SCM Spotlight talks with Tabetha Hammer, President and CEO of America’s Automotive Trust
Month: October 2021
Keith’s Blog: A Busy Fall
There once was a time when the automotive calendar went quiet after Monterey Car Week. Not so any longer. In the months of August, September and October, we now have several top-flight but very different events to look forward to and attend. I’ve recently returned from my second time at […]
A Tale of Two Customs
1984 Mazda RX-7 #55358. S/N JM1FB331XE0801486. 17k miles. “1.1-liter 12A rotary, 5-speed manual transmission, Tender Blue Metallic, brown leather upholstery, aftermarket body kit and spoiler, sunroof, AM/FM cassette stereo, air conditioning, dual Weber carburetors, Racing Beat header and exhaust system, 15-inch Weds wheels, Tokico shocks, Eibach springs.” Condition: 1. SOLD […]
“Keefie, Come Wake Up the Camel”
My love affair with Citroëns started 50 years ago in San Francisco. I was 20 years old and in between studying intellectual history at Reed College in Portland and dance at The Juilliard School in New York City. I had decided to spend a few months with my grandmother, Dorel, […]
GT Oh No
Bonhams sold Ferrari 250 GTO #3851GT at its 2014 Quail Lodge auction for $38,115,000, including buyer’s premium. It was a world-record sale — the highest price ever obtained at an auction. One would expect Bonhams’ staff and the seller to be high-fiving after the hammer fell. Instead, the seller sued […]
Set the WABAC
If you’re of the age when new 1960s sports cars were on your bedroom posters, you surely remember Mr. Peabody. A Saturday morning cartoon favorite, this polymath dog and his pet boy, Sherman, used a time-traveling machine called the WABAC to go on entertaining and educational adventures. Because I’m a […]
Rotary Power for the People
The oil crisis of the 1970s frowned heavily on Mazda’s gas-guzzling rotary engines. Under constant development since licensure from NSU in 1961, the enormously expensive rotary-engine program had placed Mazda on the brink of financial ruin. The future looked bleak when Mazda’s largest creditor, Sumitomo Bank, inserted its own corporate […]
Keith’s Blog: Bringing the Elise Back to Life
The SCM 2006 Lotus Elise had not seen much action recently. It had been moved about in the storage garage to make more room for other cars and driven short distances, but it had been a few years since it had been truly exercised. The letter from the State of […]
Keith’s Blog: Trolls are Trolls, Online or Off
Part of the chatter that surrounds online auctions is the ability of non-certified viewers (“trolls”) to make authoritative comments. I was selling a Mercedes 220 Ponton online one time, and bidding was going along nicely. Suddenly a troll opined, “Do you know the heater boxes on those are lined with […]
Keith’s Blog: Waking Up the Silver Arrow
I hadn’t driven our 2004 Mercedes SL 55 AMG since last June. Saturday was a clear, sunny, 70-degree day in the Columbia Gorge. I decided to take the SL out. I pressed the key fob remote with anticipation and nothing happened. I looked at the fob and a little red […]