Great article. My first car was a 1966 MG Midget (with a '71 engine). Gas gauge never worked. Voltage regulator broke at some point so it had to be push started (no hills in Florida made this more fun) and the first winter I had it I kept waking up with a headache. Finally traced it to a cracked exhaust manifold. First time I had driven around with the top up and I was getting gassed by CO. When the transmission failed, my buddy and I pulled the engine with an aluminum extension ladder (you couldn't just drop the tranny due to a frame piece across the trans tunnel). Had the tranny rebuilt, put it back together (with an engine lift) and it turned out they hadn't done it correctly. Rinse repeat....
A few things to know before stealing my 914
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Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#92> Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed g…
Not sure if this is specific to Porsches, I think several factors are at play here: (1) old cars (even Porsches) were not so precision-engineered as they are today. Today you can operate the gear shift using only two fingers, not so in the seventies; (2) of course, a car being ~50 years old doesn't help either...
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#93So, apparently there is no mandatory vehicle inspection in the US. Of course there isn't, it would violate the freedom to drive with an unroadworthy car.
It depends on the state. Most of the ones that do exist are concerned with things like “do you have seat belts? are there rear view mirrors? do the turn signals work? is the check engine light on?” Classic/antique vehicles are also often exempt.
Imagine my surprise when this year my 1996 Toyota was suddenly an "antique" by state law. Yearly inspection for antique cars is a safety check as you described - does it have working windshield wipers, lights and seat belts, but no longer any emissions check.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was gonna say, I took a long road trip in a 1971 VW microbus and this was triggering some memories. Especially the description of finding the gears!
Yes the gears! The amount of "play" in the gearbox was insane. Couple that with the like 3 foot long stick handle and IN GEAR I could wiggle the stick in a like foot wide circle. Once you had driven it for a while you got to know the "feel" of it and had no problems, but like in the article someone new to driving it would have had a really hard time lol.
My 1985 Jeep CJ-7 is similar... I can be rolling down the road in 3rd gear and the gear knob will occasionally start oscillating in a 4-inch circle all on its own.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter. The author could be bullshitting (he's not) but how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know?
In this context (a fun blog post), I disagree. I find it to be incredibly clear when someone is playing in a world they truly understand and love. Not to say one can't be hoodwinked from time to time, naturally, but for me it's not the "facts" that ring true. It's the joy and humor and love that is hard to fake.
A really good author could probably make this up. Some types of writing require that ability. Imagine you're writing about a fantasy world where everyone drives giant Bloops instead of cars. You might have a few chapters written from the perspective of a master Bloop mechanic. She's been fixing Bloops for as long as she can remember; she considers it her life's calling and she loves every moment of her work. The author needs to communicate that to the reader in a believable way.
But if you're not writing speculative fiction, what would be the point? It's probably harder than writing about something you know!
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#96This is one of my favorite styles of writing. I have absolutely no clue what this person is talking about and have no interest in cars, yet I read every single word. I love when people have such a deep knowledge of something that they can write an essay as unique and thoughtful as this. It reminds me of Kitchen Confidential, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman!, or any rant about British politics by David Mitchell.
Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter. The author could be bullshitting (he's not) but how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know?
Being able to bullshit entertainingly at this level of detail is an even greater talent. See Douglas Adams, for example.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#97This makes me miss my 1971 VW Van. Learning to navigate the front-to-back, 3-meter-long transmission linkage made it to where I can drive literally any standard transmission vehicle on the planet. Well done!
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#98A pathological obsession with objectively terrible machines seems to be a very common character trait.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#99This is one of my favorite styles of writing. I have absolutely no clue what this person is talking about and have no interest in cars, yet I read every single word. I love when people have such a deep knowledge of something that they can write an essay as unique and thoughtful as this. It reminds me of Kitchen Confidential, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman!, or any rant about British politics by David Mitchell.
If you love this style and want something intentionally ridiculous check out the various writings at https://www.mcsweeneys.net/
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#100I used to bother with mechanical junk like this when I was younger. I bought 10 cars under $1000 and repaired everything from shattered valvetrain to clogged fuel filters. These days if I wanted to drive a junk car with a good brand I would LS swap it and call it a day. It's more important to treat cancer before it metastasizes unlike the hospice care this person is giving that car. It troubles me to see people suffe…
The LS swap is the equivalent of gutting a classic computer or piece of stereo equipment and jamming in a Raspberry Pi. Occasionally it's an improvement, sometimes the original parts were too far gone, but a lot of the time it's just lazy vandalism.