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.
Old cars are a lot of work. Over the past 24 months, my modern car has required my attention once, when the outside temperatures dropped and caused the tire-pressure warning light to come on. I used my portable inflator to take the tires to 36 psi and I was done. It’s not the same story with my classics. Like a small herd of turkeys, they are always gobbling about something. Keep in mind that my cars are well-kept in a heated garage and never parked outside overnight. They are all attended to by the gurus of our hobby and anything that […]
Old cars are a lot of work.
Over the past 24 months, my modern car has required my attention once, when the outside temperatures dropped and caused the tire-pressure warning light to come on. I used my portable inflator to take the tires to 36 psi and I was done.
It’s not the same story with my classics. Like a small herd of turkeys, they are always gobbling about something.
Keep in mind that my cars are well-kept in a heated garage and never parked outside overnight. They are all attended to by the gurus of our hobby and anything that needs to be fixed is.
But they still need attention.
Let’s go down the list. Since we completed the NW Passage in June, the 1971 V12 Jaguar E-type has needed its Stromberg carbs rebuilt. It turns out that having my son Bradley adjust them by turning a screw on the side wasn’t such a great idea.
Right now, it’s having a passenger side mirror installed by Ed Grayson at Consolidated Autoworks. Moss Motors sent the wrong part, so we are dealing with getting the right one. We are also having the heater and air-flow controls adjusted and lubricated, a door seal adjusted, a speedometer cable replaced, and a battery-cutoff switch installed.
The 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider has just paid a visit to Nasko at Nasko’s Imports but will be going back again. The driver’s side seatbelt has exploded, and Jon Norman at Alfa Parts is sourcing a replacement. The previous owner of the Alfa stupidly installed power door locks on the car, and the way he installed them has been a constant irritant. The passenger side power window has started making a terrible noise, although Jon has rebuilt regulators in stock.
I also noted the light for the heater blower doesn’t come on. Small things like that make me crazy. Nasko says it will take an hour and a half to two hours to take out the cluster and repair the light. I’m inclined to have him do that and see if I can talk him into replacing all the bulbs in the cluster at the same time.
I also had him install a blade-type battery isolator on this car as well. I prefer those to the little screw top ones.
On to the 2000 Land Rover Disco II. It has decided to give us a “service engine soon” light. Bradley is about to delve into the mysteries of using our Autel MaxiScan scanner. (It’s new to him.) He plans to look it up on YouTube and see if he can erase the code. Neil Shipman At Ship’s Mechanical thinks it might be related to pressure in the gas tank from the change in outside temperatures. We will find out.
The 1975 Porsche 911 has its own storybook full of gobbles, but we’ll get to that another time.
In the meantime, I suggest going out to your classic cars this Thanksgiving weekend and giving thanks that we are still allowed to drive these cranky old things whenever and wherever we want. And go ahead, just fix one little thing on any of your cars. Your car will like you more for it.
Broken speedo cable on the right, broken seatbelt on the left.The inside of a broken Alfa seat belt.What secrets wait to be revealed?Check my engine soon please!
If you enjoyed this, consider subscribing to Sports Car Market with this special offer. Save $56 over newsstand prices, get all the bonus guides and never miss an issue.
5 responses to “Keith’s Blog: The Turkeys are Keeping me Busy”
Pierre
It is not just the classic vs the modern cars. It is the attention to details to left no differed maintenance on our classic or modern cars. Every time we find something not working properly we need to fix it, because we are obsessed because it is our passion. Unfortunately it seems that previous owners with few exceptions don’t think the same way and we always end up with cars that need something and sell them always in much better conditions that when we bought them. One lesson, apart from the pleasure to fix things, we should be more demanding when buying a car. If I buy a car from Keith or he buys a car from me, we would not have those type of surprises. May be we should create a club of good car owners that can trade between themselves!
Doug
Totally agree. It is much less expensive in the long run to pay a bit more for a well maintained vehicle rather than a “cheap” purchase price. I bought Keith’s SL55 a couple of years ago and it has required minimal maintenance because it was so well taken care of.
Rob Eiring
My favorite part of your email is this section detailing the everyday issues around actually driving classics. My Porsche 912 gives me projects, but rarely problems.
Tell Bradley that there are hundreds of us out here who have turned the wrong screw on a British carburetor. My incident was on an MGA back in high school trying to raise the idle speed. Instead, I screwed up the synchronization between the two SUs. Live and learn….
Doc
This is why I tell my friends with limited resources to have only one car. It will keep them busy enough. No sense in trying to keep numerous cars running and having issues with each one.
Todd
In all of my years as a mechanic (42+) I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a seat belt “exploding” – not including the newer ones that include seat belt pretensioner pyrotechnics.
Like Dad said – if you live long enough you’ll see it all! 🤣
5 responses to “Keith’s Blog: The Turkeys are Keeping me Busy”
It is not just the classic vs the modern cars. It is the attention to details to left no differed maintenance on our classic or modern cars. Every time we find something not working properly we need to fix it, because we are obsessed because it is our passion. Unfortunately it seems that previous owners with few exceptions don’t think the same way and we always end up with cars that need something and sell them always in much better conditions that when we bought them. One lesson, apart from the pleasure to fix things, we should be more demanding when buying a car. If I buy a car from Keith or he buys a car from me, we would not have those type of surprises. May be we should create a club of good car owners that can trade between themselves!
Totally agree. It is much less expensive in the long run to pay a bit more for a well maintained vehicle rather than a “cheap” purchase price. I bought Keith’s SL55 a couple of years ago and it has required minimal maintenance because it was so well taken care of.
My favorite part of your email is this section detailing the everyday issues around actually driving classics. My Porsche 912 gives me projects, but rarely problems.
Tell Bradley that there are hundreds of us out here who have turned the wrong screw on a British carburetor. My incident was on an MGA back in high school trying to raise the idle speed. Instead, I screwed up the synchronization between the two SUs. Live and learn….
This is why I tell my friends with limited resources to have only one car. It will keep them busy enough. No sense in trying to keep numerous cars running and having issues with each one.
In all of my years as a mechanic (42+) I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a seat belt “exploding” – not including the newer ones that include seat belt pretensioner pyrotechnics.
Like Dad said – if you live long enough you’ll see it all! 🤣