RideLust

Alfa the dog resists the urge to mark the silver cup for Best of Show, won by his owners’ 1938 Alfa-Romeo 8C 2900B touring coupe. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Way back in 1910, when the Darracq automobile company of France, decided to sell their Italian factory to the Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (ALFA), few probably thought the company would be producing a car the likes of the 1938-’39 Alfa-Romeo 8C 2900 Berlinetta. An example of one that not only survived, but won Best of Show at both the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California, as well as the Kirkland Concours d’Elegance a few weeks later in Washington State.

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The North American Eagle LSR car is an F-104 without wings. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Ed Shadle has a dream. It is to use a F-104 Starfighter jet fighter plane, sans wings and retrofitted with a powerful turbine engine and hand-crafted aluminum wheels instead of rubber tires, to set a new world land speed record.

Shadle has set speed records at the Bonnevile Salt Flats in the street roadster. Back in 1993, he took a roadster based on a 1927 Ford model “T” body, powered by a 258 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8, to 159.43 mph.

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This Buick woody wagon is probably a better investment than a Phoenix, Arizona condo. Shown here selling for $65,000 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

It strains credulity but just when you might think that collector cars would tank about as badly as refinanced housing, they seem to have become a commodity right there with gold as something you can look at for security. That may be hyperbole. Time will tell.

But consider this. The weekend when the U.S. House of Representatives went into overtime to discuss how much money the country might need to avoid the engine of the economy seizing up, an auction held in Portland, Oregon saw people bidding as if it was business as usual.

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Open wheel midget racecars were scaled down Indy roadsters. (Photo courtesy of Fredrickson Classics)

A DOHC 16 valve in-line four-cylinder engine displacing just 255 cubic inches, yet fully capable of producing 500 horsepower, normally aspirated, powers the “Zink Pink” Champ car of John and Barbara Nelson. Thing is, the car was built for racing way back in 1955. Honda wasn’t the first to exploit the full potential of four bangers. Offenhauser, who made the engine in the Nelson’s car, was doing that long before the S2000 ever made it to America.

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The Volvo C30 can come with body mods installed – but it will cost you. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Way back in 1970, now defunct American Motors lopped 18 inches off a car they sold called the Hornet, fitted the end result with a rear end that included a hatch-back lifting rear window and door and called the result the Gremlin. It was their way of rushing to the fore and beating the then Big Three with a domestic produced compact. It sold well initially and soldiered on for 9 years, before succumbing to a lack of product upgrades and changing market.

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This 1964 Triumph TR4 sold for a bid of $20,750 at Hot August Nights. (Photo courtesy of Goldenberg Enterprises)

Hot August Nights (HAN) just held its 22nd celebration of automobiles and rock-and-roll music – a complete week of cruises up-and-down Virginia Street, a swap meet at the old cattle stall on the out-skirts of town, a car show across from the Atlantis Casino and a collector car auction, across the street from the casino.

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#43 was Richard Petty\’s number; but HSCRS wants you to remember the marque, too. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Do you remember when the fleet of cars lapping Daytona or Talladega looked vaguely akin to the cars you’d see on the street? Well then, the Historic Stock Car Racing (HSCRS) series is for you. It was founded in 1994 and its purpose as an organization is the restoration, preservation and continued competition of former NASCAR stock cars.

You’re not going to find that rolling doorstop, the Car of Tomorrow here. Instead, you’re going to find a rainbow collection of multi-hued variants of the best the General, Ford and Chrysler had to offer before stock cars began to loose their soul. Think pre-millennium machines.

NASCAR these days are really more about the drivers, than the cars.

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In June, Silver Collector Car Auctions held an auction in the parking garage of the Bellevue (Washington) Hilton Hotel.  This auction was notable in that the two “MoPar” (Chrysler) cars which sold, and brought the most response from the crowd, were two fat-fendered relics from the immediate post-WWII period.

Collector car dealer David Goldenberg, brought a very fine 1949 Dodge Wayfarer two door sedan, up from West Linn, Oregon that sold for $9,800 to another collector car dealer. The latter is considering taking it to Hot August Nights, in Reno NV next month, where Mitch Silver conducts a four day and three evening auction extravaganza.

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A Green Maserati Gran Turismo against mountain scene

There are two ways to look at the Maserati Gran Turismo: the best car Maserati has ever made and an extreme bit of bad timing. Both are perhaps correct.

Of course, with the Gran Turismo, you are buying more than a car itself; you’re buying a legacy. Its heritage stretches back 60 years ago, when the Modena manufacturer launched 58 models of the A6 Gran Turismo styled by Pininfarina. Ten years later, it was the turn of the first standard GranTurismo, the 3500 GT, a car which marked a turning point for the company as it shifted its attention from racing cars to road going production, turning out 1983 models of the 3500 GT in seven years.

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John Wayland points to the Zilla controller and two electric motors that make his car the world's fastest street legal electric-powered drag car; pulling sub-12 second ETs in the quarter miles and beating Corvettes. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Folks looking for answers to the question “how does one stay green and have fun with their car” found several answers at the 16^th annual Greenwood district car show in Seattle, Washington on the last Saturday in June. It was a record turnout for the show with vehicles stretching for a mile, on either side of Greenwood Avenue North.

Harold Shew hovered over his slightly modified 1963 Plymouth Valiant station wagon like a proud papa. It was, after all, the car “I used in work for 6 years and put 400,000 plus miles on (it).”

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