What drew my attention was the Jag SS100 for 2000.00 in 1964. About 17K today. If only. There’s some other interesting entries on this, the first page of Road&Track’s ad space, “Market Place”. In the glacially slow days of 1964, my birth year, this was it. If you wanted an interesting vehicle, this was the place.

The first entry was a 1961 Abarth 850 S Allemano Scorpion coupe The ad cites the car’s excellent tires, its lofty 57 horses, from 850cc, no less, and the facts that it was never raced and had only one owner. 1500.00, about 13K today. Here’s a tool to help convert yesterday’s funds into today’s, because listening to folks going on about what a bargain that was back then always makes me impatient.

A Jowett Jupiter, located on Mercer Island, Washington State, for the princely sum of $5600.00 in today’s money, or 650.00 when this issue of Road&Track was published. Oh- Here’s a picture of the Jowett Jupiter:

If you think of the Jowett as a British Subaru, you’d be pretty close, at least as far as engine type. Above the Jowett, there are a couple of D-type Jags. One chromed, one with spares and trailer delivery. The latter is going for $5500 1961 dollars, while the chromed one has no price, always a bad sign- as in: “I know what I’ve got.” Have fun wandering through the page, maybe indulge in a little fantasy time. Until Then!

Every gearhead passes time with a trip to the marketplaces of the internet. Currently, my favorites are Hemmings and Bring A Trailer. Both cover the broad middle ground of the market, with the occasional Interesting Piece materializing from some garage, shed, barn or storage area. My job also offers access to garages, with some lovely thing spotted every now and again, like the Honda CR-X that was free for my taking, if I could get a tow. The Mercedes I’d found and purchased from Craigslist was in the garage, not working with bad ignition coils and dragging another project home would probably result in at least a stern talking-to…At least.

The Mercedes will probably be my last older European car. It’s getting so that keeping a semi exotic (By virtue of age) vehicle registered in California is becoming an expensive proposition- the Mercedes ate up 3000 dollars getting new catalysts and coked-up EGR passages cleaned out to pass smog, which it did, barely. Not looking forward to next cycle.

But that doesn’t mean that I’ll stop looking at old crocks. My favorite activity isn’t looking at the latest hypercar up for auction when I visit these sites. No, it’s examining the rusty relics from my past and remembering what an utter pain in the ass they were to own. Like that handsome W124 mercedes above. Well, it was a pain. I’ve since taken care of most of the “Deferred Maintenance”(see 3000.00 bill above), and the Mercedes is now as strong as a 28 year old car can be, if you …nevermind.

Craigslist, after decades of free ads for cars for sale, began charging a five dollar fee for vehicle ad placement. This resulted in a paucity of the odd stuff that I so enjoyed looking at, at least when I checked immediately after the imposition of the fee. No rusted Alfas that the seller was asking 2k for, no tatty Fiats that had a hopeful low four figure price, when they were in reality worth a quarter of that. Nothing.

So I looked. Above, you’ll see some of the Italian cars that I loved so much as a younger man, in varying levels of disrepair that range from neglect, to entropic forces so strong that no amount of restoration will cure it. We’ll start from The Top:

Above is a Fiat 124 Spider. This was the all-purpose sports car for folks who didn’t want the fussiness or the semi-agricultural nature of most British offerings of the day. Fiat kept the basic design forever, so a 1985 Pininfarina Spider was nearly identical to the 1966 debut model. I say “nearly” because the safety regulations here in the ‘States required some detail changes, primarily in the bumpers and the lighting packages. The distinctive, Tom Tjaarda drawn lines remained untouched throughout the run. Along with the shape, there was also the evergreen Lampredi Twin-Cam engine that powered these cars.

The Fiat Twin-Cam was easily the Italian equivalent of the SBC. Maybe not in numbers, but in tuneability and in races won, it was definitely the Continental analogue to the American stalwart. The seller is asking 5k for the car. What was I saying about hopeful? I’m thinking that it’s gonna sit a while before it finds a forever home.

The patina’d green 124 wagon in front of Druid’s Hall above, was apparently a bit luckier. It was going for something like half of the asking of the Spider and had a cool, Bay Area vibe to it. I’m sorry I didn’t poach more pictures.

