build my own car; allotting only a few hours per week of my available discretionary time to the project could stretch out the completion date to some point years into the future.

If I am dreaming, let me dream big. And by big I mean a small power to weight ratio. If the typical econobox sedan weighs about 3,000 pounds and has an engine that makes about 120 horsepower, then that car has a power to weight ratio of 25:1. The new for 2006 Civic Si has 200hp in that same 3k lbs. package for a power to weight ratio of 15:1 and that is considered a snappy performer. And for comparison sake, a 3400 lbs Corvette Z06 with 500 ponies kicking under the hood has a power to weight ratio of 6.8:1 which puts that street car in the range of some race cars.

For my purposes, a power to weight ratio of 10:1 is good goal to shoot for. And I would like my dream car to have no more than 2,800 pounds of bulk to haul around (Colin Chapman's first law of automobile design: Add Lightness) so I only need 280hp to get the desired result.

The basis of any car is the engine/transmission combination and for my dream car I want to use the horizontally opposed flat-four turbo engine of the Subaru WRX. Coming from the factory with nearly 250hp, it is fairly easy to coax as much as 300hp from that engine. But rather than putting the engine in the front and driving all four wheels as the Subie normally does, I would put the engine in the middle, drive only the rear wheels and eliminate the transfer case, drive shaft and associated gear needed for Four Wheel Drive. If I had the resources of carbon fiber fabrication, I would whip up a fantastic plastic monocoque for the car's frame, but realistically I would have to settle for a triangulated tube frame construction. Two seats, down force-creating ground force body panels, double wishbone suspension and not much else.

But the truth of the matter is that I do not have the fabricating skills or tools to build that car. Within the walls of my 20' by 20' suburban garage I have the room to modify an existing car or maybe build a kit car. My current hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX has been an exercise in car modification so I have Been There, Done That. Not that there is anything wrong with modifying an existing car, I have been doing that as a hobby for nearly 35 years. The next step up will be a kit car.

The term "kit car" has a lot of negative connotations, frankly there are a lot of schlocky kits being sold to an unsuspecting public. My earliest recollection of kit cars was the Fiberglas bodies slipped over VW platforms to create a hideous approximation of the Ford GT40. The best use of the resulting mess was the highlight of George Lucas' first feature film THX1138 in which a pair of them was smashed to smithereens.

I have always ha a romantic perception of open topped cars; the wind in my hair (what is left of it) the roar of the engine in my ears, the song of the tires on the road. I know that a roadster (a small two seat sports car with a canvas top that can only suggest weather protection) is not practical. That wind in your face is either blazing hot or bone chilling cold so the number of days that you can realistically use a roadster without a top is severely limited. But as we discussed earlier regarding the Zen concept that the journey to the goal may be more important than the destination, so in this case the construction of the car is more important than the actual use.

I am evaluating three very different kit cars that share the two-seat, roadster design. At the bottom end fop the spectrum is a kit that uses the frame, suspension, engine and brakes from an air-cooled VW Bug. There are quite a few manufacturers that sell kits based on the venerable People's Car and the variety of body styles that a kit builder can use is impressive. Of the open topped VW kits, the classic dune buggy, the "bathtub" Porsche from the 1950's and the 1950's Porsche Spyder racer replica are the most attractive to me. The down side is that the VW frame used is not particularly rigid, and the air-cooled engine may not be able to generate the necessary power to achieve the target of a power to weight ratio of 10:1.

The next step up would be a Caterham 7 kit. Imagine a classic English roadster, maybe looking something like an overgrown roller-skate, from the 1950's with bicycle fenders over the tires and a tight little cockpit and you will have the Caterham 7 in your mind. Based upon a design by Lotus' Colin Chapman, the Caterham 7 is a smile producer for drivers and for passers by. But the body kit is pricey because it has to be shipped from England and the mechanical bits that power the car are not as easy to find in the US as they are in old Blighty. So this kit is not as attractive as it could be.

The ultimate choice is a bit of a cliche these days. The very symbol of aging Baby Boomer nostalgia for an icon on our youth. You know it; you love it, the 1960's Shelby Cobra. The original Cobra was a hand-built confluence of English roadster technology with a huge honking American V8 shoehorned into it. There was nothing subtle about the Cobra; it was as defiant as the turbulent times that spawned it. Working on a tiny budget, Carroll Shelby created a production car that humbled the Corvette and the Ferrari. Every schoolboy wanted one then and every middle-aged grey beard wants one now.

There are a number of kit car companies that make a Cobra-clone and it is even possible to get a newly built Cobra from the descendent Shelby Car Company. Outside of time, space and a modest amount of money, all of the Cobra kits require a late 80's to early 90's Mustang to build a dream car. And the Cobra kits can easily achieve the desired 10:1 (or much better) power to weight ration of my dream car.

Daydreams are fun, reality is tough. It would take a major commitment of time and energy to build a kit car and continue to have a life beyond my garage. I will continue to ruminate upon this decision and of course I will keep you readers up to date on my progress.

Posted by Scott at 8:00 PM | Comments (3)

December 11, 2005

Subaru

Until recently I have never been much of a Subaru fan. My initial impression of Subaru was not very good. I remember when they began imported their weird little cars to America back in the early 1970’s. The Subaru Company was the bastard child of Fuji Heavy Industries (maker of industrial machinery) and Datsun (before they changed their name to Nissan) who united to create another automobile brand and to gain some front wheel drive experience for Datsun before they put their good name on a front driver. Sadly, Datsun did not wait long enough before introducing their first Front Wheel Drive model, the F10, which was lamented by the car magazines of the era as being a Datsun product development project that was subsidized by the consumer public.

When Subaru was introduced to the American market “Made in Japan” was still a pejorative label so skepticism was high. Compounding that disadvantage was Subaru’s exclusive use of Front Wheel Drive which was a novelty rather than the rule of the current auto industry. Open the hood and you found a horizontally opposed four banger, familiar to VW, Porsche and Aviation mechanics but exotic to most Americans. And the topper was that this collection of mechanical oddities was packaged in some of the ugliest cars to grace the roads of America.

