Antique & Classic Cars Blog

Word around Europe is that former world forumula one champion Michael Schumacher can still throw a car around. When late for a flight, he asked the cab driver if he wouldn’t mind letting the passenger take the wheel.

The cabbie complied and Schumacher gave him the ride of his life, according to Agence France Presse.

“I found myself in the passenger seat, which was strange enough, but to have ‘Schumi’ behind the wheel of my cab was incredible,” driver Tincer Yilmaz told the Muenchner Abendzeitung.

“He drove at full throttle around the corners and over-took in some unbelievable places.”

Schumacher’s spokeswoman confirmed the story.

In exchange for the quicker ride, Schumacher tipped the driver more than 100%.

Wonder if “Michael Schumacher is driving a cab at 120 miles per hour” constitutes “anything unusual” under the new security signs posted on the way to MSP?

Story here.

Several weeks ago, I suggested five books the car enthusiast on your shopping list would enjoy.

Let me add Camaro, Forty Years, Darwin Holmstrom’s official anniversary book for Chevy’s response to the Mustang. If someone you know dreams about Camaros, this book has more mouth-watering pictures of stock and dealer-modified (e.g., Nickey, Yenko, Baldwin-Motion) machines than you are likely to find in any other place.

Ace snapper David Newhardt clicked most everything that isn’t archival, so most of the shots are poster quality.

If you love the muscle car era and the thought of buying a Camaro has never entered your mind (that is, before prices went on the boil), then, huh, maybe you hit your head or something… Better get that checked out.

A is for Allard, they’re plenty rare
B is for Bentley and nary a care,
C is for Chevy, the bowtie brand,
D is for Dodge, a family sedan,

E is for Edsel, son of old Henry,
F is for Ford, and hot rods a’ plenty,
G is Ghia, styled some real nifties,
H is for Hudson,  gone since the Fifties,

I for Isetta, drew Bimmer some snears,
J: Kaiser model once sold by Sears,
Kharmann penned Triumph, and so Michelotti,
Look at Hillman and Stude’, see Raymond Loewy,

M is the Merc, pull its crank for your flathead,
N is for Nash—’styles couldn’t have lasted,
O is the Olds, last rites we have read for,
P is Plymouth, the same can be said for,

Q is the letter makers pass over, but
R will stand for the all-terRange Rover,
S is the Stutz, a great ’20s racer,
T is for Tucker, hero dream-chaser,

U can be Unic, a brass-era taxi,
V is the Vector, twin-turbo nasty,
W, for Willy’s, the trusty old go-fer,
X, for X-body Ventura and Nova,

Y is the Yugo, poor driver’s friend,
Z is for Zephyr, and this poem’s End.

–Kris Palmer

Do you have a classic car or truck? If you’re a reader here, chances are you do.

Send me a picture of it. Email me at weekendgarage/at/comcast.net (replace /at/ with @ ) and I’ll post it, along with whatever details you wish to provide.

It needed be pristine. It doesn’t need to be running or even complete. What appeals to you about the car will appeal to many others of like mind–there’s thousands of us! Classics fans love ‘em in all states–before restored, unrestored, always pristine, now pristine. A cool car is a cool car.

Send me what you have. We’ll post it. Many readers would enjoy seeing it.

As a reminder, here’s what I’ve got:
1) 1972 Triumph TR6 with 1962 Olds F85 Aluminum V8 and 1980 Triumph TR8 5-speed transmission.
2) 1969 MGB GT with stock engine, transmission and overdrive, wire wheels; repainted the factory red.

If you scroll through the posts here, you’ll see stories on both cars. You will also see some of the cool cars readers have. I’d love to add yours to the collection. KP

I’m an unabashed manual transmission fan and agitator. But there is one drawbrack to being a clutch-and-shift-only driver: Rental cars.

You can rent a stick in Europe, but I’ve never seen one here. It’s autoboxes only–probably because an increasing portion of the population can’t even drive stick, and rental agencies don’t want cars on their lot they can’t rent.

But old habits die hard and clutching is one of them. When my wife and I were on holiday for a long weekend, we rented a car. After visiting a friend, we came to an intersection I’ve been through hundreds of times and my left foot went for the clutch on its own–to do what it always does with that pedal: push it to the floor.

Good thing we had seatbelts on. It’s one thing to explain that you lost of a few teeth in a bar fight (over something important, like why Randall Cunningham at his best was a better quarterback than Brett Favre); quite another to tell them you stomped on the brake pedal of a rented Lumina and knocked them out on the steering wheel.

Many cars have been made over the decades that looked like the track team and moved like the chess club. Engine swapping is the time-honored way to make slow, fast. If the lines are good but the horsepower ain’t, somebody–maybe lots of people–have fixed that with V6 or V8 punch. Vegas, Pintos, MGs, Triumphs, Sunbeams, TVRs, Austin Healeys, Datsun Z cars, Fiats, Alfas, Scamps, Darts, Dusters…. (Try finding a solid Chevy Vega with the stock 4-cylinder lump.)