A few decades back in the glow of the 80’s, I worked in a full-service station. One of my coworkers, Chris, had an 850 spider like the one above, only dingier and tattier. Fiats of the era didn’t last very long because of the indifferent attitude regarding rustproofing, others say it’s because of the Soviet sourced steel being used for the stampings. Here’s a witty and informative take on why Fiats rust.

The Fiat 850 is the evolution of the Fiat 600, a rear-engined city car, which was the replacement for the Topolino, which is where we’ll stop for brevity’s sake. You could get the 850 in many configurations, the spider being the most popular form of the car here in the U.S. and the version with the most survivors, due mostly to the popularity of the runabouts.

More than Fiats, I drove Alfa Romeos. A buddy of mine had a 105/115 GTV, and a Berlina of the same vintage, while I had an Alfetta Sedan. The above are Alfetta Coupes, one with the eternal twincam engine, the other with the “Busso” V-6. The V-6 has pride of place, while the four-cylinder is mostly out of frame. Alfa Romeo, even more than Fiat, has a storied racing history and made some legendary cars. The Alfettas pictured above were the namesake of the Tipo 158/159 Alfa Romeo Grand Prix car, which like its streetable descendant, featured a transaxle for better weight distribution and handling.

From the Alfetta came the 75/Milano, which here in the ‘States, used only the V-6. Italian cars, especially to a boy who spent way too much time in libraries going through past issues of magazines were attainable objects of desire. However, when these cars were exposed to the U.S. market, they didn’t last long. Literally.

The above shot is what happens to an Alfa Romeo interior after a few decades.

Not so long ago, I was very tempted to purchase a GTV-6, but lack of funds saved me from an even deeper well of despair and ruin. Sometimes, being broke is a good thing.

It was going to be an exhaustive, scholarly breakdown of each issue, a recitation of the salient points and comparisons and contrasts from then to now. But then I got bogged down in my usual morass of overthinking, perfectionism and doubt, so no post, just tweaking to a draft that was never good enough- too wordy, not catchy, just boring.

Many words have been committed to pages and screens decrying the futility of the New Year’s rituals of resolutions and commitment to change. The new year, that swapping of a calendar for a new one, really does (at least for me) signify the renewed possibility of maybe making a better, bigger, deeper mark on the world, of improving your condition, and helping those around you improve theirs, if only in a small way.

It’s interesting on how I find myself getting bogged down again in the details of the post. Aside from the Monroney sticker stuff, there was a bit of doggerel that I found enjoyable in the letters section, and a couple of things that are now hopelessly outdated and amusing all at once.

Rebuilt batteries. I work as a battery tech for AAA, so every now and again, an older member will ask if that the batteries that I carry in my truck are rebuilt or used. This article is why the question gets asked.

For all of the changes in electrical systems over the past sixty-odd years, the basics of a flooded lead-acid battery are remarkably unchanged. There have been minor changes in chemistry and metallurgy to be certain, but what worked then mostly works now, except you can’t rebuild a battery in a neighborhood workshop anymore. Now they’re broken down and recycled, and when a battery goes, you replace it, that’s it.

“Restoring With Fiberglas” brought a chuckle from me. I looked up a recent posting of an REO (Ransom Eli Olds, the name behind Oldsmobile), and it was going for 40 to 50 K, and rest assured, no fiberglas was used to fix it. Keep in mind, however, that 1956 was the height of the Jet Age, and miracle materials like fiberglass were going to make our world better. That and a forty-eight year old car was referred to as ancient. Heh.

Anyway, I’ll post the stalled text of the Motor Trend after this entry, so you can read it for yourself. Happy 2020!

The above picture is of a “Monroney Sticker”, a bit of information required by federal law to be posted on all new vehicles that will be sold in the United States.  This particular sticker is from my car, included when I purchased it from its original owner. I may have one or two more lurking about in my departmental archive, but that’s not really important currently. What inspired this post was the editorial at the front of the issue, entitled “Take Heed, Detroit”. In it, Mr. Woron, the then editor of the magazine, quoted a letter he received from a subscriber, who bought a car in 1955, from the same manufacturer that he’d purchased cars from during the previous two years. In this letter the writer complained of 10 m.p.g. fuel economy caused by a bad carburetor, rear windows that didn’t work properly and finally fell from their guides and into the window wells, and a chrome horn ring that rattled so badly that the owner took it off of the steering wheel and tossed it into the trunk. In addition there were an overwhelming  number of rattles, so bad the complainant said, that he’d considered advising earplugs to those who might ride with him.  The column continues with Mr. Woron saying that this was the norm in those days, a far, far cry from the reports we get from enthusiasts of the era of the stony reliability of these vaunted vehicles…

The column continues: “When enough persons get sufficiently riled about the way that cars are hastily put together, the ripple is bound to grow until it breaks upon the situation like the pounding surf. And like the tides, there’s no stemming it until it turns”. 

