Keith Martin’s Adventures

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…

Why is it so hard to get to six cars? Perhaps because each car we are considering speaks in its own distinct language and creates its own excitements and trepidations. Each model also is a key for entry to marque activities. The Jaguar E-type V12 gets us into English car events. The Land Rover Disco…

I just put a note in the mailroom of my condo: “Parking space wanted.” I’m having trouble getting down to just six cars. To recap, we are keeping the 1971 Jaguar E-type V12 coupe, the 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider S4 and the 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce. The C3 Corvette will be moving on for…