Fate was kind to Subaru, the gas crisis years of the late 1970’s created a demand for all fuel efficient vehicles and they were able to sell even their monstrosities because they could squeeze a few extra miles per gallon of gas. Looking to market their car’s being just more than being merely good on gas, Subaru seized upon their front wheel drive advantage in low traction situations to target the snow states for emphasis. Adding a transfer case and rear wheel drive to assist the driving front axles, Subaru became a low-cost alternative to pricier all wheel drive cars that continued to gain popularity amongst the gravel and steeply sloped driveway market.

Subaru tried to move up market with a 6-cylinder model that failed to ignite any market attention. That engine’s opposed cylinder design aped much more expensive aircraft engines and a whole cottage industry emerged converting the 6 cylinder Subaru engines for use in home built aircraft. The rear axle assembly of the four-wheel drive Subaru’s borrowed the design of the independent rear axle used in the Datsun 510 and 240Z. Datsun enthusiasts are still combing junkyards searching for Subaru rear axles with the highly coveted Limited Slip Differential to bolt directly into their cars with no modifications necessary.

Subaru has worked hard to build a rugged reliable car that could withstand the rigors and hazards found on Third World roadways. Their sedans and station wagons are still not beauty queens but they are acceptably bland enough to blend into traffic without garnering any attention for homeliness.

Conventional wisdom in the auto industry is that “Racing improves the breed” and “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” are keys to expanding market share. About ten years ago Subaru targeted the World Rally Championship (WRC) as the best place to race their sturdy cars in an international arena. Adding turbo power to four-wheel drive, the Subaru Rally team has had huge success racing on what would not pass for a rutted logging trail in the US but serve as major highways in the infrastructure-challenged portions of the world. Capitalizing on their unpaved road racing success, Subaru now sells the popular “WRX” (partially using the initials for the World Rally Championship so that consumers know where the model has had racing success) version of their small coupe, sedan and station wagons which packs over 200 horse-power of turbo power with the stick of four wheel drive in a package that sells for less than $30,000. In congruously, the sedate Subaru product line of granola hauling station wagons for the tweed and flannel set is now bipolar with a set of fire breathing hot rods for the generation that had its car consciousness raised by the Fast and Furious movies.

Today Subaru represents the best value in the entry-level performance segment of the car market; the WRX model is the high performance flag bearer for the Subaru product line and can be had from the factory with every boy racer item including flashy wheels, racing style seats, and a huge rear wing hovering over the trunk lid.

Subaru is offering a new model this year that is an exciting development in new car marketing and it represents a trend that I hope will spread throughout the entire automobile industry. Long ago in the 1960’s, it was possible to special order a stripped down compact or mid-sized car with the top-of-the-product-line power train springs and brakes for competitive purposes. Today Subaru has revived that choice for buyers by offering the modestly equipped TR version of the WRC that begs owners to modify it

“TR” stands for Tuner Ready and implies that the owner will customize (or “tune” in the parlance of the sport compact car culture) to his or her specific taste. The TR comes with a very plain interior, standard wheels, low-grade sound system and no exterior wings, stripes or stickers. But what it does have is the highest performance version of the Subaru turbo engine, suspension, and brakes in a plain brown wrapper. In effect, the TR is a blank canvas that allows the weekend enthusiast to build his WRX into a reflection of his own tastes.

Subaru has matured from the experimental arm of Datsun offering quirky oddities, to being a respected maker of solid family haulers that can brave an unplowed snowy suburban side street. But to a new generation of auto sport enthusiasts, Subaru is now the purveyor of pure pavement performance.

Posted by Scott at 9:09 PM | Comments (3)

December 9, 2005

Thinking of leasing a car?

Buy or lease a car? A lease will get you into a car cheaper than a purchase and the payments for a lease can be cheaper than a purchase. But is a lease always a better idea? The answer is: It depends.

A purchase is pretty straightforward; you and the dealer agree to a price, you either pony up the cash for the full purchase price or you finance the purchase with some sort of loan. Once the car is purchased for cash or the loan has been paid off, you own it. Or rather you own the residual value of the car known as equity. Because as we all know, a new car loses about 30% of its value as it leaves the dealer’s lot. And cars continue to lose value as time moves on. In EXTREMELY rare circumstances a car can actually appreciate in value, but this only occurs in the world of hand built Ferraris or similar limited production cars. This is such a rare and unusual event that we can safely assume that this will never happen to a car that the average guy can afford.

Yes some old and rare cars can appreciate as time passes. Old cars can evoke strong emotions in people with more disposable income than brains. Back during the Dot Com boom of the late 1990’s, with money flowing like water on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, collector car prices went through the roof as the newly wealthy geeks and traders sought to buy up the dream cars of their youth. But as the Internet bubble burst, the demand for and prices of specialty cars declined. The current bubble in Real Estate prices fueled by relatively low interest rates has put a lot of money back into the pocket of car collectors who feel that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. But unless you are willing to buy a Corvette Z06 and then never drive it for 20-30 years, a new car purchase is doomed to be a net money loser for you. That loss of money is also known as depreciation and that is a standard feature on every new car sold around the world. Even if your purchased car loses 90% of its purchase price over the time you own the car, you still own the 10% residual value of the car… and you get to keep the car.

A car lease is not a car purchase. But it is not a mere rental either. With a lease you lay out little or no money to start the agreement and your payments can be far less than a loan payment. That sounds pretty good, but what is the catch? The catch is that at the end of the lease you have no equity in the car you have been paying to use. And you have to give the car back

So is a lease a glorified rental agreement? No, because with a lease you are buying something, but it is not a very tangible commodity. A lease is actually the purchase of the depreciation of the car you have been using. The more your car depreciates the greater your lease payments will be. If you have the opportunity to lease a $30,000 Mercedes or a $30,000 Chrysler, it can be reliably predicted that the Mercedes will lose less of its value during the length of the lease and the lease payments will be lower on the German car. And the leasing company wants you to return their car in good condition so a lease comes with come clauses that stiffly penalizes excess mileage and less than adequate maintenance. So you get to use the car, but you better not drive it too far and you had better keep up with all the repairs or the leasing company can charge you a lot of extra money when you turn in the car at the end of the lease.