Mr. Editor Woron made reference to H.R. 10309, offered by Abraham Multer, D, NY, that outlined what we see on the sticker affixed to the windows of all new cars today. Representative Multer’s bill would have made it: “Unlawful for anyone to sell any motor vehicle in commerce unless accompanied by a by a manufacturer’s certificate of fitness…”, then goes on to list the conditions and parameters of said certificate.  A couple of things I found interesting regarding the certificate was that the car had to be road tested for 500 miles (!), and further testing of 100 miles at speeds of 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 miles per hour. Imagine going to a dealership and selecting a brand new car with 600 miles on the odometer.  Woron went on to speculate regarding the additional employees and related costs that such an act would have tacked onto the price of a new car, then went on to say that such a bill stood good chance of passage if the manufacturers didn’t get their quality issues handled.

Woron further continues, and I’m definitely paraphrasing here, that certainly the second biggest purchase of a person’s life should be assembled at least as well as a toaster.  Multer’s bill wasn’t the only one to be introduced. Monroney, as well as a representative Priest were mentioned as having introduced similar legislation, while Hank The Deuce was on record as saying that  ” There is no reason for singling out the automotive industry for regulation of this type.” Well, the automakers didn’t get the issues handled and Monroney’s bill passed in 1958. As Woron concluded the editorial: “It is just a question of time before Congress passes such a bill.”

The letters section of any magazine was where the readership would applaud, cajole, complain, or simply ask a question. In the 50’s the letters almost uniformly began with “Dear Sir”.  This formality is all but gone today, as most correspondence is done via means other than pen, paper, envelope and stamp, and social rules are far more relaxed. I snapped a pic of the letters page because it’s going to be easier to point out things and have you click on the picture and enlarge it. Setting the tone, after the advert for the McCulloch Paxton supercharger, was a section entitled “Open Letters To The Manufacturers”, where the correspondents, a Mr. R. Blagsden of East Hampton, Connecticut, and Mr. Thomas Park, of San Bernadino, Ca, are both complaining about the quality of American cars, with the Californian  bemoaning the lack of engineering originality in the domestically produced cars of that era. 

A very amusing thing, this bit of doggerel, entitled “Kan’t Kountenance Kustomized Kars”. Mr. Wallace Solum, the Illinois dwelling doggerelist, vexed mightily by the advent of Kustom Kulture, put his typewriter to task laying down nine verses of complaint. I do recommend enlarging the picture and reading it from the page. I wonder how he’d feel about the Mural on the East wall of the California Auto Museum?

There’s a shill for Chrysler, touting the safety features of its products- it’s the letter that directly follows Mr. Solum’s note, a letter that reads like ad copy without the pictures. There’s an account of misadventures in a Crosley, an argument for the survival of Studebaker-Packard, which went under in ’62, with the Hamilton, Ontario plant closing in ’66, leaving the American Motors Corporation, which would handily survive the 50’s, finally going away in the late eighties. Finally, a plea from an automotive literature collector in Yorkshire, wishing to set up correspondence with others with whom he might exchange media.

In 1956, 110 miles per hour and 0-60 in eight seconds was pretty dang impressive. That’s what this Triumph TR-3 was claiming. Dunno about the “Family Convenience” bit, though. These cars were small. Maybe if your child was under five. Five everything.

Hillman, a now forgotten (at least here in the States) British marque from the Rootes Group, shared a page with a fuel pressure regulator advert. Again, you can enlarge the pic to read the fine print for the pressure regulator, available at the low price of 6.95, Postpaid. Please enclose cash, check, or money order, after writing legibly on the teeny little cut-out coupon that was provided. I’ve a few issues in the archive that were treated in such a manner. Again, when these were simply periodicals, we thought nothing of taking scissors to pages to obtain the keys to our prizes. Did I forget about the Hillman? So did everyone else, apparently.  I never really heard, or read much about the Dodge D-500. So, like the Hillman, loved by a small group of enthusiasts, but largely forgotten elsewhere.