There are many decisions to make in performing such a swap, but this may be the first one:

Do you want old school or new tech?

The answer depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you want to build the car you wish the manufacturer had turned out in the first place? Or do you want to upgrade the car with the best performance goodies your money can buy? With the first approach, you’ll change only what you need to. A person not familiar with your make and model could see your car, hood up, and think the car was bone stock.

The second approach leaves no doubt that you’ve dumped some pennies into rodding your creation. New parts will glisten and gleam under the hood–could be fuel injection, turbo- or supercharger, electric fan(s), modern wiring. You’ll probably swap the wheels. There may be a hood scoop up front; different seats and gauges inside and possibly a rollbar.

Either’s good. Both make a good looking car move like it should.

“Like that mirror? Fifty bucks.” Those bullet taillights strike your fancy? They’re yours.

We’ve been talking here and at the British V8 website about our favorite salvage yards–those everything’s-for-sale museums of automotive history. A few of the yards folks have mentioned so far are

French Lake
Rohners in Willmar
Weekly’s in Grand Forks
Windy Hill

Do you have a favorite salvage yard, or a favorite memory of one? What is it and what sort of cars did you see?

[Here’s a cool car story that ran in the hard copy Cars section. Thought folks might enjoy the Charlie Sheen angle. Great photos are by Tom Witta.  -KP]

There are worse times to be had than cruising the lakes in Derrik Dyka’s 1969 Plymouth Fury convertible—a lot worse. The car’s prior owner was Charlie Sheen, a fact with lots of cool, and a few annoying, attributes. On the cool side, this was Charlie Sheen’s convertible! On the downside, dealing with a seller 2,000 miles away, who is not the car’s owner—it was sold by an agent—hasn’t been as smooth as Dyka had hoped.

Still, the upsides win. The car looks good, rumbles great, and has a sound system on par with what major bands bring to stadium concerts. Amplifiers nearly fill the trunk—and you could sneak half your senior class into the drive-in in a Fury’s trunk. The only thing that isn’t stereo equipment is a small space reserved for a nitrous oxide bottle. With the stereo up you could probably do a shot of nitrous (which boosts horsepower) and not hear it, though you might notice the front of the car coming up half a foot.

The stereo system has its own story: Sheen lives near Linda Ronstadt and either they don’t like one another, or they don’t like one another’s musical tastes. Sheen supposedly King-Konged his stereo system so he wouldn’t have to hear whatever she was playing and could generally annoy her. Dyka definitely benefited from that tiff. We had the top down and the motor roaring (it always roars—we weren’t speeding), yet the Johnny Cash coming into the cabin was as clear as it was in the studio when he recorded it.

Sheen supposedly found the car en route to a shooting location for the film, Terminal Velocity. He wanted it immediately and held up the shoot to haggle with the seller. He painted it Ferrari Daytona yellow, added leopard-pattern upholstery, and decked out the door panels in Coach leather. A 360 cubic-inch crate motor went under the hood and the stereo balanced that weight out at the rear.

 
When the actor decided to sell, he put the car on eBay, that modern electronic candy store for virtually every product ever made. Dyka saw the listing and showed it to his wife, who said, “I think you should get it.” Gentlemen, you don’t give offers like that a minute to expire. Dyka had a friend in LA go look at the car and it checked out OK. Dyka didn’t win the auction but he told the seller he’d match the winning bid if that fell through. It did, and the car was shipped to Minneapolis—where Dyka learned it didn’t run. But Quality Coaches fixed the charging system and now the yellow star barge is on the road.

This isn’t Dyka’s first bought-for-fun vehicle. He’s had a few drop-top Jeeps and recently bought a Porsche Carrera, and a Triumph motorcycle (thanks to the success of his real estate business and supporting website, derrikdyka.com). But the Fury has a lot of family appeal—part of his reason for buying it. He and wife Sunny Yee have four-year-old twins, and they love the car, which has plenty of room for all.

So now Sheen’s Plymouth resides in the land of 10,000 lakes, where it will cruise any number of them, top down, stereo crooning, kids laughing and that big ol’ 360 V-8 burbling out its own thumping tune. The music may even be Sheen’s own mix, which, to Dyka’s satisfaction, the star left in the CD player.

It won’t be as convenient now, but if you haven’t topped up your tires and washer fluid and checked your radiator fluid when the engine is cool, now’s the time. You don’t want a flat tire, iced over windshield or temperature control problems when anything that stops your vehicle means shivering in your car or hoofing it through the snow.

It’s snowy out there and many people will be driving a new 4WD (or all-wheel drive) vehicle in slippery conditions for the first time.

Every first snow a few of these vehicles end up in the median on their side or top.

So REMEMBER: 4WD helps you GO.
It doesn’t help you STOP or turn.

When you hit the brakes or turn the front wheels, it doesn’t matter that you can send power to the front hubs. If the tire can’t produce friction, it will slide–off the turn or into anything in your path.

Drive smart. Don’t go faster than surrounding traffic. Take the time to learn the difference between 4WD and 2WD performance in snow.