The big advantage of a lease is that self-employed people and people who use their car for business can usually deduct the cost of a lease from their income tax. Those same people can usually deduct the purchase of a car also, but the purchase price will be amortized over a depreciation schedule set by the Federal Government. Us folks who punch a clock at the behest of an employer are hard presses to find a legitimate way to deduct the cost of a lease and there is no deduction on the interest on a car loan any more (Ronald Reagan’s administration lowered the tax rates for most Americans but also reduced the number of expenses that could be deducted, including the interest on any kind of loan). The tax dodge for most home owning tax payers is to refinance their home and use any resulting cash to buy a car while deducting the new home loan interest.

The most reliable financial “smart move” in automobile ownership is to allow someone else to absorb the first year depreciation hit of a new car by buying a 1 or 2 year old used car that holds its value well like a Mercedes. Drive that slightly used car for a year or so and then sell it for nearly what you paid for it. You have the advantage of driving a different car every year and avoid the financial pitfalls of new car depreciation and the lease company’s restrictive clauses.

Posted by Scott at 1:17 PM | Comments (6)

December 7, 2005

Freedom of choice

"Back in the old days..." If your current age is younger than the average life experience of the cast of "The OC" you really must hate to hear us old folks use that phrase. "Get with the times old man, your era ended when the dinosaurs last roamed the earth," my children are fond of telling me. Well abuse me if you must, but there were some good times back in the old days.

No, the cars were not better back in the old days. Today's cars are environmentally cleaner, far safer, more fuel efficient and generally faster than anything you could buy back in the classic Muscle Car era of the late 1960's and early 1970's. And today's cars are lightyears ahead of the smog-choked monstrosities that were foisted upon the American Public during the Energy Crisis of the 70's and 80's. But way back in the day there was one fun feature of buying a new car that has largely disappeared in the modern automotive era, the long list of options that could be ordered from the factory 30 years ago.

In today's car buying environment the consumer has a fairly short list of choices once he gets inside the dealer's show room. As an example, let's examine the purchase of a mythical car that represents how most cars are sold in America these days:

If you want to buy a World Wide Wicket Belchfire, you will find that it comes in three levels of trim. The cheapest version of the Belchfire is what we used to call the "stripper model" because it does not have all the nice features and chrome trim of the next level up. Generally this lowly model is reserved for government fleet sales and rental car duty. The middle model of the Belchfire is the version mostly likely to be bought by the average consumer. It costs a bit more than the stripper, but it has a nicer stereo, plusher fabrics on the seats and shinier hubcaps. And at the peak of the Belchfire food chain is the luxo-version with a sunroof, leather seats, a bigger engine and four-wheel disk brakes.

The dealer will be happy to sell you chrome wheels, floor mats and other revenue enhancers from the showroom floor, but the basic list of choices when buying a new car today are stripper, basic and luxo. The manufacturers limit your choices not to prevent buyer information overload, but to simplify their supply and construction streams. It is far more efficient for the factory to crank out only a couple of versions of the same model than to try and customize a dazzling variety of features for every car sold. And if the factory can get all the consumers who want a sunroof to also buy the bigger engine model with the fancy stereo, etc. etc. the profit margin increases with every extra feature packaged onto the model with the sunroof.

But back in the old days (there is that phrase again) it was not so simple. When Mr. And Mrs. American Car Buyer found themselves in the dealer showroom circa 1967 they were given a very long menu of option choices they could select to create the car of their dreams. Interior and exterior trim options were only the beginning of the list, manufacturers allowed you to match as many as five different engine choices with multiple choices for rear axle, brake styles (Manual or power assisted, front disk or drums, heavy duty or standard and so on) and carburetors (single barrel, two barrel, four barrel or multiple carb setup) were available by checking off a box on the option list. At one point it was possible to order certain General Motors cars in ten thousand different variations by mixing and matching various option choices that could be custom ordered from the factory. Today, Muscle Cars from the classic era have a greater value to collectors if the original build sheet, list from the factory detailing every option ordered at purchase, is included in the car's documentation.

Consumers loved the choices but the factory eventually grew weary of stocking so many potential part combination and the dealers preferred to sell an existing car off in their inventory rather than taking a customer order and waiting 6-8 weeks for delivery and final payment from the buyer. American auto manufacturers believed that they needed to offer consumers a wide range of choices, but it was the success of the Japanese cars during the gas crisis years that proved that Americans were willing to buy a car with limited optional choices.

The long list of optional choices for consumers is not completely a thing of the past, the high-end German manufacturers are still willing to special order a car to a buyer's exacting expectations. They will even invite the buyer to come to the German factory to witness their car's construction and take delivery as it rolls off the production line. Porsche has a particularly impressive list of options available for order; maybe the most entertaining reading for a gear head is to imagine the possibilities that can be selected from the Stuttgart factory.

The next time you consider buying a new car know that you are getting a much better car than your father could have bought back in the day. But dear old dad had a lot more choice when he visited the dealership.

Posted by Scott at 6:58 AM | Comments (1)

December 4, 2005

Do you like your car?

Why do you like your car? You do like your car, don't you? If you don't like your car why are you still driving it? What compelled you to buy the car you are driving now? Was it a good price? Was the financing attractive? Does it have a flashy paint job, big wheels or a cool entertainment system? Is your car a fashion statement or a lifestyle statement? Do you care what other people think about your car? Are you driving the car you think other people think is a cool car?

The answer to these questions will shape the car buying decision made by the consumer. Every person who buys a car has a different set of values that they need a car to live up to; that is why the consumer has a choice of literally hundreds of makes and models to choose from. A car that I like may not be the car that you like. I will not assign a value to your choice and I ask you to please refrain from making a judgment about my choices.

Cars are important to me the way shoes are important to my fiancee. I own a pair of sneakers and a pair of generic black leather lace up... shoes. Shoes are such a low priority for me that I do not have the sufficient vocabulary to adequately describe the shoes that I wear for formal occasions. My lovely fiancee is a woman of taste and style that has closets full of the finest in Italian designer leather products. Every outfit in her fashionable wardrobe has a specific pair of shoes that compliments the ensemble.

