R2 Joins the Fleet

Volvo V70

One night a few months ago we were out to dinner with another couple and afterward walked them to their car.  They own half a dozen cars, at least 2 of which are what they call “appliance vehicles:” a minivan and a wagon.  The rest are collector cars, antiques.  (Well, one is a Studebaker pickup, so that kind of straddles the line.)  But on that particular evening they’d brought the wagon, a Volvo V70.  After they drove off Frieda said: “We should get a car like that.”  We had 3 cars already, but they were all 2-seaters and the newest one was 30 years old, so it didn’t seem a bad idea to add a vehicle to our fleet that could be used to pick someone up at the airport and still have room for their luggage; something we could fit another couple in, along with our collie; something that, if we folded the seats down, would haul a few 8’ 2x4s or the 8’ long fluorescent tubes that illumine our garage; in short, a practical vehicle, a vehicle that didn’t have to be coddled but could just be used.   

So, I started looking.  Frieda didn’t want to spend a lot of money.  Our friends’ wagon was a ’98 (you see a lot of older Volvos on the road, they’re pretty sturdy), worth maybe $3500, so that’s what I started looking for.  But I found that vintage tended to have a lot of mileage.  And, as you might infer from all our cars being 2-seaters, we both, unlike most Americans, prefer small cars, and the V70 seemed just a bit too big for us.  Being a sports car guy, I gravitated toward a sport wagon.  I liked the looks of the Audis, but they were pricy and online I found a lot of complaints about them not being reliable and being in the shop all the time getting expensive repairs.  The styling of the VWs was ho-hum and they also had a lot of complaints online.  Not as many as the Audis but enough, given that they weren’t as pretty.  The Subarus got good reviews, except for an apparent propensity to blow head gaskets.  Frieda liked the Forester because the high roofline in the rear meant our collie could stand up without bumping his head but I thought they were homely.  I preferred the styling of the Outback, but we didn’t need AWD and I was therefore reluctant to pay for it.  To me it was just something else to go wrong, a needless complexity.  Then I spotted the Mazda Protege5 which looked small and sporty.  Mazda only made it for 2 years, 2002 and 2003.  When I looked it up online I found nothing but raves.  Almost no one seemed to have anything bad to say about it.



Mazda Protege5



I saw one in the Auto Trader and called.  The guy said he couldn’t meet me that day, but I could drive by and look at it.  Cosmetically it looked fine, but it had 150K miles on it.  He was asking $4200.  The next day when I called him back he said it was sold.  It took a while before I saw another one within a reasonable distance.  It had 96K and they were asking $6500.  Frieda said that was too much.  I thought about it for a couple of days and then called the guy anyway.  He said it was sold.  I began to realize that a) these cars didn’t come up for sale that often and, b) when they did, you had to jump on it because they usually sold within 48 hours.  I told Frieda that, if she really wanted a car like this, we were going to have to pay at least $6K to get something decent, something with less than 100K miles.  After getting her grudging agreement, I started checking Craig’s List on a daily basis, looking for the lowest mileage Protege5 I could find, but weeks went by and the only ones that came up were farther away than I wanted to go, and most of them had over 100K miles.



Volvo P1800



I was beginning to feel frustrated when Frieda said she’d seen something on a used car lot nearby that might work for us.  I found photos of the car online.  It was the smaller Volvo wagon, the V40, with 77K miles; a nice looking car, not as sporty as the Mazda, but clean and smooth, almost elegant.  According to Wikipedia it won an Italian award for “Most Beautiful Estate in the World.”  (“Estate” is the European term for a wagon.)  It was also the first car to be awarded a 4 star safety rating by EuroNCAP.  I had long admired and aspired to own a Volvo P1800, last produced in 1973, the car that holds the Guinness world record for most miles driven at close to 3 million but, in a concession to practicality, I thought, perhaps I’ll have to make do with this one.  The reviews online weren’t as good as the Japanese cars but were better than the German ones.  The lot offering it just happened to be the same one where our friends had bought their Volvo wagon a few years back, so I knew it was reputable. 

I took the car for a test drive and there was nothing to complain about.  It was tight and smooth.  Not gobs of power, but adequate.  With leather, power everything, ac, a sun roof, it had all the modern comforts and conveniences our vintage sports cars lacked, including a defogger that actually worked.  It was boring to drive, of course, but that was the point.  It insulated you from everything, including the driving experience.  It was a quiet cocoon in which you floated down the highway.  Only one thing bothered me.  Every so often an odd twittering and chirping emanated from the dash, as if a family of electronic birds had nested there.  The salesman pled ignorance and I was reluctant to buy the car without knowing. 

