Blogs

The first three years of owning our 1975 Porsche 911 Sportomatic were a mixture of agony and ecstasy. When we bought it, the ad on the car said it needed nothing, had A/C, and “runs 100%.” The car was nearly 3,000 miles from Portland, in Pennsylvania at the Hershey Swap Meet Car Corral. So there…

Our 1975 Porsche 911 S is known as a “narrow body” or an “impact bumper” car. On the front, it has a narrow strip of rubber across the front bumper. On the rear bumper, there are two big four-inch rubber blocks. Some say these are to prevent body damage upon impact. Others say they are…

A long journey has come to an end. A Porsche 911 with a Sportomatic transmission had a near-mythical status in my ongoing survey of classic sports cars with two pedals. It had an actual gearshift, and you had to select the gears yourself — no automatic shifting here. Three years ago, we located and purchased…

The odometer on our 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider S4 just turned 28,000 (original) miles. I purchased the car on January 16, 2022, from an eBay auction. I’ll always remember hitting the “buy it now” button, as that happened at the exact same time our 1971 Citroën DS21 (which had broken down on Interstate 84 as…

We were driving our 1971 Jaguar E-type home from a cruise-in at Portland International Speedway. It was rush hour and we were moving along at 5 mph. It was about a 15-minute trip. Suddenly a car cut across a lane and squeezed in front of me. To avoid a collision, I had to lock up…

How could I not be intrigued when mention of this tour in Indiana popped into my inbox. It is described as a 90-minute drive, with lunch at a barbecue joint owned by a Porsche fanatic, followed by a tour of a car storage facility. Entry is open to all cars and the $45 fee is…

I was recently speaking with SCM contributor Miles Collier about gearboxes. To him, the “efficiency” of a gearbox is less important than the “degree of engagement” it engenders. In our lifetimes, automatic gearboxes have gone from primitive units operated by hydraulic-pressure — I’m thinking of the two-speed Chevy Powerglide — to the latest computer-controlled dual-clutch…

The local Jaguar club had a short, 50-mile tour scheduled for last weekend. Our 1971 V12 E-type is ready, sitting in the garage with the battery disconnect in use. Oddly enough, we have three cars (the Jag, ‘75 911S and ‘91 Alfa Spider) where battery cut-offs are required, as they all have electric analog clocks…

A few years ago, I owned and restored a 750-series Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce “Confortavole” (identical to a lightweight but with steel instead of aluminum doors, hood and trunk). I had been looking for an “eyebrow” Sprint Veloce for several years This car had a numbers-matching engine and a correct “tunnel-case” gearbox. Guru Denny Pillar…

All Alfa Romeos qualify as niche, “cult” cars. They always had very limited sales in the U.S., but offered interesting mechanicals and visual attractiveness. Some of the quirkiest were on the road last Saturday as part of the “Dave Beach Memorial Old Super Tour.” Beach was a long-time stalwart and enthusiastic member of the Alfa…