Now that the sunny weather is here, I am enjoying driving my MG TF. It is not a restored car, but I still have a lot of fun driving it to shows. People are amazed to see one of these "fat fendered" MGs the way they looked 50 years ago and with bugs on the windshield. The car has a rebuilt engine. It runs good and everything works. It is as much or more fun than a restored one and I am not after trophies. I just enjoy low-cost, wind-in-the-face driving, speaking of which, you can too.

All over the country, there are enthusiasts like Shane Hanke, who buy "driver" condition imported sports cars and fix them up to make good road cars that can add to your summer driving experiences. Shane and his counterparts have a knack for finding inexpensive cars, making them good drivers and "flipping" them for a modest profit. With cars like these, you don't spend a fortune and you don't win trophies, but you get to do some exciting driving on nice, sunny days. Shane and others like him make their cars run good and look good, without spending five figures to restore them. So you get a fun ride without the worry of protecting a high-dollar show car. And most of the cars they resell are newer than my MG, which makes them more user-friendly and driveable.

You can check out Shane's inventory at www.shanes-british-classics.com. Despite the name of his business, he also plays with Italian and German cars. And if he doesn't have something you want, he'll even link you to other cars and other sellers. 

Saturday, May 30, 2009 2:57:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

   When you go to a car show, I guarantee that you're going to windup with flyers for other events. Either you'll pick them up at a table near the entrance or there will be a big pile of them on the seat of your car. You'll take them home and probably never look at them again. If you do run across one, it will be weeks after the show date and it usually be a show that you would have liked going to.

   Flyers are a cheap way of advertising an event, but like my girlfriend Linda said last week, "The trouble is they all look the same; there's nothing exciting about them." I had never thought about that before, but she is probably right. Although they come in different colors, there's nothing about most of these flyers that "grabs" you and makes you want to read them.

   Most flyers are in small print trying to tell you everything about the show, from the basic Where? and When? down to listing each class there will be. (That last information can actually keep people away, if another show on the same date has classes that favor their type of car).

   Often a flyer is the only advertising a show gets and that seems short sighted. I generally use the free Old Cars Weekly calendar of events as my show planning guide. So if a show doesn't advertise itself in OCW, I probably won't get there, even if I have their flyer in my flyer pile.

Saturday, May 30, 2009 12:13:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

According to what I've been seeing on TV and reading in newspapers, we have a situation where the folks in Washington are pushing as hard as they can for the end of the gasoline-powered automobile.

Things are changing so fast and so much taxpayer money is being thrown at making such changes, that it may not be too long before gas stations are a thing of the past. (I used to think that my Exxon-Mobile stock was my nest egg, but now I worry that it might be worthless very soon.)

They will probably send all of us and our gas-guzzling jalopies to Radiator Springs (the fictional town that the Interstate bypassed in the CARS cartoon movie). When we get there, we wil park our '32 Fords and '55 Chevys and Hemi 'Cudas forever and just sit around talking about how things used to be in the "good old days" when gas stations existed.

The strange thing is that, if all this comes through, we may find the collector prices rising on some of the very old cars that people rarely exhibit at car shows these days. So hold on to that Milburn Electric and that Stanley Steamer. If Washington has its way, non-gas-powered cars may be the only collectible cars still around. (Of course, we'll have to figure how to make a mileage tax meter work properly in a Doble steamer.) 

Saturday, May 30, 2009 4:06:34 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Yesterday I got to be "knight rider." Well, actually, I got to go for a ride in a 1925 Willys-Knight. The Upper Mississippi Valley chapter of the Willys Overland Knight Registry (WOKR) had a three-day meet in our area and I caught up with the hobbyists at their host hotel.

What really amazed me was the GPS in the car. I wondered how the owner got it to operate in a 1925 car. He said he ran it off an RV battery he bought for $10. The GPS did a good job of showing him each road he came to and gave him an accurate read out on how fast he was going.

It was really pretty cool. 

Sunday, May 24, 2009 5:53:42 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Speaking of brake light switches (which I was doing last time) my MG friends tell me that the screw-in type brake light switches that auto parts stores sell today have a habit of failing in old cars after just a few rides. It seems they can't handle the 3 amps the brake lights on old cars generate. The MG experts said the heavy-duty switches sold by Ron Francis Wiring of Chester, Pa., (www.ronfrancis.com) are the way to go. These switches can handle the load and last a long time.

Also, according to Larry Kennedy, of the Hudson Essex Terraplane Historical Society, if you use silicone brake fluid in your old car you may want to try a Harley-Davidson brake light switch, which is designed to work problem free with silicone brake systems.

Saturday, May 23, 2009 3:06:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

A couple of weeks ago the signal lights and brake lights on my MG TF stopped working completely. By going to an MG newsgroup, we determined the problem was probably in the electrical relay under the hood. We removed it, cleaned it up and adjusted the contacts. We installed a new brake lamp switch from NAPA and a new flasher. The car tested out perfect -- with the headlights off.

Last night we took a pretty long ride in the car. The brake lights were still working and the rear signal lights worked fine. But the front turn signals didn't work properly with the headlights on. They were kind of "surging" a bit when we put the switch on, but not really blinking. However, with the headlights off, they worked properly again.

Most people might have expected a "short" in the wiring or blamed the problem on Lucas electricals. British car owners love to laugh about "Lucas: Prince of Darkness"

But Lucas had nothing to do with this problem. The solution was very simple. The parking light/directional light bulbs were in the light housing sockets upside down. With the headlights off, the wrong filament was doing the blinking and could handle the load. With the headlights on, it could not handle the load, so the blinking action was slow and weak.

As soon as we flipped the bulbs over, all of the lights worked fine. We also noticed that the green indicator light on the dashboard was working stronger, too.

So don't blame Lucas for all electrical problems. By and large, the old prince does a pretty good job.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 5:14:13 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Today, at the Hudson Homecoming in Shipshewana, Indiana, I had the pleasure of riding in 1949 and 1950 Hudson "Step-Down" models owned by several collectors. The dashboards on both cars were truly works of art and once again reminded me how beautiful the interiors of vintage cars can be. Chrome trim, woodgraining and large circular dials were key ingrdients of dashboard design back then. And who ever decided that large, easy-to-read gauge faces weren't as good as the digital clusters with miniature numbers that we have today? I'd love to hear from you on what your favorite dash design of the early postwar years was.

Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:56:01 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

The 100^th Anniversary of the Hudson Motor Car Co. will be celebrated this year. The Hudson Essex Terraplane Club is planning a very special national meet to mark the occasion. The Hostetler Hudson Collection in Shipshewana, Ind., will also be holding a Hudson Homecoming. To make the latter event special, the collection’s 1909 Model 20 roadster — an example of the very first Hudson — was recently freshened up for a big year in Hudson history.

Thursday, May 14, 2009 5:09:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

The 100^th Anniversary of the Hudson Motor Car Co. will be celebrated this year. The Hudson Essex Terraplane Club is planning a very special national meet to mark the occasion. The Hostetler Hudson Collection in Shipshewana, Ind., will also be holding a Hudson Homecoming. To make the latter event special, the collection’s Apple Green 1909 Model 20 roadster — an example of the very first Hudson — was recently freshened up for a big year in Hudson history.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 5:14:41 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]