The hardest part of the Thunderhill 25 is that there’s basically 12 hours of night, unlike all the traditional summertime 24 hour classics. So 10 hours plus of night at Spa will be interesting. At least it probably won’t be freezing balls with biblical rain (there were snowflakes falling on qualifying one year too),…

I can’t even with this so I won’t. But as an example of a similar, common failure in more modern cars, Mercedes-Benz 722.6 automatics (also used in Jeeps and other Chrysler products of the DaimlerChrysler era) do this to their TCM when the valve body connector sleeve leaks internally. They’ll wick ATF forward and up…

There’s a diesel Mk1 Rabbit with a (likely) cracked head on local Craigslist. I’d put it in that for a nifty runabout. 

*Whips out old Protech SuperCharger that’s inexplicably still in my garage to help you out.

Check this one out: https://expeditionportal.com/porsche-944-across-africa/

All the Californians that are already there can work for him. 

CorVolt or nothing. 

Great story about Rolf Stommelen, from my boss who was a crew chief with the Barbour 935s at Le Mans: In the ‘79 race Stommelen did much of the heavy lifting in the now famous 2nd-place Hawaiian Tropic car with Paul Newman and Barbour. At some point in the night, the car was several minutes behind another for position…

You and me both, haha. Delicious color! One of my favorites, given a choice mine would be dark blue as well. Nice that you track it, I haven’t done a trackday in over 10 years but maybe someday I’ll get mine out there. I mostly like to thrash it on backroads and trips when I can, between periods of wrenching.

I got mine comparatively cheap too, but because I’d known the car forever and it needed loads of work (still does). Unfortunately that means the parts prices are also as bad as the values, largely beyond my means so I have to play carefully.

Funny, I’m a lifelong drummer too, which I almost mentioned because Bonham was a monster influence, of course. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like In Through the Out Door more than the critics did on its release. As a sloppy bass player myself, JPJ’s lugging grooves are gold throughout the catalog, particularly the…

Underrated album, for sure!  I have to say II takes it for me, but that’s mostly because Ramble On speaks to me in weird ways. 

Sometimes, but not these days. Honestly, I feel like a dick even owning it in times like these, and with work badly affected I can’t afford the parts right now if I broke something, anyway. My commute is pretty short and I usually just listen to public radio/NPR news on each end of the day so I don’t really miss any…

That copy of Ten was sent to me by my older cousin in the Marines around the time of the Gulf War, pretty influential. Still one of my favorite albums.

Thanks, guess it does date me pretty accurately, huh? Glad I kept these, one of the first things I did when I got the car was dig them out and cue up some Zep.  

I don’t get why people want to modernize these things. It’s a time machine, that’s why I like it. Gives me a chance to dig up all the tapes I grew up with, when I fell in love with these stupid cars I the first place.

Seems like a sendoff halo car, maybe the last Corvette. Or at least the last one with an ICE.  

Zorts(tm)

Can you imagine the backflips Mergio Sarchionne would be doing right now?!?

Eh, in this case I’d say “postponed” is accurate, because every year is different at Pebble (and most other world-class concours), from featured marques to special classes and cars accepted. They’re just moving this year’s whole program to next year, which otherwise would have been much different. For most other…