My collection of cars is numerically inferior to my sweet intended's horde of shoes, but they answer a wide variety of needs that a single car could never fulfill. I own a staid and conservative daily driver that comfortably transports my family with an acceptable level of speed and economy. This mundane family-mobile does not call attention to itself yet has enough quiet elegance that parking attendants do not hide it at the back of the lot at the trendy restaurants I have been known to frequent. But the family ride is not a performance car; it cannot accelerate, turn or stop with the vigor that I appreciate. So I have a hobby car that sacrifices comfort, quiet and convenience in exchange for speed. I cannot haul the family and it associated flotsam and jetsam in my family car. The family truckster cannot carve corners like my hobby car can.

The third and final car in my fleet is a compromise vehicle in every sense of the word. My 16 year-old son is driving now and his very specific set of needs demands a very special set of automotive features. As he is a new driver and likely to have some sort of road mishap as he gains driving experience, the first car he drives regularly should be vehicle that I have no emotional attachment or great financial investment in. Safety and economy are of paramount importance to me; a modicum of style and the appearance of performance are his greatest concerns. The family car is my ride to work, the hobby car is far too much car for a youngster to drive on the street, so the kid's car is a 15 year-old Honda Prelude in sound mechanical condition.

All three of the cars in my possession are made by Honda; I think I have firmly established that I like the Honda combination of engineering excellence at an affordable price. But beyond a nameplate my cars have nothing in common. Because no single car can fill all the needs in my automotive life, I own more than just one. I like them all for very different reasons. There is no single "best" car for me.

Posted by Scott at 3:10 PM | Comments (1)

December 1, 2005

Do you enjoy driving?

Do you enjoy driving? The chances are that if you are reading this article then you have an interest in cars and driving them. Of course that is not a guarantee. I knew a guy who was crazy about airplanes, his apartment was filled with airplane models and he had literature and canceled tickets from nearly every airline in the world. But he had no interest in learning to fly an airplane. For the purposes of this entry I will assume that you are a person who enjoys driving.

Do you like driving on an empty country road that meanders through rolling hills? How about a smooth stretch of road along a lovely beach or lake shoreline? Is it driving out in the desert along a dusty track that allows you to bounce from rock to rock in your off-road squirrel stomper? Maybe your idea of a good driving experience is a wide-open super highway that leads endlessly toward the horizon in a straight line. Or is your idea of happy motoring driving slowly down the boulevard so that everyone can get a good look at you in your candy apple painted dream machine?

I am sure that your idea of an enjoyable driving experience does not include crawling through rush hour stop and go traffic. Do you hate getting stuck behind a clueless driver with one hand on his cell phone and both eyes on his GPS screen as he slowly searches for another latte store? How about that left lane bandit who knows that the national speed limit is 65mph and there is no reason in the world why he should yield his position to faster moving traffic? Have you ever got stuck behind a cattle truck on a hot summer's day when your air conditioning is not working? Or maybe it is having your significant other telling you that you are lost, hopelessly lost, and that the only way to solve the problem is to pull into a gas station and ask for directions.

Is your favorite car to drive a flashy convertible? Do you like buttery soft leather seats, a silent seal against outside noise and a sound system that can reproduce sounds that will make a dog cry? Maybe you like to strap on a sleek sports car that responds to your thoughts before you can turn the steering wheel. Do you like a floaty ride that feels like your car is riding on clouds? Or maybe you prefer a firm grip road that transmits every imperfection in the pavement to your backside? Do you like being perched up high for a commanding view of the terrain or would you rather be slung low enough to fly below the radar?

Are there any kinds of cars you hate to drive? Would it kill you to be seen in one of those funny little foreign jobbies? Or would you never be caught dead in anything from Detroit? Are you an SUV person or a small car guy? Are trucks your thing; four-wheel drive and big knobby tires? Do you like a large hauler for the entire family/carpool/trailer hitch? Or would one of those European micro-cars suit your needs to get you ten miles to the office and back?

The point to this rant is that the definition of the phrase "enjoy driving" has many meanings to many people. If your ego needs to be stroked by a Silver Star emblem on your hood then a shiny new Mercedes Benz will be the only car you can enjoy. If your self-image is of a rugged, outdoorsy, individualist then you need a four-wheel drive rock crusher... just like all the other rugged, outdoorsy, individualists.

I love to drive, but I am more than happy to let someone else climb behind the wheel in city driving. I enjoy a stretch straight, un-crowded of highway, but I would much rather fly in an airliner than drive any distance beyond 100 miles. I enjoy my daily drive to work because it allows me a half-hour to psyche up for my 9-5 job and the evening commute home allows me to decompress from the rigors of the office. But I would hate to drive a taxi in my city because the traffic sucks

My favorite hobby is auto racing. This is my definition of driving enjoyment. A racecar, on race tires, on a racetrack is the most fun anyone can have with their clothes on. But I would hate to drive racecar in city traffic because it is loud, hot, and uncomfortable. Plus there is no stereo in my racecar.

But for me, a daily driver is a household appliance. As long as it starts when I turn the key, the climate controls work and the stereo receives my favorite stations I am 99% satisfied with nearly any production car meant for street driving sold in America within the last 10 years. The difference is tipped when you ask me to spend my own money to PURCHASE any particular car and PAY out of my own pocket for the maintenance to keep it rolling. Then the field of acceptable cars narrows considerably.

My view of the world divides all people into one of two groups: Those who race cars in safe controlled environments and those who have not had the experience yet. No credit for you morons who weave through traffic and drag race from stop light to stop light; you are a menace to society and hopefully you will remove yourself from the gene pool before you reproduce.

Until you have driven at speed in a car that is designed for maximum performance with no concessions for amenities, you can not even begin to form an opinion upon enjoying driving.

Posted by Scott at 11:18 AM | Comments (3)

November 30, 2005

Comments Deux

Sometimes, someone other than Buck leaves a comment for me.

