I spent the first 68 years of my life treating sports cars with automatic transmissions disdainfully. At any club meet or cars and coffee, the first thing I looked at when I walked down a row of cars were the center consoles. If I saw a gear-shift lever and a […]
Author: Keith Martin
Keith’s Blog: A Tough Date: Bonding with the U-Boat
I’ve driven and raced a variety of Porsches over the years. I’ve put significant miles on a 356 Convertible D, raced a 2.7 Carrera with MFI twice in the Modena Cento Ore, took our Boxster S on two 1,000-mile Oregon Porsche club tours, piloted a 1968 911 L on the […]
Keith’s Blog: I’m Down to 10 Cars…
I feel like someone who keeps trying to lose weight and does just fine until another cream-filled doughnut comes along. In the past two years, I have sold a few cars and acquired a few more. I thought I had sold more than I had bought, but somehow my counting […]
Keith’s Blog: Dry Days Only for 2021
Here’s my New Year’s Resolution for my driving my old cars: Dry days only from now on. I once prided myself on taking my cars out in any weather, day or night. “They were just cars,” I said. And to paraphrase collector and concours judge Ed Gilbertson, “Cars are meant […]
Keith’s Blog: The First 300-Miles in the U-Boat
This past week, we’ve been blessed with bright sunny weather in Oregon. I’ve taken advantage of this by taking the SCM 1991 S4 928 auto out for a couple of runs from downtown Portland to Astoria on the Oregon coast and back. Every exotic car speaks its own language. It […]
Keith’s Blog: No Tiger for Me
I came close to making an offer on a Sunbeam Tiger last week. For the past couple of years, I have been forced to look away from manual-shift cars and toward automatics. As the number of sports car fanatics looking for two-pedal classic cars is somewhere between zero and one […]
Keith’s Blog: The Post-Purchase Inspection
Here is the note I just sent to Barbara Grayson at Consolidated Autoworks. That’s the shop that has ministered to our 1971 Jag V12 2+2 since it arrived in April. Dear Barb: I have now put 1,700 wonderful miles on the Jag since it arrived 8 months ago. Bradley and […]
Keith’s Blog: Sell What to Buy an Audi R8?
Our modern supercar expert, Philip Richter, has been waxing enthusiastic about his 2008 Audi R8. With a gated six-speed gearbox and 4.2L V8, he traded his AMG SL 55 for it. I accept his enthusiasm and endorsement of the car. He just pointed me at a 20,000-mile V8 with an […]
Risky Business
Some shy away from doors that open to unknown places. I have always been drawn to them. I don’t recall what caused my instant and all-consuming obsession to own a 928, this most-unloved of exotic Porsches. But once I got onto the roller coaster and the safety bar clicked down, […]
Keith’s Blog: Alex and Her Epic Motorcycle Ride
One afternoon in the early 1990s, we were on a Sunday drive to Mt. Hood in our Mercedes W123 240D automatic. Alex was just a couple of months old. We stopped at Merit Realty in a small strip-mall in Welches, and I asked the agent, “What do you folks sell […]