December 2024
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Keith’s Blog: My One New Year’s Resolution
Here’s a worthy goal for 2025: Get a couple of driving buddies together and make plans to use your cars. I was recently at the holiday dinner for the local Porsche club, Oregon Region PCA (ORPCA), where organizers announced that they had held 55 driving events last year. In 2025, they hope to host 70.…
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Keith’s Blog: Holiday Wishes for the Cars in the Barn
It’s not the easiest time to think about your old cars. There are competing agendas that include The Nutcracker (my son Bradley is taking me on my birthday, it’s a family tradition) as well as shopping for parents, siblings, children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. New to our living room table this year is a Star…
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Weather-Worn and Waterlogged
We met at Lewis and Clark State Park, at exit 18 off Interstate 84. It was a drizzly, overcast day, with the temperature in the 40s. This was a weekly tour put on by the local region of the Porsche Club of America, ORPCA. There were 13 cars in all: three Macans, two Boxsters, three…
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Blinded by the Light
Sensing that I was getting retinal damage driving at night, I wondered if I was developing cataracts. My optometrist who provided me with innovative eye treatments assured me that was not the case, so I started flashing people to dim their high beams, only to find that their high beams were even brighter. Eventually, I…
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A Collector Car Autopsy
I have never lost as much money as I did with our 1972 Mercedes-Benz 250C. In August 2022, I paid $18k for the car. A little over two years later, I had it placed on Bring a Trailer by my friend Matt Crandall, super-seller 911r. It was bid to only $17,800. In the meantime, I had…
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Hidden Dragon
The Nissan 240SX wound up being a commercial failure over its 10-year production run, yet it was a cultural success long into the decade that followed. After years of strong sales of its inexpensive front-engine, rear-drive Silvia in Japan and other markets, Nissan decided to bring the car to the United States in 1989. It…
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Keith’s Blog: The Jag Has a Heater Too!
It is only through use that the needs of our cars become apparent. Or a recent road trip in the SCM Jaguar E-type V12 coupe, the speedometer stopped working and we could get barely any heat into the car. We also realized that having a passenger-side mirror would make us feel more comfortable when driving…
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Keith’s Blog: The SCM Corvette is on Cars & Bids
My son Bradley’s 1982 Collector’s Edition Chevrolet Corvette is going to a new home. It’s being listed on Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids site, with an aggressive reserve. The auction can be found here. Our restoration guru Chip Starr found this car for us at just about the same time as Bradley’s 16th birthday.…
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Keith’s Blog: Heat, Light, Visors and a Mirror
The SCM 1975 Porsche 911S is just about a usable car. On Thanksgiving Day, my son Bradley and I drove 18 miles to SCM Contributing Editor John Draneas’ house in Wilsonville, OR. This was the first outing in the car since a mid-week tour that revealed deficiencies in the wipers, heat, sun visors and headlights.…