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 the numbers, as they tend to do, quietly disagreed.

Here’s what’s been happening with the SCM collection:

I decided that it was time to move beyond four-cylinder Alfas. I had owned every model I had ever wanted that was within my budget. I had taken each of them on tours and events. I had climbed my own double-overhead-cam Everest.

But just as nature abhors a vacuum, a few empty slots in a garage combined with cash-in-fist from the sale of some cars – along with an absolute inability to avoid the red mist of acquisition – has left me with a changed collection.

What got sold? First the fabled 2002 Chevy Suburban has gone to SCMer Richard Lincoln. I bought this rig new, and it has made two decades worth of trips to Monterey with the SCM gang on board. It has towed my boats and my motorcycles. But times have changed and I just didn’t need the capacity any longer.

The SCM Land Rover D90 Turbo Diesel has gone to another SCMer. Over the past decade, Doug Shipman at Ship’s Mechanical has developed it into a weapons-grade off-road vehicle. But it’s too tall for me to clamber into, and I’m still not able to safely operate a clutch. So off it went.

We replaced it with a 2000 Land Rover Discovery II that belonged to a long-time client of Shipman. It has 220,000 well-maintained miles on it, and everything works. Compared to the D90, it is like a Cadillac. But I can climb into it, and it allows me to be a part of the Rover tribe again.

I sold our beloved 1967 GTV, 1967 Giulia Super, 1961 Giulietta Sprint Speciale and 1958 Giulietta Sprint Veloce Confortevole. While I was sorry to see them go, each represented a completed quest. I found them, restored them, and toured with them. My fantasies fulfilled, it was time for someone else to create their own stories with them.

Bradley’s 1960 Bug Eye is also gone. Having Chip Starr build that car for him was partly reliving my own childhood, as my first car was a Bug Eye. Bradley and I took a couple of short trips in it. I recall in one rainstorm him asking me, “Dad, is it supposed to rain inside the car?”

It became clear to me that it I would be irresponsible as a parent to allow him to drive the car when he turned 16 in three years. It was simply too dangerous for today’s traffic.

The kicker came when I asked him if he would rather go on a road trip in the Bug Eye or something safer, like a Miata. His response was, “I don’t care what we are driving as long as we are doing a road trip together.”

I know you are already visualizing all these empty slots in the SCM garage, and the pile of car-buying Benjamins stuffed under my mattress.

Replacements weren’t long in coming. As I began to explore sports cars with automatic transmissions, I ended up with an original-paint 1965 Volvo 122S, a 1971 Jaguar V12 coupe, a 2004 Mercedes SL 55 AMG and most recently a 1991 928 S4.

I am learning to enjoy grand touring, being relaxed on sweeping curves at 80 mph rather than being in a 1300cc Alfa driving like my hair was on fire.

I still have three Alfas: Our 1965 Giulia Spider Veloce I’ve had for more than 30 years, my three-owner 1967 Duetto and a 1971 ex-Gordy Hyde Junior Zagato (upgraded to 1750 and being fitted with a handclutch).

And then there’s the 2006 Lotus Elise which my daughter Alex has claimed as her own. Who am I to argue with that decision?

While I wouldn’t have chosen the path that led to this new mixture in my collection, at the same time I feel fortunate every day to be able to drive and enjoy motoring in these different cars. Bradley and I have put 5,000 miles on the AMG in two memorable trips to Yellowstone and Montana. We most recently put 300 miles on the Jag in a day on a trip to the coast.

Both of us are eager to stretch the legs on the 928.

Clearly, 10 cars is more than enough to meet my transportation needs. (Did I forget to mention my Hyundai daily driver?)

My guess is that the some of the manual-shift Alfas will be moving on if I am unable to drive a stick-shift safely. But I can’t say that I am sad about the change from agile small-bore sports cars to grand tourers. It’s just a different phase in my life, and like every phase, I intended to wring every last bit of adventure out of it.

Here’s the current SCM Collection:

1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce

1965 Volvo 122S

1967 Alfa Romeo Duetto

1971 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato

1971 Jaguar E-type V12 2+2

1991 Porsche 928 S4

2000 Land Rover Discovery II

2004 Mercedes SL 55 AMG

2006 Lotus Elise

Plus the daily driver…