Keith Martin

It is only through use that the needs of our cars become apparent. Or a recent road trip in the SCM Jaguar E-type V12 coupe, the speedometer stopped working and we could get barely any heat into the car. We also realized that having a passenger-side mirror would make us feel more comfortable when driving…

My son Bradley’s 1982 Collector’s Edition Chevrolet Corvette is going to a new home. It’s being listed on Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids site, with an aggressive reserve. The auction can be found here.   Our restoration guru Chip Starr found this car for us at just about the same time as Bradley’s 16th birthday.…

The SCM 1975 Porsche 911S is just about a usable car. On Thanksgiving Day, my son Bradley and I drove 18 miles to SCM Contributing Editor John Draneas’ house in Wilsonville, OR. This was the first outing in the car since a mid-week tour that revealed deficiencies in the wipers, heat, sun visors and headlights.…

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…

Marionberry milkshakes, pancakes and old cars are a Martin family tradition. The Elderberry Inn is a family-owned restaurant about 50 miles from Portland, and about 25 miles from the Oregon coast. You get there on Highway 26, a scenic, curvy road that crosses the Coast Range, mountains that are really just hills with an elevation…

My son Bradley is filling out applications to college. In just a few months, he’ll be leaving the nest and be on to the next big adventure in his life. Currently on his list are McPherson College in Kansas, the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon State…

We’ve put over 10,000 miles on our 2000 Land Rover Discovery II in the past four years. Ever since watching John Wayne lasso rhinos in the movie “Hatari!” I’ve had a soft spot for the English rigs. (Yes, I know that wasn’t a Rover he was sitting on, but in my imagination it was clearly…

SCM’s mantra has long been “value in use.” For us, the best part of collector car ownership is in exercising our cars. Putting the key in the ignition. On some cars, knowing how many clicks to pull out the choke levers. On others, pumping the throttle a couple of times and visualizing the accelerator jets…

I recently added a passenger-side rearview mirror to our 1972 Mercedes 250C. It transformed the car. Even though the car has a tall greenhouse with good visibility, adding the second mirror increased my road awareness and feeling of safety. We have since decided to do the same to our 1971 Jaguar E-type V12 2+2. This…

As I looked back over my past columns on this topic, I realized that there are only four cars in the collection that could be called regular drivers. I can’t work the clutch in the 2006 Lotus Elise or the 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce, so I’m going to put them in the “maybe…