Volvo V40

So I took it to a Volvo specialist and, after giving it a clean bill of health in every other respect, he told me the sounds were being produced by an aftermarket stealth radar detector.  Apparently this had been installed at considerable expense as there were tiny holes drilled into the sides of the instrument binnacle with red LEDs that flickered in concert with the chirping.  Back at the lot I told the salesman I liked the car, except for the aviary in the dash.  Could he quash it?  Alas, no, he said.  It would have to go to a specialist.  He offered an extra discount instead.  The sticker on the windshield said $7950.  I paid $6250. 

That afternoon we took it to Pet Pals and just happened to park next to a Protege5.  Looking at the 2 cars side-by-side Frieda said: “The Mazda is too small.  The V40 is just the right size for us.”

The twittering can still be annoying at times, barraging you in an overbearing way with too many indecipherable messages, but the other day I was cruising along when it went into a chirping paroxysm and when I looked around, sure enough, there was a CHP ahead parked on the other side of the road, so maybe it’s not all bad.  Frieda says she has come to find it endearing, like R2D2 is in the cockpit trying to communicate with her.  Consequently she’s dubbed the car “R2.” 

Ferrari to Go

I have long been fascinated by the mystique of Ferrari and dreamed of one day driving one.  Many months ago I saw a local ad for a 308 GTS, a nearly 30 year-old car that was theoretically attainable, but not in any actual, practical sense.  It’s not just the purchase price, there’s the insurance, the maintenance, and where the hell would I put it?  But I could go look at it and, in the course of that, take a test drive.  At least then I could get behind the wheel and feel what it was like to pilot one of these glamorous machines.  But perhaps there were others with the same dream; the dealer would be on his guard against such schemers’ shenanigans.  And, thinking about this, I realized I wasn’t comfortable with the charade.  So I sighed to Frieda: “Guess I’ll never get to drive a Ferrari.” 

           

Many months later, with my birthday approaching, Frieda announced that we were taking a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate.  She had already booked the flight, hotel, and tickets to a show.  Seeing as how neither of us finds gambling entertaining, I was a bit surprised at this.  It must be one hell of a show to justify a flight to the capitol of kitsch.  At first she was coy about the nature of the show, but after much badgering, she offered that it was The Blue Man Group.  Now this seemed highly unlikely to me, as I knew I had no interest in seeing The Blue Man Group and I was pretty certain she didn’t either.  When she added that she had arranged for the Group to take me on stage, paint my face blue, and sing “Happy Birthday” to me, it became totally preposterous.  But then why go to Vegas?  I remembered that, when we were in Paris in 2008, we’d walked by the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, and later, after we’d come home, I’d remarked that we should have gone to a show there.  So perhaps she had found something similar in Vegas, I thought, and that’s where she was taking me. 

           

At the airport, as we were waiting to board, sensing my disgruntlement at having had to get up at 5:30 AM to fly someplace I wasn’t thrilled about going, she finally spilled the beans.  She’d made a reservation for me at noon that very day with an outfit called Exotics Racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to drive a Ferrari F430 on the track.  Well, needless to say, this put an entirely different complexion on things. 



F430



So we picked up a rental car at the airport and headed up I-15 north to the Speedway, which turned out to be a complex so large that the drag races they were holding in one part could not even be heard from the area where I was going, a large garage in the infield filled with exotic machinery, mostly Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but also an Aston Martin, an Audi R8, a Porsche 997 and GT3, and a Nissan GTR.  In Ferraris, besides the F430 I was scheduled to drive, there was a 430 Scuderia, which is the stripped down, souped up, racing version of the 430, and a 458 Italia, the replacement for the 430, which ceased production in 2009.  In Lamborghinis they had the Gallardo LP560, the Superleggera LP570, and the Murcielago LP640.  They were fantastic looking cars, but for me they don’t have the charisma of the Ferraris, which have a long, distinguished, thoroughbred racing history.  After looking over all the cars, I sat in the 430 I would drive, and the Scuderia, just to try them on for size.  The standard 430 was, not surprisingly, the more comfortable.  My reveries were interrupted by a call to a drivers’ meeting where they went over safety issues and the rules with the 35 or 40 people who were there to realize their fantasies.  Then they piled us 3 at a time into Porsche Cayennes for a couple discovery laps, just to get to know the track a little.  It was a 1.1 mile road course inside the 1.5 mile oval with an 1100 foot front straightaway leading into a 90 degree left hand corner followed by 10 more turns, including a switchback and a long sweeper, all making for a complicated line. 



