Cars I’d reconsider.

This list has been floating around in my head with various titles, but I’m just gonna say reconsider. This is also an ongoing list, with additions being made when the whimsy is there.

My criteria are simple: I must have either owned or driven said vehicle for a period of time, say at least six months. Again, whim.

K. Let’s start:

1976 Chevrolet Cosworth Vega. (Top photo from Motorious, bottom photos mine)

Blame Car & Driver for my foolish, romantic decision to obtain one of these exotic and rare cars. I was in a library one afternoon, I don’t know if it was the high school library or my local library, but I read about this car and thought: “That’s for me.” I graduated, got my basic training and AIT out of the way, and came back home when I thought that it’d be cool to have a Fiat 124 Spider. I presented the idea to my father, who vetoed the idea of the Fiat on grounds that it was foreign, and where were you going to get parts for it? Sacramento in the 80s was a foreign car owner’s paradise, with Fiat, Alfa Romeo, MG, Triumph, and more mainstream Euro brands well represented and supported by both the factory and aftermarket. I attempted to carry the argument further, citing those parts sources, but he was steadfast.

I spotted the car at a lot on Fulton Ave, which has always been a place full of car lots, the big franchises on the South end closer to Arden, while the second and third hand and buy here pay here places were clustered around the north end closer to Auburn Boulevard and Business loop 80.

I pulled into the lot and engaged the salesperson, and a couple of days later, the car was mine. Like any first love, the relationship was full of tumult, false steps, and plain idiocy, but that’s for another day.

Why would I reconsider this car? It’s delightfully odd, another Anglo-American hybrid with a Cosworth 16 valve head screwed onto a linerless aluminum alloy block with forged crank and pistons. It could be had with a Borg-Warner 5-speed with first gear on a dogleg heading south to a limited-slip differential with 4.10 gears, like mine. Use the entire tach, you’ll need it.