Reader Tolovemoon writes:

Hi, I think you have all the right ideas for buying a used car. I really like your point about the car stereo being replaced and how it will give you a better idea to if the car will have electric problems... I had a Ford Taurus station wagon that had many grimlins..inside lights, radio, or the dinger would all dim and sometimes not come on. A few cars I have owned even had weather temperamental problems with the electircal things. So the electrical in cars today are a big top priority for me when I am looking to buy a car or to give my opinion to wether I feel comfortable driving. Anyways enjoyed your normal entries. I was searching for tools or things to upgrade my husbands garage in the technology aspect like testers and such when I found this link.
Thank you for your nice comment. If I can help just one person...

Reader Sarah McBride adds:

When your car in not functioning properly it means only one thing that it is not in good condition. You have to check your car regularly. You must also be sensitive to know your car needs, 90 percent of vehicles show that motorists or auto users need some more consumer education on proper use and maintenance of vehicles.

Aiding my fellow consumers is the goal here. If anyone has a specific question please be sure to ask and I will answer as best I can. Or I will make something up that sounds like I know what I am talking about.

Jay Stevens contributed this in response to my comments on how a driver's personality changes behind the wheel of a car:

In fact, most drivers on the road don't fully realize the responsibility they take on every time they get behind the wheel of a car. We've all been on the freeway, stopped by an accident. Well, those accidents are common and caused by a variety of irresponsible behaviors.

Who can argue with that?

What would one of my ease to write, respond to comments, articles be without something from Buck? He also has something to say about personality change while driving.

I think that AJ(my 16-year-old son who is about to start driving) may be upset at this comment but...

I have seen a radical change in my driving as I migrated from a wimpy 1.8 with a turbo to a smile-inducing 3.5 280HP engine.

Now if your hobby car has this type of affect on your, what will it do to the mind and emotions of a 16-year-old boy in LA? I know what I was like behind the wheel of a '69 Firebird convertible. Fortunately, I have another 8 years before I have to worry about this in earnest.

Careful with that powerful Infiniti Sedan, someone in the soccer car pool may call child protective services on you for doing burn outs in the school pick up line.

Posted by Scott at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

I love geting comments

I get comments, which means someone other than pornographers looking to link my blog to their site is reading this stuff.

In response to my article about weird GM engines, Reader Terry Brown writes:

No matter what kind of vehicle you have, make sure that the engine that supports your car is truly a tough one. Engine play a very important parts for us to control the vehicle.

Umm, OK.

Frequent Reader and commentator Buck writes in regard to my personal daily driver:

There was such promise at the beginning. I thought that Little Leadfoot (my fiancee) was having a positive impact on your automotive sensibilities (or potential lack thereof). You crushed my hope.

If my personal choice for transportation crushes what little hope you have left in your life, I suggest you get help before you hurt yourself.

Regarding my suggestion that the New Mustang is a glorified Girl Car and not worthy of consideration as a proper Sporting Sedan, Buck Writes:

While I had my summer flirtation with the Mustang (thanks again for your review, it was dead on) I went for Chocolate Chip ice cream (actually, I think it was Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough) and got the G35 Sedan. It's fun! And it works with kids. As the rear seats don't fold down (and Little Leadfoot has the G35 Coupe) it wouldn't be the right car for you.

I am going to resist the temptation to say, "I told you so," when I counseled Buck not to buy a New Mustang for his commuting needs and occasional family hauling. I also told him to consider other alternatives beside the G35 Sedan as I feel that the Nissan/Infiniti engineering quality and construction materials are at the trailing edge of Japanese automobile standards (only surpassed by Mitsubishi for the worst of a good bunch). The G35 Sedan and coupe share the same platform and power train as the Nissan 350Z which has enough power and torque to overwhelm the stock tires with the standard traction control system turned off. Power-induced over steer, yahoo!!! For a suburban, commuting, drudge, shackled with family responsibilities a little rear tire spin is about as exciting as it can get I suppose.

Buck keeps writing:

There has to be a car out there that meets your needs and has some style. Honda seems to be losing market share as its cars have absolutely no style. They are franks and beans (not even chicken in my book). Toyota is gaining and will soon pass GM as the world leader. Toyota brought us Lexus which used to have style and Scion which has style (whether you like its cars or not, they are not like anything else). Plus, Toyota leads with the Prius in the hybrid market.

If "popular" meant good, then McDonalds would be the epitome of fine dining. Toyota is going to take GM to school on being the world's leading supplier of cars for a variety of reasons; largely by never resting on their well deserved laurels like GM has done for the last 40 years. I have explained this before and I will say it again: Honda makes the best engines and transmissions in the world. Honda makes more internal combustion engines than any other company in the world (including motorcycles, generators and car engines) and they get it right.

The Toyota Prius and similar hybrid technology cars are an interesting experiment, Prius' have a nasty habit of shutting down for no apparent reason and refusing to restart. I am willing to allow other people to be real world guinea pigs while the technology gets developed. Perhaps one day when the technology has a few generations of evolution under its belt I may consider purchasing a hybrid. But even if the price of gas remained at $3 per gallon, it would take nearly 200,000 miles of usage to recoup the extra cost of purchase for an under powered Corolla on skinny tires. Modern gasoline powered Hondas are essentially pollution free and my 3,400 lbs. four door 2003 Accord gets 20mpg in hard city driving. So get back to me when the hybrids are more than a Volvo substitute for the Birkenstock crowd.

That Buck, he loves to write:

Scott, you, unlike our presidents, are a Car Guy. You have rebuilt several Mustangs and other vehicles. There has to be something for you other than an Accord!

Let's add this up, shall we? The Accord is well screwed to together, economical to operate, and is capable of completing the tasks I assign it. It is clean, comfortable and paid for. I am secure in my masculinity so I do not need a car to reconfirm my position in the social food chain. If I fail to become a slavish consumer whose choice is shaped by the expectations of others, I can live with that decision.

Keep those comments coming.

Posted by Scott at 11:31 AM | Comments (1)

November 22, 2005

Driver Personality Change

Does your personality change behind the wheel? I know that mine does. I like to think of myself as an easy going, even tempered, rational person who can see the good in everyone. But once I get behind the wheel of a car all I can see are morons out to murder me with their incompetence as drivers. When I am driving it never fails to amaze me how the shallow end of the gene pool has been allowed to continue to breed and become licensed drivers. I am continually searching for the next knuckle dragger who will run a red light or make a left turn from the right lane. Not a day goes by that I have to save my life with superior driving skills to compensate for the lack of ability of those who surround me on the road.