Turn the page, and there is “Spotlight On Detroit”, a monthly recap of news regarding Detroit, because that’s where the cars are made…well, in 1956 they were. Don Mac Donald edited the page, and annoyingly, a page jump, from pp11 to pp57. Argh.

Continuing past my minor aggravation, Mac Donald talks about GM’s then new Technical Center that had just opened in Warren, Mi.  When it opened, the tech center covered about 320 acres, or as Mr. Mac Donald put it; “About the size of Grace Kelley’s Monaco”. Harlow Curtice, GM’s head at the time called it: “The home of the inquiring mind”, and further claimed that the tech center was “one of the nation’s greatest resources.”  Time proved this to be true with innovations emerging from Tech Center that catapulted GM to global domination of transportation for decades. Lawrence Hafstad, then director of GM research and a physicist, complained about the ‘chronic’ difficulty  of finding  scientists, engineers, designers and technicians to fill the center, strangely similar to complaints we hear today, except Dr. Hafstad put it thusly: “Our choice is brutally clear; as a society, we can either learn mathematics and science- or Russian.”  At the time of the Tech Center’s opening, there were 4700 of the STEM types “rattling around”, quipped a waggish Mac Donald. The next paragraph, and I’m quoting verbatim, reads thus: “The importance of this vital pool of proven defense talent within GM is perhaps the only reason why President Eisenhower ran the political risk of of participating ( via closed-circuit telecast ) when companies like Studebaker-Packard are seriously handicapped by lack of “facilities.”   After a breakdown of the tech center “Staffs”, and mentions of the achievements made, like an ultrasonic dishwasher and “6 huge free-piston engines that will power a new trans-Atlantic freighter shortly to be launched.”  Wonder if that boat ever sailed.

The place is big. The lake on site covered 22 acres, with a fountain at one end, that pumped the equivalent of 166 bathtubs full of water per minute.  (just what is a bathtub’s equivalent of water, anyway? Wouldn’t there be variances?)  There was a brief description of the on-site power plant, which in 1956 used 1 million gallons of fuel oil per month to generate enough steam to (potentially) heat a city of 15,000 during the icy Michigan winters. Sympathies were extended to the window washers, ten of them, who cleaned 5.5 acres of glass, making three circuits a year, while a staff of sixteen gardeners must: “chase dogs from 59,000 bushes and shrubs, while 55 groundskeepers mow 155 acres of lawn”…In 1956.  Now the Tech Center covers over seven hundred acres, but with the technological advances fostered by the place since then, perhaps some numbers have changed.

Continuing with the spotlight, there was mention of dwindling sales in 1956, and the resulting elimination of positions in the industry, with, according to Spotlight, Ford canning 24 percent of the styling staff, with American Motors dropping a full third of their designers, while General Motors 86’d their house magazine, GM Folks, and the GM Motorama. The Motorama would return in 1959, (really ’58) and we can imagine that GM Folks never returned. Scrambling to the back of the book, there’s news on tires, specifically tires that promise to eliminate the need for spare tires. The idea was a “tire within a tire”, as put forth by Goodyear, which was an adaptation from a competitor, Firestone. From what I was able to suss out of the read, it’s basically a tougher tube ( bias belted, tubed tires were the norm then) with 2 plies, enabling one to travel safely to a repair location. There was also mention of self-sealing being discarded by Goodyear, some mumbling about a Firestone patent, as well as Goodrich trying to collect on the invention of the tubeless tire. The paragraph beneath, however- in 1956, a full 25 percent of AAA’s calls were for flats. The proposed tech was going to reduce that, and it was worth the premium to spend on the tire to potentially eliminate hazardous tire changes in areas where there wasn’t much space, like narrow roads without shoulders, bridges, or expressways.  More power for some of the Mercury lineup, Montereys and Montclairs as well as Customs and Medalists. A slight bump, 10 horses for each.  Closing out the column is news of racing tires being made available more generally, with Firestone and Goodyear both getting mentions.

Next over on the page before the jump is “The Rumor Mill”, with the lead being news of the Studebaker-Packard combine potentially entering into an agreement with Mercedes-Benz to sell and service Mercedes vehicles through Studebaker-Packard dealers with reciprocity abroad…here’s some linky goodness:

https://www.automobilemag.com/news/mercedesbenzs-connection-with-studebakerpackard-134155/  

There were a couple of other entries one dealing with Hudson/Nash, and a bit about Ford stylists; interesting re the Ford guys, because they were worried about the Dual Motors Firebomb bearing a similarity to something that they were working on. Dual? I hear you say. Yes, Dual, an American manufacturer lost to time, like the aforementioned BMC, but not before collaborating with Ghia of Turin to manufacture a very striking car called the Dual-Ghia, a car which Sinatra adored.

