Tag: cars

Winners.

I’ve never been a sports fan, but I’m a huge fan of the revolution in women’s sports in the U.S. Title IX went in about when I was in junior high school, and the result has been a huge increase in the respect, encouragement, and resources girls get in the athletic world growing up. Not just women’s sports, but women crashing men’s sports.

The effect on our culture is huge.

I have a special place in my heart for women auto racers, because I am a car nut and because it’s a boy’s club where women can excel. What’s required is endurance, precision, and courage.

GO DANICA!
danica

Also, inexpicable picture of Danica having a toy car race apparently supervised by Madeline Albright on FOX News. ?

what

The cars he used to drive

My father was a true Southern California, born in Pasadena in 1921. Like everyone else he was car-crazy. Later in life after living in Europe he became crazy for tiny little European sports cars.

He made this list for a piece he wrote in the Los Angeles Times late in life in which he talked about the cars he’d owned. He was astonished at how many there were, and especially at how many enjoyable sports cars he had as a graduate student. I personally got to drive the ’67 MG (he says it’s a ’68 which I think is a mistake), which was a delight; he didn’t get rid of it until the 1980s sometime. The 1990 Volvo my mother still has. I inherited both T-Birds in series.

The Fiat station wagon famously died by dumping its engine on Irvine Avenue with a uniquely Italian flair. I wish he’d kept any of the cars before that. Wow, what a list! The Renaults were, of course, purchased in France and all the Italian cars when he was living in Italy.

  1. ’30 Ford Model A phaeton
  2. ’30 Ford Model A 2-door touring car
  3. ’36 Ford V-8 coupé
  4. ’30 Olds coupé
  5. ’47 Crosley
  6. ’38 Lincoln touring convertible
  7. ’40 Chevrolet coupé
  8. ’47 MG-TC
  9. ’51 Sunbeam Talbot
  10. ’48 Morris Minor convertible
  11. ’51 Morris Minor sedan
  12. ’52 MG-TD
  13. ’55 Austin Healey
  14. ’56 MG Magnette
  15. ’60 Chevrolet Corvair
  16. ’58 Chevrolet station wagon
  17. ’59 Alfa Romeo Giuletta Sprint coupé
  18. ’62 Fiat 600
  19. ’60 Fiat 1800 station wagon
  20. ’70 Opel Kadett statio wagon
  21. ’73 Volvo 144
  22. ’67 MGB-GT
  23. ’77 Renault 6TL
  24. ’70 Jaguar XJ
  25. ’84 Ford Thunderbird
  26. ’87 Renault II
  27. ’90 Volvo 740 sedan
  28. ’91 Renault 19 Chamade
  29. ’93 Ford Thunderbird LX

If you’re interested in the document we found in the files, a scan is behind the cut like so

Long story short it’s supposed to STAY in third gear unless you shift

My car is down for the count, needs a new transmission. Won’t have it back until next Thursday. Thank goodness that Freddy at Tustin Acura is giving me a loaner car, and that this is all under warranty and won’t cost me more than $50. I wonder what a transmission replacement at the dealer would cost otherwise? Shudder.

Thank you for being a cool guy, Freddy at Tustin Acura.

L’apres midi d’un dorque

Idling at Kéan with Mike (used to have a big black beard Mike) today, I saw a stream of Newport Beach stereotypes including:

  • 85-year-old man with perfectly trimmed white beard parking a brand new $200,000 200mph Porsche Turbo sports car, which I then observed to have an automatic transmission
  • A young woman of classic magazine cover head-turning beauty accompanied by two rich and tough-looking beefy older guys. The three of them were having a business meeting, no doubt about her career. They toasted one another with Bubble-Up. The two guys looked serious the way Mafia guys look serious. She looked depressed, which in someone with her looks comes out as a pouty, puppyish yearning look. She smiled once, revealing 47 very bright white teeth.
  • This woman’s Ghost of Newport Past showed up, too: a 14-year-old future model, all dressed up in fluffy sweater and tight jeans and slightly-too-grownup heels. Same perfect model face. Her mother was identical and 35, with a very hard and focused look to her.
  • An assortment of very large expensive cars with grilles on the front that looked like BIG MONSTER FANG TEETH MOUTHS. Each of these cars was larger than the others. Several very large diesel trucks driven by small, finely-built men in pressed jeans are included in this category.
  • One 80something gentleman all covered in liver spots and combover who was trying to guide in his friend Mike to the place. He kept getting the names of things wrong, and telling Mike that he wanted to meet him at Plums but they had an hour wait “even after I told them who you ARE”. There were at least five of these calls. Two other people showed up to sit with Liver Spots but Mike never showed. His dog, an ancient cocker spaniel named Annie, was doing about as well as he was and kept walking into things like brick walls and trees and then harrumphing.
  • An outrrrrrageously Italian employee of Kéan. This guy was maybe 30 and looked a lot like Antonio Banderas. He was wearing the kind of lacy, frilly shirt that only guys from the Mediterranean can wear. He was slightly sweaty and had a huge 500,000 watt grin and whooshy airy hair that he held back with a headband. I don’t know how he carried it off, but he was every housewife’s dream European waiter/lover. Jean-Luc!

The Love Van

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The Love Van, originally uploaded by conradh.

This vehicle loves you. In the Borders parking lot on 19th in Costa Mesa. Unfortunately the other stuff on the van was just conventional religious ranting.