Keith Martin

It costs real money to turn a classic car into a fun driver. Our 1965 Volvo 122S was a case in point. It was a decent car, but it still needed nearly $10,000 spent on it before it was enjoyable to take down the road.   With any old car you acquire, my advice is…

One moment, the 1971 Jaguar V12 coupe was hustling along at 70 mph on Highway 26, heading back to Portland after a satisfying lunch of fresh-caught rockfish at the South Bay Wild Fish House in Astoria, OR. The next, it was sitting silently, hood-up, by the side of the road. The Jag had been performing…

For $21,000, someone has become the new owner of the SCM Volvo 122S. Our friends at Avant-Garde Collection listed it for us on Bring a Trailer. “Being an automatic really held it back. If it had been a stick with overdrive it would easily have brought another $10,000,” said the owner, Matt Crandall (BaT moniker:…

When Keith offered up the U-boat for the 450-mile roundtrip to southern Oregon I had planned for the weekend, I did not hesitate to answer affirmatively. Being “between” cars myself, the opportunity to drive the SCM Porsche 928 rather than my wife’s diesel VW Jetta daily driver instantly transformed the trip into something special. We…

We are gearing up for our annual Caravan to Concorso. Run “cowboy-style” as tribute to Martin Swig’s love of irreverent motoring, we know only a few things for sure. Everyone is welcome, but sports cars are preferred. There are no entry fees or route books. You’ll get an SCM hat and a sticker. Some of…

I took the SCM 2004 Mercedes AMG SL 55 out for a 100-mile drive through the Oregon wine country last Saturday. It was a glorious early-spring sunny day. I spent most of the time with the top down. The most attractive feature of this 500-hp machine continues to be its hardtop convertible. There is simply…

We are currently planning our annual informal tour down the coasts of Oregon and California to Monterey. Anyone is welcome to join, although cars with at least a pretension of sportiness are preferred. Event stickers and SCM hats will be provided. At the moment, our plans call for me to drive the SCM 1971 E-type…

Producing “The Best of Shifting Gears, Volume 1” and “The Best of Legal Files” has turned out to be a more formidable task that we imagined. But the books are finally printed and in the mail. Through the yeoman efforts of designer Jodi Ellis, print coordinator Matthew Strauss and editor John Nikas, we think you…

It was a brilliant winter afternoon. The SCM 1991 928 S4, dark blue with blue leather, was slicing through the turns on Washington State Highway 14. It’s a two-lane road that follows the northern side of the Columbia Gorge. The road is vastly more interesting than the four-lane Interstate 84 on the southern side. I…