Keith Martin
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Wait and Pounce
“If it’s not really the car you are looking for, pass on it and keep looking.” Those were Miles Collier’s words to me as I was engulfed by the red mist. I was at a Silver auction in Portland when I spotted a handsome 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider. I recall calling Miles from the auction…
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Keith’s Blog: The Allard Experience
Starting when I was three years old, my grandfather would perch me on the nose of his Ford 9N tractor. It was a ritual we repeated every Saturday morning at our family’s small farm in Novato, California (about 28 miles north of our home in San Francisco). My engagement with all things motorized stretches back…
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Keith’s Blog: First Drive
A few months ago, my son Bradley turned 15. He passed the written test and then I signed him up for lessons for street driving from a professional. In the teacher’s Honda CR-V, he had several sessions navigating local streets, and a couple of stints on freeways. Now it was my turn to go out…
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Keith’s Blog: Mix Old Cars with New on Tours?
What do you think the ideal cutoff date for a vintage tour should be? Or should there be one at all? The cutoff for the SCM 1000 is 1974. We chose that year as stringent smog and safety regulations began to take effect on US cars in 1975, altering the appearance and performance of later…
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Keith’s Blog: The Sporto Gets a PPI
Over the last two weeks, I’ve begun telling the story of the newest addition to the SCM fleet. I bought a 1975 911 S Sportomatic from the Hershey swap meet corral last October. The car was represented as having 47,000 original miles. It was originally purchased from Holbert Porsche in Warrington, PA, on July 17,…
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Keith’s Blog: The SCM 911 Sporto Heads West
Last week we described how we ended up buying a 1975 Porsche 911 S Sportomatic offered for sale at the Hershey Swap Meet – while sitting at our desk in Portland, Oregon. In a “Love or Hate It” ‘70s Bahama Yellow (called Desert Beige by Porsche that year) it was described as having 47,187 original…
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Blasts From the Past
Soon you will have the entire contents of 35 years of SCM at your fingertips. We are about to unveil a project we’ve been working on since the very first issue was created. This magazine was born in the midst of a revolution in desktop publishing and database management for microcomputers. The database program dBase…
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A Date to Remember
January 6 was the fourth anniversary of my stroke. That day in 2019 started like any other. I was up at 5 a.m., put on my Hoka running shoes and pounded out a relaxed 5k along the Willamette River. I had just turned 68 years old, and I was trim and healthy. Little did I…
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Keith’s Blog: SCM Finds its Porsche 911 Sporto
“Good things come to those who wait.” For the past couple of years, I have been watchfully waiting for the right Porsche 911 with a Sportomatic transmission to come along. I’ve chased a couple on BaT but dropped out when the bidding passed the $70k mark. While I continue to busy myself looking for two-pedal…
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Keith’s Blog: Shall We Drive to Monterey?
It’s never too early to start planning for Monterey Car Week. For several years, we organized a casual drive from Portland down the Pacific Coast. On our last trip, our motley crew included an Autozam AZ-1, an Alfa Giulia Super and Berlina, and a Citroën DS21 Decapotable. It won’t surprise you to learn that fewer…