Absolutely. You would retard the spark for starting. Some engines also had compression releases to aid starting and cars with impulse magnetos only required about a 1/4 turn to start.

What a beautiful machine!

The trick to starting a car with a hand crank is not to wrap your fingers around the handle. On autos without an anti-kickback ratchet, snapping your wrist during a backfire is a real thing.

Yugatti be kidding me.

That’s some lovingly-kept historical mechanical engineering. Quite beautiful. 

One of the delights of a standard shift. I once had a Corvair with a bad starter that I couldn’t afford to repair. Just parked on hills for six weeks until I could afford a new starter.

When I was a kid, my dad had a ‘31 Ford Model A. It had an electric starter, and a hand crank. I tried the hand crank as a kid once, and have no desire to try it again.

Gorgeous!

Bless you for preserving her! Or him. Or them. Or it.

I wonder how long it was before the first “Save the Hand Cranks” bumper sticker.

This is a swan song. It’s like the last stick-shift Astons; the obsolescence is the point. Indulge a little nostalgia.

Here is another one:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.”

I grew up in a very uncomfortable place. And when they sold the Beetle, they got an air-cooled 911. You can road trip juuuust fine in it.

Sir! Sir!

Or point-out that their American car was built in Mexico, because Americans are too lazy to work.

2,500 miles ahead of ya, champ

I got you, fam.

Weren’t you listening? Tie em to the roof.

I’m not stuffing 2 kids in the back of a lowered, straight-piped, caged 240z for a 9 hour drive. Outside of the fact that they can’t safely fit back there (no seats...), where would we put our luggage?

This is the only way to do it. This is from my 460 mile Memorial Day road trip: