Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 40 years, and is the founder and publisher of this magazine. Keith has also written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications, has been an emcee for numerous concours, and had his own show, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity. He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrmann Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame, and more. He has served on the board of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar’s Award. Learn more about Keith here.
This is the moment we wait for each year – the weather turns, we dig out the sunscreen, do a little work in the garden and drive our collector cars. You’re probably thinking that we, the scions of collector car forethought, have all of our cars on the button, everything prepped and ready to road into the sun. Well, think again. Here’s where we stand, on the foreign car side of things (Jim Pickering, editor of American Car Collector, has his hands full with his share of the garage occupants).
The 1957 Isetta 300. It spun a bearing last August when we stupidly tried to push it up a steep ramp onto a no-name transport truck. The oil and the oil pickup ended their relationship, and the bearing went away. We sourced a freshly-rebuilt engine with a new clutch out of San Francisco, and for $2,000 it was on its way to Portland.
Mark at MPH Specialties in Portland tells us the car is “on my hot list now,” so we expect it done within another 30 days. We can only hope the micro-car market doesn’t go bust on us before we get it back!
The 2006 Lotus Elise, having a Japanese heart, needs nothing. It just sits and waits, fires up with the first push of the starter button, and does everything we ask of it. What’s not to like? Well, having to make a chiropractic appointment after each drive, to adjust my spine after wriggling in and out of the car, gets old.
The 1989 Range Rover Classic is in fine fettle, having just completed the traditional spring Women’s Run with Wendie driving. What I like most about PCRC outings is that the whole family (including dogs) is always welcome. Bradley gets to watch his mother scare herself silly when she drops the Rangie into ravines and claws up mountainsides in compound low. With its recent 2-inch lift and Bilsteins, it is “trail ready” and rugged.
We haven’t seen the rhd 1984 Rover D90 tdi for awhile. It’s been at Ship’s Mechanical getting an airlocker installed, plus an exhaust temperature gauge, so that we can tune the diesel for best performance.
The 1967 Alfa GTV is ready. New interior installed, engine tuned. I’ve sourced a windshield washer squirter kit, and that will probably go in some time this summer.
The 1965 Giulia Spider Veloce is having a couple of small interior things dealt with by Guy at Guy’s Interior restorations, and we expect it back this week.
The 1973 Volvo 1800 ES is in pieces. The engine is at the NAPA machine shop on SE 9th Avenue in Portland, being ministered to by Gary Engdahl. Meanwhile, the engine compartment is getting detailed and painted. I project a July “back on the road” date.
And our newest addition, a 1972 BMW 2002 tii, has become my daily driver. This particular car is extremely well fettled and a delight to drive. Further, as with nearly all old cars, they are so underpowered compared to new cars that you can be racing a Kia flat-out, and the Kia owner won’t have the faintest idea why you are making such noise with your car.
On the fix-it list for the 2002 are turn signal lever, windshield spritzers, reattaching the side chrome that I stupidly knocked off when I bumped Bradley’s car seat into it and installing a trunk bracket for securing the top of Bradley’s car seat (pictured above).
Aside from the Volvo and the Isetta, the little fleet is in relatively good order – look for us on the road, a lot, this summer.