F430



Almost immediately after I emerged from the Cayenne the professional driver who would ride with me as my instructor walked up, handed me a helmet, and ushered me over to the red 430.  He got me comfortably situated amidst all the leather behind the wheel and then slid into the passenger seat.  I pushed the engine start button and the 4.3 liter V8 came to life, throbbing right behind my back.  I tapped the right paddle shifter to put the car in 1^st and eased out of the garage.  In the paddock I went to 2^nd gear and we cruised onto the pit lane alongside the track.  There were other cars on the track so my instructor waited for an opening and then told me to gun it.  I veered left onto the track and stomped the throttle to the floor.  490 horsepower mashed me back in the seat and we took off like a rocket, accompanied by that unmistakable scream unique to Ferraris.  When the tach hit 6500 rpm my instructor told me to shift, so I popped it into 3^rd.  I had never felt this kind of acceleration before.  In a flash (at about 100 mph) I went by the double cones set out to mark the start of braking for the left hand turn that was rushing toward me.  I got off the gas, tapped the left downshift paddle and hit the brakes hard.  I was going so fast I didn’t know if I could make the corner, but the brakes hauled me down with astonishing quickness.  The car went around the corner like it was on rails, without the slightest slide or twitch.  I was awed.  It was a car with unbelievable capabilities of acceleration, braking, and handling. 



F430



My instructor talked me through the course, pointing out the proper line through all the corners, which enabled me to go much faster than I could have had I had to discover the ideal line on my own.  A couple of times other drivers overtook me, and then my instructor would tell me to slow down, pull the wheel over to the side, flip on the emergency flashers, and let the other car go by.  A couple of times I overtook other cars and when I saw the flashers come on I would punch it past them, thrilling to that distinctive Ferrari scream ricocheting off the side of their car as I sped by.  The 430 had active stability control so it was pretty hard to get yourself into real trouble.  A couple of times, just to test it, I went off line and gave the wheel a little twitch, just to see if I could break it loose, and it would, but only for a split second and then it would glue itself to the track again. 

            The package Frieda had gotten me included 5 laps, and I’d added a couple more at $50 a pop.  Needless to say, they went by quickly.  A lap, I think, took less than a minute.  All the same, I was ready to come in after 7.  It was a blast, but it required intense concentration, and mine was starting to flag.  Also, I was feeling pretty jittery by then from all the adrenalin.  Afterward, watching from the sidelines, I marveled at how slowly the cars appeared to be making their way around the track, compared to how fast it had seemed when I was behind the wheel.  Driving a Ferrari on a track like this is obviously so much better than taking a tame, inhibited test drive on city streets.  On city streets you couldn’t even begin to explore the car’s capabilities.  Here you could really drive the car as it was meant to be driven, as hard and fast as you had the skill and nerve to drive it.  And the best part was it didn’t belong to you, so you didn’t have to worry about dinging a fender or throwing a rod.  If something like that happened, it wasn’t your problem, and that made the whole experience an unadulterated joy.  I can still feel the shiver of blasting down the front straight, the Ferrari singing in my ears.  So next time I get to Vegas I’m going for the 2-car package: 5 laps in the Scuderia and 5 more in the 458 Italia. 

Cars

A friend called the other day to ask if I’d like to see a car collection.  He’s a member of the Alfa Romeo club and someone in the club had met the owner of the collection and asked if he would let the club members see it.  He’d agreed and the viewing had been set for Saturday morning.  My friend took me as a guest.



