Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
Blogs
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Jim’s Blog: On to California!
Monterey Car Week is here — one of the biggest events on the American auction calendar. Today through Sunday night, over 1,200 high-end classic cars will cross the auction blocks of seven different auction houses, all set up in different spots on the Monterey peninsula. But the big news isn’t how many cars will be…
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BMW i8: The Shape of Things to Come
I’ve just spent a weekend with BMW’s current vision of the future. There are some rough edges to smooth out, but the hybrid i8 represents the most important effort by a major car company to define what the performance car of the future can be. Recently I drove a McLaren 650S Spider for a week…
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Jim’s Blog: What’s the Best Part of a Car Project?
A few months back, I found a set of original steel wheels for my 1972 Chevrolet K10 pickup. In the time since, I had them soda blasted, welded up scar on one of them, and had them primed and painted white. Then I hunted a set of proper hubcaps for them at the Portland Swapmeet…
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In the Montana Dirt in a 1927 Vauxhall
“Vauxhalls were built for the wealthy to take them grouse-hunting in Scotland. So these dirt roads are what it was built for.” That was Peter Stevens’ first comment as four of piled into Miles Collier’s 1927 Vauxhall Type OE 30/98 Velox. Peter knows a thing or two about cars; his portfolio as a designer includes…
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Keith’s Blog: The Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance – A Celebration of Cars and People
As I write this, the engine on the SCM 1958 Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce has barely cooled down from the 30-mile run home from the 43rd annual Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance. All of the cars that were so carefully displayed are gone, and the fencing surrounding the concours field has been taken down. Held at…
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Jim’s Blog: Am I a Mopar Guy Now?
I don’t remember a whole lot of strict rules growing up, save for one: the rule of GM. The Pickering household bled Chevrolet Orange. Sure, there were other rules that we had when I was a teenager — but they were more like guidelines. Stuff like no burnouts in the driveway, decreed by my…
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When Did A Ferrari 328 Become a Classic?
Miles Collier’s Collecting Thoughts in the July issue of SCM discussed a 1989 Ferrari 328 with only 1,200 miles that sold at auction for $140,000. Five years ago, this would have been a $50,000 car. What’s happened? A 1989 328 is now a 26-year-old car. I sold them new when I was at Ron Tonkin…
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A Very Good Day Indeed
Last week, I had just arrived home from several days in Boston and wasn’t looking forward to the pile of work waiting on my desk. A text message popped up from my daughter Alexandra. “Dad, I have the week off from Daimler, and I thought we should take the Duetto up to Mt. Hood tomorrow…
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The Heavy Price Paid for a Pickled Car
A 1989 Ferrari 328 GTS sold for $140,000 at the Auctions America sale in Fort Lauderdale, FL, on March 28, 2015. The car showed a mere 1,248 kilometers (775 miles) on the odometer, which was the focal point of this extraordinary transaction. Now, does it make any sense to pay well over the odds for…
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Jim’s Blog: Tuning Right in 2015
My wife can always tell when I’ve been out driving my ’66 Caprice. Unburnt hydrocarbons waft around that thing and stick to my clothes like high-performance perfume, thanks to a high-lift long-duration cam and big carburetor. I kind of like it, but I’m sure the people sitting behind me at traffic lights don’t. I…