I also think of myself as an emotional chameleon; my aggressiveness behind the wheel is dictated by the vehicle I am driving. If I am driving my boring family car daily driver (a '03 Honda Accord LX four door) I drive like the gray-haired suburban dad. I am cautious and courteous on the road and I drive within the speed limit. I would never dream of dicing with other drivers nor would I ever weave through traffic.

But if I am driving my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si that has been modified for performance driving, I change into a much more aggressive driver. Freeway on ramps are an opportunity to feel the power of my performance-built engine and twisting roads allow me to test the lateral adhesion of my upgraded suspension. I am always take care to never push the limits of the car, the road conditions or my abilities on the public road; testing the limits of a car belongs in a controlled environment like a race track. It could be argued that I dance right up to the limits of safe driving behavior in my hobby car while on the street, but I do not break the law when driving on the street.

Posted by Scott at 6:03 AM | Comments (2)

October 12, 2005

I (finally) respond to comments

I get comments,

Reader Robyn writes:

I am wanting to find out what make and model car that Ashley Judd drove in the movie the YAYA Sister Club?

Sorry Robyn, that movie falls under the general definition of a "Chick Flick," and as such falls out of the area of expertise of the At Home Mechanic.

Regular Reader Dave Darling writes in response to my fitting a Carbon Fiber hood to my hobby car, a 19987 Honda CRX Si:

CF hood? Sweet, man! How much weight does that save? Saves it from the front, too, which is where most of the weight is in that car.

I think few things look nicer than a well laid-up piece of carbon-fiber bodywork. Sadly, they don't stay that way if you leave them unpainted. :( At least, if what I have heard is true, the sun's UV rays will start to break down the carbon strands over time, which will mar the looks and the strength of the panel.

Thanks Dave for returning the discussion on this site back to stuff I can respond to. The stock hood on the lightweight CRX model only weighs 20 pounds so there is not a lot of weight savings to found with a CF hood on that car. But as you said, any weight you can take off of the front of nose heavy Hondas is a good thing. And this hood is the "One Piece" design which means that the early CRX's plastic body panel between the headlights (called the header piece) which is prone to unsightly cracking can be eliminated. The new hood leaves a slight gap between the hood and the bumper cover so I have cut the plastic "grill" from the header piece and put that back on the car which nicely fills the gap that the new hood leaves.

I do not know much about Carbon Fiber's long term endurance in the sun, but I have also heard that it is best to keep it out of direct sunlight. Fortunately, my hobby car is always garaged and sun damage in not going to be a factor for me. But it seems to me that many cars are coming from the factory with Carbon Fiber pieces and maybe the CF parts they sue will survive sun exposure pretty well.

Painting a CF part would help to protect it from sun damage, but then no one will know that you have a CF body part if it is covered in paint. The best solution to this problem is something I have seen on a few street cars. The owner would paint all of the CF hood except for one corner that would be left exposed in its raw state, so he got the credit for the Carbon Fiber hood with the clean look of a painted part.

Keep those comments coming, I love to respond.

Posted by Scott at 7:09 PM | Comments (3)

I mourn the passing of the Honda Civic

The Honda Civic is dead as we know it. Honda has killed off their leading volume leader in the Untied States and no one is here to mourn its passing except me. The Civic nameplate lives on and the new for 2006 car that carries the Civic name is a fine car, but the Civic spirit is dead and gone. The Civic has morphed through innumerable changes since it was introduced in 1973 just in time to win the hearts and minds of the American automobile public as the first Gas Crisis struck in the Fall of '73. The original intent of the first Honda Civic has prevailed through all the model changes until the latest and largest version of the Honda Civic hit the US dealerships. The newest Civic has grown in size just as the girth of the Average American has grown over the decades and the larger, pudgier Civic is tailored to fit an audience that needs a skoosch more room to fit into its jeans.

It is not necessarily a bad thing that Honda has moved the Civic product line up a notch in the greater automotive food chain; the new car is well built, fuel efficient and handsome in an econo-box sort of way. In size and features, the new Civic is moving into territory that the Honda Accord has occupied since that nameplate debuted in the US in the late 1970's. The taller, wider cabin of the new Civic will hold four American-sized adults comfortably while the trunk will happily swallow their luggage. The fit and finish of the body and interior is Honda traditional: outstanding. The Honda drive train is Swiss watch smooth and quiet while delivering a jump in horsepower and squeezing even more mileage out of each gallon of gas than year's outstanding gas economy performance. So what is not to like about the new Civic?

Size and weight, to start with. The new Civic now tips the scales on the hefty side of 2900 pounds. What once was delivered at 2400 pounds now hauls a quarter of a ton of extra poundage. The extra weight delivers greater rigidity, a quieter and more comfortable ride and greater comfort features that were only available on top line luxury vehicles only a few years ago. Again, getting all these improvements is not a bad thing for the majority of car consumers who seek the Civic's legendary reliability and fuel economy in such an affordable package.

It is the car enthusiast market that is being shortchanged by the new Honda Civic. The Honda Civic, until outed by The Fast and the Furious movies, was the stealth performance car of choice for the new age gear head. Until the general public was woken from its ignorance of Honda's engineering and performance potential from such small packages by the laughably bad street racer movies, the Honda Civic was the car of choice for the modern Hot Rodder because it combined a small package with a high performance potential. Light weight, simple design and easily accessible mechanical bits (meaning that the average Home Mechanic could easily repair or improve his car) spawned the Sport Compact Car movement.

The new Civic in not light as we have covered, nor will it be easy for the average Home Mechanic to work on. Serious racing teams with not-for-the-street lightweight body materials can address the weight issue. But the At Home Mechanic will be stymied in his attempt to add power increasing aftermarket parts onto the new Civic due the compact design of the new car's engine compartment packaging. The engine every Civic up to the 2005 model year left the entire engine exposed when the hood was opened, the New Civic's steeply sloping windshield caused the underlying dashboard to project far forward and cover most of the engine compartment. While routine service points are still easily accessible in the new car, the tight spaces left by the new design dictates that the engine will need to be removed from below the vehicle for major service and improvement. This will definitely make an impact on the casual home hobbyist who would like do his own major work on the car.

