It’s a bullet point extravaganza!!!

I’m now at the point in my life where all of the cars that were considered mundane are now celebrated, and rightfully so. The 90s, in addition to marking the end of the Malaise Era, ushered in a period of fun, both in design and color. Here’s Ethan Tufts at Radwood, a celebration of the cars that I grew up with.
The odder, the better. The simpler, the better. While many my age had posters of a Countach on the walls of their bedrooms, my tastes gravitated to AJS 350s, Lotus 7 and sundry etceterini and Fiats.

If I see your driveway full of German cars, especially BMW or Mercedes, I’m going to assume you’ve more money than sense and a masochistic streak a mile wide. I come by this opinion from experience. Double that for Audi.
If the German crocks are from the 70s to the early 80s, I’ll reconsider. You’ve still got to be a decent human- cars aren’t a personality.
If your Audi looks like this:

AJS were pretty hard to come by, even in Sacramento, where Things Exotic and Odd are squirreled away in nearly every garage, so I lusted after a Yamaha SR500, a big single of half-liter displacement.

Despite my desire for an Asian repop of a Brit big single, I wound up with what was arguably the first superbike:

I rode for a couple of years, then came to the realization that I am a better driver than I was a rider and sold the Kawasaki. I haven’t had any pangs of regret.
LJK Setright was a motoring writer of unparalleled erudition, knowledge and style, both in prose as well as sartorially. I wish to nominate Matthew B Crawford as a successor. From his debut Shop Class As Soulcraft, to his second book, World Beyond Your Head, to his latest, Why We Drive, Crawford, like Setright makes a case for individual freedoms supported by responsibility, taking a dim view of many of the mechanisms employed by government to control the driving public. Like Setright, Crawford loves speed, both on four wheels as well as two, but I’m thinking that Dresda-framed CB-X as well as Bristol cars aren’t quite Crawford’s cuppa, but I imagine he’d like a go. Still, dressing like this is entirely too fussy for the average American:

The Chevy Vega could have been world- class, given more development. The Cosworth- Vega was a good start, but too little, too late comes to mind.
The Hachi Roku Corolla GT-S was the spiritual descendant of the Cosworth Vega. Drive it, and you’ll understand what Chevrolet’s ill-starred car could have been.
The Celica Supra, MK2 P-Type was the successor to the E-Type. Fight me.

Published by Damian