Articles
Put Your Back Into It!
As I am sitting here nursing an aching back and suffering every time I get in and out of a car, I am reminded that we ourselves are often the weakest link in our car. […]
travel
Highlights
The Road To Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson – A Review
I don’t often post news or reviews that have basically nothing to do with cars, but this is an exception. Being as we here are all fans of British cars, I sense that that love of Britains expands out beyond the cars and encompasses many other things British – people, places, and history just to name a few. Bill Bryson, author and travel writer, has published a follow-up to his Notes From A Small Island from 20 years ago. The Road To Little Dribbling sess Bryson making his way by foot, car and rail from the south end of England to the far north of Scotland. Along the way, he observes not only the general English condition but makes note of things that have changed since the journey of his early book. What there is about cars in this book is […]
Articles
What Stops Us? Tools and Supplies to Keep Us Going
I’ve been asked many times by forward-thinking owners, “What tools and spare parts should I carry?” So, this morning I pulled all the invoices I could find in the rack that were marked “tow-in”, and here’s what I found. Modern cars (for my purposes those from the 90’s on), keeping in mind they represent about 1/3 to 1/2 of invoices depending on the season, actually are more likely to be towed in than classics! Why is that? I asked Dory the shop dog, and receiving no intelligible answer beyond a suggestion that we play a little chase the ball, I read more deeply in the invoices. Starting with the modern cars I have 2 “wash downs” on 98 and 99 Jaguar sedans (this is a common failure on those cars that is easy to prevent, call if you need trick), […]
Classic Cars
You Car as Fellow Traveller
On a recent Saturday, Blaine Benson sifted through a folder of documents, the remains of a road trip taken 40 years ago. Among the ephemera were Pan Am airline tickets, ferry receipts, invoices for car repairs and a mileage log, handwritten on white notepad pages. “It’s the family story,” Mr. Benson, a computer systems engineer, said of the archive. It is the chronicle of a continent-crossing journey, stretching nearly equator to pole, that his parents once made in a 1962 MGB roadster. “My dad had a thing for sports cars,” Mr. Benson, 41, said. “He had a Triumph TR3. He was a bit of a car freak.” Mr. Benson’s father, Skip, bought the MGB in 1967 for about $1,000 in Puerto Rico, where he and his wife, Barbara, were training Peace Corps volunteers. When their work contract expired later that […]