Keith Martin

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…

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…

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,…

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…

“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…

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…

The SCM 1000 is less than six months away. It will be an all-inclusive 1,000-mile romp on select, challenging two-lane roads of eastern Washington. With a hub in Spokane, in the heart of the restaurant district, the route will take us to the Grand Coulee Dam, rustic Lewiston, ID, and more. The decision that confronts…

SCM advertiser Fantasy Junction is selling a Sprint Speciale I recently owned and restored on Bring a Trailer. You will find many pictures and comments with the listing. Here are a few of my own thoughts (which I posted): I was the previous owner of this car and oversaw the restoration. I first found the…

I am no stranger to Land Rovers. Over the past two decades I have owned a Discovery Series I, Range Rover Classic, Series III 88 and an RHD D90 turbodiesel. I was looking for something civilized for the mild trail runs the Pacific Coast Rover Club puts on every couple of months.  I’m not a…

I’ve been having a back-and-forth discussion with SCM Contributor Jim Schrager (my long-time mentor) about upgrading engines in vintage cars. This started when I mentioned to him that I was confused about 911 restorations. I see so many ads for early 911s that blather on and on about $250k restorations and then add, “by the…