Honda has a reason for moving the Honda Civic upscale in size and appointments while making the car that much more difficult for non-factory mechanics to work on it. The dealerships make the majority of their profits from the service bays, so anything that forces the owners to return for service is a plus for them. And Honda plans to fill the vacuum left by the Civic's departure for the next step up on the automotive evolutionary chain with an entirely new-to-the-US model called the Honda Jazz overseas and to be called the Honda Fit in the American market. Smaller, lighter, cheaper and less powerful than the Civic, the Fit will fit nicely into the current Honda lineup when it is introduced into this market next spring (allowing plenty of time for Honda dealerships to empty their inventory of smaller 2005 civic models lingering on their lots).

The good news for enthusiasts is that the Fit will swallow the Civic's bigger and more powerful drive train into its engine compartment and the tradition of packing a powerful punch in a small Honda will be continued by enthusiasts looking for a small package to propel with Honda power.

Posted by Scott at 6:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2005

I love getting readers comments

I enjoy getting comments and suggestions from my legions of readers (both of you) and you have responded quickly to my musings about buying a new car. As I stated in that post, I am tired of my boring, but reliable 2003 Honda Accord LX four door that has served me well for the past three years. My daily driver has been some sort of four-door sedan since I became a parent. But now that my kids are older and more independent it is not necessary for me to drive a bus-like vehicle to haul the entire family and I am considering what kind of car I can buy to replace the Family Truckster.

Dave Darling writes:

I would have a tough time buying any new car, frankly. I'd rather have something that has already experienced the major hit of depreciation, and something I can understand and work on. Which pretty much rules out everything new.

I'm partial to small two-seaters that are lightweight and have phenomenal handling. Most of which are staggeringly impractical (which is why I really like my CRX--it's the practical two-seater!). My vote for a new car would likely be a Lotus Elise. It's pretty much the acme of the "not practical" car, though.

The Lotus Elise is a dream come true, a slick little roadster with world class performance straight off the dealer's lot. I could feature myself carving corners in that car which looks to my eye like a 5/8's scale model of the FORD GT (if you put the hard top on, stand back about 50 feet and squint a bit). But it really small with little room to change your mind let alone a change of clothing for a weekend trip. And there are about 40 thousand good reasons with pictures of dead presidents on them that I will not be buying that car. However, if I match six lucky numbers I would certainly add a Lotus Elise to my stable of dream cars.

Dave also makes a good point about taking a hit of instant depreciation on a new car, losing something like 30% of its value as you drive it off the dealer's lot. The longer you hold a new car, the greater amount of time you have to spread that depreciation out. But I am reaching the crossover point of holding the car any longer will not justify the savings in lost depreciation.

I have been told that the "smartest" play in the auto ownership game is to purchase a one-year-old Mercedes that has come back in on a short-term lease. The first driver of the car has paid for the instant depreciation so there is little risk in holding that one-year old car for a year or so and then selling it before it begins to depreciate rapidly.

Bryce adds:

If you like sedans, and liked previous Accords, the Acura TSX might be good to look at. I'm a fan of it. It's the European and Japanese Accord. It's smaller and lighter than the Accord, while being far nicer to be in. I like the idea of a rev happy 4 cylinder with a 6 speed too.

I'd just about sell a kidney to get a Lotus Elise. It's not practical, but it calls to me like the Sirens to the Argonauts. If I had enough money to get one, I would not be able to resist buying one.

Bryce, I am with you all the way. The Lotus Elise is worthy of a selling a body part for. And it is interesting that you have the same taste in cars as Dave Darling and me. I guess birds of a feather, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But as I said before, it is too expensive and too small to be a daily driver for my purposes.

I like your suggestion of the Acura TSX, it is a more handsome and slightly smaller version of the Accord. Maybe I can find a slightly used version to beat the depreciation penalty. I have a few weeks to mull over the decision, I expect to be car shopping at the car buyer friendly Christmas season (few people buy cars when they are taking on the expenses of the holidays).

Keep those comments and suggestions coming in!

Posted by Scott at 5:24 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2005

Seen on the Street!

I saw one on the street today! I have seen the TV commercial, read about them in the magazines and even have pressed my nose against the dealer’s window, but until yesterday I have never seen a real live FORD GT being driven on the street. The new FORD GT, a retro reinterpretation of the Ford GT40 that dominated the 24 hours of Le Mans during the late 1960’s, is the stuff of Baby Boomer dreams. And after being released to the public for nearly a year I finally saw one on the street in my hometown.

My home town is pretty typical. Well, typical by Southern California standards. I live on the west side of Los Angles, a fairly affluent neighborhood where you are as much what you drive as where you live or what you do for a living. Around here it is important to many people to announce their perceived place in the social pecking order by the size and shape of their automobile. Intellectual arguments that a monster Mercedes is hardly necessary to transport a single occupant to their office in Century City are lost to those who are constantly measuring their car’s status symbol value against their neighbor’s.

But it is not the marginally insecure who love their shiny, flashy cars; all Californians have at least a passing interest in their source of personal transportation. At an early age we Californians can learn to tell the difference between a Buick or an Oldsmobile from across six lanes of traffic. Combine this with Californian’s notorious eccentric taste in all things (fashion, politics, cars, you name it we got it) and you will find a broad range of automobiles on our streets from Yugos to Ferraris as a matter of daily course. Square the eccentricity of the city with the dry, temperate climate and it not considered unusual for cars 30-40 years old to be used as a daily driver.

So the streets of Los Angeles are swarming with cool cars, new cars, old cars, fancy cars and sporty cars. It takes a significant car sighting to make a dent in a Los Angelinos consciousness. And my first sighting of a FORD GT on the street made quite an impression on me.

I was driving southbound on Rossmore Avenue in Los Angeles’s tone Hancock Park during slow afternoon rush hour traffic when I saw the FORD GT coming toward me. Shiny red with white racing stripes, there was not mistaking the distinctive lines of that swoopy car. Like a bobbysoxer at a Frank Sinatra concert at the Copa, I nearly swooned when I caught sight of the car. Wishing to salute the car and its lucky driver, I flashed my lights at him hoping that this simple gesture could communicate my respect, envy and desire for that car.