Preston tucker also got a mention, with the rumor that he was planning a Hot Rod being dismissed as false, just a safer, updated version of Tucker’s first effort.

In another department, called “The Glove Compartment”, Pete Molson reported, among other things, That Vogue tires were made by Denman. A Mr. Dodson, representing Vogue, Corrected Mr. Molson, saying that Vogue was indeed its own manufacturer.  China was going to start building its own car, after a practice run with Soviet parts, Teflon was discovered to have lubricating powers, and supercharging helps cut down on diesel soot in smoggy Los Angeles. Have a look for yourself:

   The Corvette ad was particularly interesting, in that it was written for the road-racing types, with engine displacement being given in liters, rather than cubic inches, as was the norm at the time. 4.3 liters is close enough to 265 cubic inches, which was the size of the then-new Chevy small-block engine. Again, have a click and read through.

Leafing through pages, one passes by a short test of a 1956 Cadillac, a drivescription as it’s called, directly comparing a 1956 to a 1955.  If you like comparisons year-to- year, then you might enjoy this. I’m getting a kick out of the muffler ad on the facing page, as well as the Snap-On Tools ad It even says on the bottom of the very small ad, asterisked, that  *Snap-On is the trademark of Snap-On Tools Corporation.  Again, an image waiting for a click to enlarge.

I mentioned the Dual-Ghia earlier. Here’s the spread, a quick story by McDonald that begins with the question that any driver of an unusual vehicle will get every now and again- What is it? Putting the question into fifties parlance, and quoting directly from the lead-in: “Hey, Mac, what is that car?” My pops had to tell me when I was a boy that “mac” was how one addressed a male that one didn’t know. That manner of address has left us, thankfully.

The Dodge 500 is mentioned again, this time in comparison to the Dual-Ghia, which had its engine moved back several inches compared to the Dodge, and it also says that the Hemi was available as an option in the Dual-Ghia. Of course, there are also gripes, mostly regarding the window winders. There is an address to write to to request further info, and it is: Dual Motors, 9760 Van Dyke, Detroit, 13.

Following that is a report on the 1956 Indy 500, again by Mac Donald. TL/DR- Pat Flaherty in the John Zink Special took the prize of 93,819 Dollars at an average speed of 128.490 miles per hour.

And now to the interesting stuff. Following several pages of photos and paragraphs regarding cars from The Continent and England, two stories caught my eye. But first, the photos.

As well as it being a modern car, even, and a CUV, or whatever they’re called now, even worse, I felt compelled to jot a few words regarding the Nissan Rogue that I rented to ferry my (now) geriatric folks to the memorial for my late father-in-law, Bill, whose middle name was interestingly, Delahaye.

“Okay, we’re ready.” Tatiana called as I stood and walked out with her to a Mini Countryman, lovely in black, but narrow and low. I opened the hatch. A walker will not fit in there. Mom and dad are smaller now; we all shrink as we age, but the Mini was just a bit too much of that narrow and low for a woman with two knee replacements, and and a fully fledged creaky old man, never mind me.

“I don’t think my mom’s walker will fit. Would you have anything that’ll fit two Old Folk, and their kit, as well as another person?” Tatiana said that a Rogue was being cleaned as we spoke. “Let’s do that, then.”

She said it’d be another twenty minutes, apologies implied. I didn’t have anywhere to go, and reading material, so no worries.

A black Rogue pulled in front of the doors. My car for the next couple of days. Tatiana motioned me outside and to my surprise, the car was not black, but a very GM style dark green- the shade everyone thinks of when they think of British Racing Green.

Opening the hatch, I was pleased. This will definitely work.

To my surprise, the car was a 2020 model, top of the line, so it was everything except hybrid. Touchscreen entertainment system with Sirius/XM, bluetooth, Google car suite connectivity- my phone is a bit too old, so it didn’t work properly, but I’m really impressed at the suite of apps that the car has, compared to the very basic, but competent system in our Hyundai Elantra GT. Moore’s law isn’t dead yet, at least as far as car infotainment systems go.