MGA



The cars were stored in a warehouse.  The first car I saw upon entering was an Austin-Healey 100M, worth about $100,000.  As I walked around with my mouth hanging open, I saw a roomful of sports cars: several more Healeys (including another 100M), a couple Jaguar XK120s, an early Porsche 911 targa with the soft rear window and a 911S, several Porsche 356s, including a Speedster and a Carrera coupe with a glassy silver paint job befitting a car worth about a quarter million dollars.  In one corner there was a Ford Model T Touring with full side curtains and, next to it, a ’36 Ford roadster, but otherwise the cars were all European sports cars of 50s and 60s vintage; just the cars I’ve always admired and desired.  I felt like I was in my garden of earthly delights.  There were several wonderfully restored MGA roadsters, and a coupe as well.  The MGA is a car whose lines I’m particularly partial to.  My first car was an Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite, and, in an ideal world, an MGA would’ve been my second.  The third would have been a big Healey and the fourth, an E-Type Jaguar (there were no E-Types in the collection).  But this ideal progression of mine was derailed by the intrusion of practical considerations.  There were also some Model T based race cars in the room, plus a Morgan, an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, an MG TD and a TF, and in the corner opposite the Model T, something I'd never seen before: a Turner.  There were maybe 25 classic cars in all, and none of them was even slightly shabby.



Pierce-Arrow



Then someone said, “There’s another room over here!”  I squeezed past a massive Lincoln from the 20s that was parked in a workshop area with a lift and work tables displaying a pair of running boards off the Lincoln that someone not present was inlaying with wood laths.  Doubtless the collector employed someone full time to maintain these cars.  That would be essential with a collection this large.  (Years ago I knew a guy—he painted 2 of my cars, a Lotus Elan +2 and a Jensen-Healey—who for a while worked for Neil Young.  Young at the time employed 3 full time workers on his car collection.)  Beyond I could see a room perhaps twice as large as the first full of ancient brass era cars (pre-1910), and cars of the teens and twenties.  I was told the collector was building on a collection that had been started by his grandfather and added to by his father.  There were a couple of Packards and half a dozen Pierce-Arrows, huge things bigger than an SUV, with tires (the early ones of white rubber) almost up to my armpit, the later Arrows sporting their trademark trumpet-shaped headlight fairings.  There was a Chandler, a Reo runabout from 1906 and a pair of Oldsmobiles with a couple Cadillacs from the same era; a Marmon, a pair of Stutzes, a Pope Hartford, a Maxwell, and more Model Ts.  It seemed a miracle that so many cars this old had been preserved.  After all, it’s not like they could be kept in a steamer trunk in someone’s attic.  They required constant space and attention.  Again, all of them were in excellent condition. 



1906 Reo



I hadn’t the vaguest notion what any of these cars were worth.  I’d never been much interested in cars this old.  Back in the days when I used to attend the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance every year, I would skip over this vintage with barely a cursory glance to head for the 50s and 60s era cars.  But this time I felt fascinated.  These were vehicles my parents would have known when they were children.  I wished I could climb into them.  The brass cars (aka horseless carriages), in particular, awed me.  They harkened to a steampunk aesthetic.  The brass fixtures were exquisite.  There was something on the running boards of a couple of them that looked like a brass thermos.  I asked someone if he knew what it was and he said, “Yes, that’s to make acetylene gas for the lights.  You put calcium carbide in the larger bottom section and water in the top.  The water drips down into the calcium carbide and makes the gas, which is piped to the lights through this tubing.  They’re often referred to as carbide lights.”  So if you wanted lights at night you not only had to load your gas generator and work up some pressure, you also had to light your headlights with a match.  There were strange pedal configurations, all sorts of levers sprouting from everywhere.  Back in these early days there were over a thousand independent manufacturers with no ruling paradigm for how to do anything, so everyone was going off in his own direction.  In some of these cars you had to advance the spark manually as you accelerated, sometimes using a hand throttle.  There was so much for the driver to attend to, in contrast to our era when all cars are pretty much the same and virtually drive themselves.  The oldest were incredibly raw and primitive, but the rapid evolution of the engineering was fascinating, you could see the brains of their designers ticking over, trying to solve problems.  You could smell the history in these cars; they were time machines.  If you could sit in them you would be in another time, and hence a different world.  I imagined driving one of them and finding the external environment transformed as well and myself chugging down a dirt lane through a slow, open, almost 19th century world.  I wished I could spend a few days there and fiddle around with them, get to know them better, but after an hour or so we were rounded up and told there was another building nearby where the “overflow” was stored.   



Bugeye Sprite



The 3^rd building had just a few, maybe a dozen, cars in it, the least valuable of the collection, it seemed: a Lancia sprint car, a couple of Porsche 912s and a 914, another MGA, a Ferrari 308 and then, over in one corner, I spotted it: a Bugeye Sprite like I had my senior year of high school and first year of college.  It had been a long time since I’d seen one in the round.  Better believe I lingered there a while, looking it over, letting the sweet memories bubble up.