Category: The Empire (Page 1 of 5)

The E-Type is just peeking into this photo, so we’ll pretend it’s a car post, eh? I just finished these garden gates for my mom and my mom-in-law. I throw them together with dimensional lumber, and don’t get too careful with the joinery…though given the price of cedar these days, maybe I should!

My friend Paul is selling his restored Lotus Elan +2 via a Bring a Trailer exclusive. It looks and runs great and drives very well–almost all the Lotus cars I’ve driven have been Paul’s, and they’ve all been very nice. He’s put a lot of time and effort into the restoration, and it shows. Take a gander at it on bringatrailer.com and drop him a line if you’re interested.

[flickr id=”6565591821″ thumbnail=”original” overlay=”false” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]I picked this set of triple-SU carbs up from craigslist awhile ago; they were cheap enough that even as a source of parts they’re a good buy. I had a vague notion about putting them on the XJ6, and they would fit, but the lack of manual choke would be annoying. (These came from a Mk. X and won’t work in an E-Type as a conversion, as the inlet manifold is different.) Still, with a couple of HD8 rebuild kits included it was a decent deal.

[flickr id=”6547226635″ thumbnail=”original” overlay=”false” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]I created several mosaic posters to raise some money for the “data” car registry sites. I have uploaded about half a dozen to the cafe press store so far. You can see the one I purchased for myself hanging to the left of the toolbox, featuring Chuck’s 1965 OTS on a winter’s day.
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I’ll have an update on the shop and the GT in the next few days, I hope, but in the meantime, here’s the poster I designed for this year’s All British Field Meet in Bellevue, Washington.

I agreed to help my friend Steve by building the web site, online databases, various other software pieces and doing the graphic design for the meet. Steve was clueless generous enough to take up the mantle of organizing the show after Arnie Taub passed away–and is doing a bang-up job.

This year the show honors 80 years of the MG Car Club of England, and 50 years of the Jaguar E-Type. By coincidence, I have an E-Type which is 50 years old this November, though at this juncture I’m pretty sure it will not be running by its birthday. I had hopes a few months ago, but my to-do list is so long with things not E-Type that I just don’t think I’ll be able to find enough time to get her back on her feet by then.

You can learn more about this year’s show at abfm.com

Everyone has been posting the excellent youtube clip featuring the overview of the 1967 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, so I thought I’d post this equally excellent walk-through with the legendary Jackie Stewart, circa 1971 or 1972.

My friend Jim has decided to sell off a lot of his model car collection, and I couldn’t resist a few despite not really being a model collector, per se. Having purchased a few “regular” models (ie, the kind you can buy in a store) from his stash, I asked about this one, my favorite: It’s a scratch-built resin model, made by the man himself, in about 1:24 scale.
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Had a great time this afternoon with my friend Matt at the combined Flying Heritage and Historic Flight “Round Engine Day” at Paine Field. The main event was a series of fly-bys: FH’s P-47 Thunderbolt and HF’s Tigercat and Bearcat. As a bonus, we got to see quite a few more aircraft in the air: B-25 bomber, North American T-6A, A-1D Skyraider and some Chinese-built Yak clones (at least that’s what I think they were). After the flying, we visited the new Historic Flight “Kilo-6” museum and came away quite impressed. Lots more photos after the jump.
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This is my new favorite car, the 1905 Darracq which took the world land speed record at over 125 MPH. What an extraordinary machine, a car distilled down to its essential elements. I read about it in this month’s Octane and have spent the past few minutes watching clips on youtube. Kudos to Mark Walker for driving it on the road and for restoring an already “restored” car to as original a condition as he could get it.