The Rogue is also equipped with a very modern protection system- Nissan calls it “Intelligent Mobility”, and it comes with all of the amenities that a car equipped with radar has- and I disabled one of them- the lane correction, because sometimes we (trained and experienced) meatsacks do know better. Driving the Rogue is like driving any modern car, push this pedal to go, press this one to stop, twist wheel to change direction, albeit with the computerized, radar informed guidance making sure that you don’t do anything too silly.

Now if this were a normal review, I’d go into detail about how much the CVT that Nissan uses has improved from the dreadful, mooing example that I lived with in the Nissan Versa that I’d used as a driving instructor, or how modern suspension technology enabled me to pitch the Rogue into a cloverleaf onramp while accelerating with no body roll whatsoever. Nope. I’ll just say that after a couple of days with this extremely competent vehicle, I now understand why crossovers and SUV’s are so popular.

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It’s Sunday, I’m inside. Traffic is intolerable when I’m not working, so if I don’t get out for an early drive, I’m not going. I’ll do chores, read, nap, play GT Sport- anything but drive. Heck, I’ll even watch TV, or at least television how it’s configured nowadays, with YouTube, Amazon and Netflix standing in for the traditional networks I grew up kinda watching, since there was a marked lack of motoring related coverage then. From 2005 until 2013, there was a network called ‘Speed Vision’, then ‘Speed Channel’, and finally, simply ‘Speed’, that offered all kinds of motorsports related coverage. If it was wheeled, winged or hulled, if it had an engine, it was covered on that channel.

Like so many things network, it was ultimately the victim of ratings. To read more about it, go here

There is an ecosystem for any enthusiast. To nurture an interest, to keep an interest going, to expand, to learn, to connect with others who share our interests, there is no better time than now. If I have a sudden need to learn about the evolution over time of the small-block Chevrolet V-8, there are countless pages and sites for that. Okay, I take back the “countless”. Google counted for me, and it was 16,000,200,000. Type in ‘Chevy small block history’, and you’ll get an equally staggering number.

There’s YouTube, where it seems every guy with a video camera and access to a car will make a channel. I follow a few myself- Jay Leno, the guy responsible for educating Americans on cars that carry nameplates other than from the Big Three. Doug DeMuro, because he’s enthusiastically nerdy and reviews some very interesting machines, and calls the things that boomers and gen X-ers like myself grew up with “quirks”. There’s Jason Fenske, of Engineering Explained, who gets seriously whiteboardy with engineering concepts as applied to automobiles. He’ll even go for a drive in certain vehicles as a way of illustrating these concepts. A newcomer, Andy, of ‘Big Car’, does well-researched and nicely produced histories of cars and marques from Britain and Europe, that run around 15-20 minutes apiece and are a great deal of fun for a guy like me to watch. There’s Tavarish, whose slogan, “Wrench Every Day” is a modest suggestion for a guy who tackles exotics that are crafted of aluminum and Dark Arts. There’s Regular Car Reviews, that you’ll simply have to watch, because it is just slightly off-kilter. There’s many, many more, some weekly, like Leno and DeMuro, while others stick to a less predictable schedule, like VisioRacer, who made some compelling videos that he narrated in English – a very strongly accented English. There’s others, like Uncle Tony’s Garage, where a chain smoking middle-aged guy who specializes in old Mopars holds forth.

On the blog side of things, there’s many as well, with Jalopnik being a daily stop for me. It reminds me very much of Car and Driver during the David E Davis era, what with young, snarky writers writing about cars, car culture and some racing thrown in for good measure. Japanese Nostalgic Car fills my 80’s and 90’s jones, with info about cars, personalities, meets and the like. Hemmings has a blog that lists interesting cars for sale, or are simply too cool not to feature. Petrolicious is a site that is pretty Eurocentric, with small feature films each week, as well as a lifestyle store. Did I mention Blipshift? Purveyors of sartorially excellent tees, they have a new design every week, with archived designs being brought back every now and then. Here’s me modeling a tee with the Lotus Seven, posing for a pic with the perfumer who runs BloodBath. The legend on the tee never fails to get a laugh when worn by a fellow of Falstaffian aspect as myself.

While writing this, I’m reminded of how deep and broad the gearhead ecosystem is, and how much fun it is to inhabit. See you soon.

Not this week. Too much going on. Have some Pics.

See you soon.