As the car approached my car in the opposite direction, I expected to see a look of bliss upon the face of the lucky driver. But as he got closer I could see his white knuckles gripping the steering the wheel and a look of dismay on his face. It was only then that I noticed that the low slung FORD GT was dwarfed by the towering SUVS surrounding it. Sitting so close to the ground, the occupants of a FORD GT are eye level with the never used the trailer hitches of the Toyota Land Crushers and Ford Exploders that range freely across the LA landscape. The driver of the FORD GT was scared to death that he and his expensive trophy car were in immediate danger of being crushed by a careless turn of the wheel by a latté addled soccer mom who would never see the tiny car in their mirrors if they got off the phone long enough to look into them.

The experience of seeing some other driver driving a FORD GT (the modern fulfillment of all my school boy hopes and dreams of one day owning a Ford GT40) and NOT enjoying the experience was a sobering slap in the face to me. I guess it just goes to show you that the dream car that you have always lusted after is not always the best car for use in the real world. And that is the reason why I will not spend $200,000 to buy a FORD GT and continue to drive a more mundane car.

Posted by Scott at 7:21 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Time to move on

The thrill is gone. The bloom is off the rose. It is official, I am tired of my car. My daily driver is a 2003 Honda Accord LX four door, a perfectly fine family automobile. It is quiet, comfortable, spacious and economical. It has never failed to deliver all that it has promised to be, a reliable source of transportation. But familiarity breeds contempt and after nearly three years together it is time to move on.

I am not the promiscuous type, usually I am faithful to my cars and keep them for years. If I have a fault of any kind it is that I hold my cars too long, throwing good money after bad into old cars that need to be retired. I love my cars, I never would have bought them originally if they did not initially appeal to me. They become a member of the family with so many happy memories associated with them that I hate to let them go.

But the current Accord (it is the third Accord we have owned) is playing out its last days with our family. The car is approaching 42,000 miles on the odometer representing a 14,000 mile per year average, a number that is higher than average usage. If I continue to put mileage on this car at the current rate the residual value of the car at resale or trade in plummet in a year’s time. A used car with less than 50,000 miles on it is afar more attractive to potential buyers and will allow a bout more leverage at trade-in.

The car is also coming up on some wear item replacement. I had to replace the brake pads and shoes at 25,000 miles and I expect that I will need to replace them again within the year. I replaced the rear tires about 7,000 miles ago when they both suffered sidewall damage in separate punctures. The original front tires still have tread on them, but they will need replacing within 5,000 miles and I would rather not put any more money into a car that I am not planning on keeping.

This car is the latest generation of the ubiquitous Honda Accord line of family sedans, a line of cars that have always been top sellers. But over the years Honda has made each successive generation of Accord larger than the last until the current car is the size of an E Class Mercedes. Not a large car by American standards, but a larger car than I am used to driving. I prefer something smaller and easier to maneuver in traffic and parking lots.

I have owned four door sedan since I became a parent, it was convenient to load a family in through rear doors rather than having to twist and bend to get into a smaller back seat of a coupe. But my children are growing and more independent and it is no longer necessary to haul a large load of family to every destination. Now is the time to return to driving a coupe.

So the hunt begins. What car will I replace my reliable but boring Honda Accord with? I want something with a power to weight ratio of at least 18:1 or better, I deserve to drive a snappy performer at this advanced age that I have found myself at. And I want the new car to be mechanically and aesthetically pleasing to me, I have to respect the workings under the hood for me to drive a car on a regular basis. Sadly, this eliminates nearly every car made by US manufacturers.

I am open to your suggestions, perhaps someone out there has a good suggestion. Note to Buck: No Mustang convertible suggestions please.

Posted by Scott at 8:18 PM | Comments (2)

September 17, 2005

I respond to comments

I get comments and I do not often get the chance to respond directly to them. Being the lazy sort and not motivated to think up a whole new blog topic on my own I will respond to your many kind comments.

Recently I wrote about my recent engagement and the impact a new marriage will have on the fleet of cars in our soon to be combined families. My Lovely Intended who goes by the Nom De Internet of
little leadfoot writes:

Honey, I promise I will never tell you need an automotive upgrade, as
long as you promise you will smile and nod approvingly when I bring home my next impractical, zippy little sports car with manual transmission. Just be glad most of the kids have their own cars now.

I am glad that 75% of our progeny will be driving their own cars and the need to operate a family taxi service will be gone. Only the youngest one in curls will need to be driven on a regular basis and now maybe I can consider buying a fun and impractical car for a daily driver. But the practical side of me whispers that there will still be a need for some sort of hauler. Hmmmm, maybe I can justify getting that beater pick up truck I have always wanted?

I have also gotten some warm wishes from regular readers regarding my impending nuptials, Dave Darling writes:

Scott, you got yourself a winner there! Congratulations to the both of you.

Thank you Dave, I think so too. Not only is my Bride To Be sweet and loving, but also she has a need for automotive speed. One of the very first gifts I gave her was a day at the Jim Hall Cart Racing School in Oxnard, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Resident Gadfly Buck writes:

Congratulations, Scott and Little Leadfoot!!!

I happen to agree that your Accord is boring. Well, you agree and accept that. I drive similar LA roads as you and do find that a little extra power can help at time and even be fun. Those rare occasions that I get to drive Mulholland (which will increase for a year as we move up there temporarily next year) make it worthwhile to have a fun car. Plus, the road (even freeways) do open up.

Little Leadfoot, good for you! But I do think that the G35 sedan is a little more practical with kids. (Yes, I think that is what I have settled on, finally.)

Scott, I look forward to getting a ride with you in your shiny new Mustang convertible!
The last comment is directed at my less than enthusiastic response to Buck’s love affair with the new Mustang convertible. I think I broke Buck’s heart when I told him that his attraction to the new Mustang’s is more of a physical relationship than one based upon love and respect.

I made a snide remark about young men who have a challenged social life, regular