Introduction Forum 51

[soundmasterg]

Another Audi driver here.....300,000 miles on an '85 4000 Quattro and still the original clutch and never had the head off... (knocking on wood furiously). I've also got a 1969 Volvo 1800S I've been restoring forever, and wish I could afford a Porsche or Ferrari...maybe one day. How did you manage to get such nice cars Elys?

greg

[elysrand]

Elys, what model and year Ferrari did you have?

It was a 1976 308 GTS, the 3-liter 8 cyl with the four Weber mechanically-coupled carb stacks, red of course, and I bought it used in 1980 with maybe 11,000 real miles on it from a neighbor. It was the original no-rust Ferrari fiberglass body, a convertible (targa) top, so it looked great and was lightweight, maybe 2700 lb or so I think. I knew how he cared for it, had ridden in it many times, so I figured it was a safe purchase to make. Having just graduated med school, I figured it would be sorta like Richard Kiley riding to Marcus Welby's office each morning on a motorcycle or something. Sold it a year later, after it seemed it had spent nearly half of that year in the shop (I am sure it is exaggeration, but that's how it felt, I recall) I must have gotten a lemon. The neighbor hardly drove it, so I guess I didn't know all the times he had it in the shop either.

[elysrand]

Another Audi driver here.....300,000 miles on an '85 4000 Quattro and still the original clutch and never had the head off... (knocking on wood furiously). I've also got a 1969 Volvo 1800S I've been restoring forever, and wish I could afford a Porsche or Ferrari...maybe one day. How did you manage to get such nice cars Elys?

greg

Easy - buy them used! That way they are not expensive. My Porsche 911 is a 1969 911S that was driven only in Texas (a no-roadsalt state) by an oil dude, bought it in 1977 with 21,000 miles on it, it looked brand new and was in immaculate shape, undercarriage free of even oil stains, this guy must have driven it only in nice dry weather on weekends or something, and he had a special air-conditioned garage with white-painted floors in which he kept his two dozen or so sports cars. That garage floor was cleaner than my kitchen.

It is sitting in my garage right now with 44,000 miles on it after 30 years of owning it, so I am trying to carry on the tradition.

All our regular passenger cars, like the various Mercedes and the Ford Excursion family truck, are bought off the showroom floor new, but I try to buy sports cars used whenever possible. I did buy a brand new Corvette ZR-1 monster car in 1991 off the showroom floor, but that was different. Same metallic blue color as a 2005 MID Rick. It was the Lemmy RIck version of the plastic Corvette, with the 32-valve all-aluminum quad OHC hemi V8 racing motor, tuned out to 750 BHP with just four parts changes. It was also one of the most rare, going out of production in 1995, and today just the motor is worth more used than the rest of the car. Mine has 13,000 original miles on it after 16 years, and it will be sitting in the air-conditioned garage for some time to come. Hey, four more years and I can put antique tags on it in this state! I drive it maybe 50 miles per month on nice weekends just to keep the motor in shape.

[wmthor]

Elys, one of my old hunting buddies who worked for Mercury Marine was a project manager for the manufacturing and assembly of those Lotus designed ZR-1 engines.

[shinynewtoy]

Elys... If I still had the turbo'ed (among other things) '72 240, I'd ask ya if you wanted to bring some Ricks and the ZR-1 to a dragstrip...

[elysrand]

Elys, one of my old hunting buddies who worked for Mercury Marine was a project manager for the manufacturing and assembly of those Lotus designed ZR-1 engines.

Cool! I actually accepted an invitation to fly to Stillwater Oklahoma for the guided tour, as part of the promotions that year! Cool place, the best machining shop I ever saw. Mercury's end of that deal was to get to use the engine in their racing boats, after one year of exclusive production for GM's Bowling Green assembly plant.

[elysrand]

Elys... If I still had the turbo'ed (among other things) '72 240, I'd ask ya if you wanted to bring some Ricks and the ZR-1 to a dragstrip...

You mean a 240Z? The original 4cyl? That was a well-balanced and nimble car, the very best of the marque at the time. It got bloated when they fattened it up to a 260, then the death knell of the 280. It became a boulevard tourer, not a true sports car, when it got heavier and more nose-heavy.

I never did better than 3.8 sec 0-60 through the traps. Stock it was rated by the factory at 4.3 sec. I couldn't keep the tires on the pavement at WOT, and I was using the S-compound version of the Goodyears. They would spin and slip at those ponies, and smoke all my torque away .

[shinynewtoy]

Typical of tons of torque and RWD. Trust me, I learned that lesson!

The 240's were always I-6. Mine had a '83 turbo engine, plus some extra goodies that got it way down into the 12's. Phenomenal driver... except for the fact that the car had not nearly enough brakes for the engine... It could smoke Nitto's at will... at the same time it was the best handling twisty road car I'll ever set foot in.

My next Z, and there will be another someday, will be the same vintage with a 350. Yay, torque!

The best thing to combat take-off issues is to soften the rear spring rate, so the weight shifts to the rear on throttle... but there are way too many things compromised to make it practical to do this in a driver. Race cars, that's different...

WHAT? You guys thought all I did was play Ricks?