I’ve Fallen Down A Hole In The Internet

I normally check in everyday on Jalopnik to get a dose of automotive content and Tuesday last week I got sucked into a huge time “waster.” One of the posts referenced a fellow in California that is engine swapping a Honda K24 motor into a 1979 Ferrari 308GTBi. Not just any old Honda 4-cylinder engine either, the plan is to add a big ol’ turbo and get 1,000 horse power.

The first thing he did to anger the Ferrari enthusiasts was of course removing the Ferrari V-8. He is weighing almost everything he has removed from the car and the 800lb V-8 is about five hundred pounds heavier than the I-4 Honda motor.

The second thing he did was to order a Liberty Walk body kit for it. He plans on using this for a Time Attack car, so the kit allows him to run a lot wider tire. Plus he will be streeting it as well so, I’m with him, I think the kit will look cool and it will differentiate the car from the rest of the Southern California Ferraris he might encounter.

There are 107 videos in the YouTube Playlist. And because I’m kind of a numbers geek I added the times for all one hundred and seven videos and so far there is 25 hours & 51 minutes of which I have watched 20 hours and 39 minutes worth. The shortest episode is the very first one at 5 minutes and 54 seconds and the longest is #3 at one second over twenty-seven minutes. The average episode length is a palatable fifteen and a half minutes. I just finished number eighty-five which means in the last nine days I have watched 20 hours and 39 minutes. That is about 2-1/2 hours or around 9 episodes a day.

I have a little over 5 hours left to watch and I’ll be done, but Mike Burroughs, founder of StanceWorks is not. He started working on this project in December of 2020 with the original goal of finishing it up in time for SEMA in November of 2021, but SEMA was cancelled and pandemic supply chain issues have held him up. This is apparently the third thing he did to generate some anger, not necessarily Ferrari owners, but more like the people following the build, he is taking too long for finish. Whatever. I have subscribed to the channel, so after I finish the 107 current episodes I’ll still watch the rest of them as he finishes them.

Lack of Attention to Detail

About a month ago we were in Walmart, shopping for some groceries that we like, but Fred Meyers stopped carrying them or never did. When we got back to the car to put our purchases in the trunk an employee out gathering carts stopped and said, “You know you have your tires on the wrong side of the car?”

I looked down at the rears tire I was closest to, sure enough the tread pattern was facing the wrong way. Doh! “Wow, I must have messed up when I swapped the summer tires for the winter all-seasons back in March”, I told him. The fellow said he noticed because he also has a Miata, a ’90, and has run these tires on his car in the past.

I thanked him and the next day I swapped the tires to their correct sides. This was not a real big deal because the tread pattern is that way to improve wet traction by channeling water from out from under the tire and I don’t think the Miata has been in the rain since we have lived in Oregon. Well maybe I had the wipers on intermittent once last year…

Today was another one of those Walmart runs and when we pulled into the lot I noticed a white early model Miata, so I parked next to it figuring it might be that guy’s car. When we here last time and I asked him where his car was he had pointed over in the side of the lot. When I got out and looked at it I noticed he had a “Share the Road” license plate too.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

The Ides of August Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 15, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2006 Lotus Elise 1966 Ford Bronco 2001 BMW 525i Wagon
This is a hardcore sports car in spite of the creature comforts of A/C, Alpine stereo and noise-insulated black soft top. This is a hardcore off-roader in spite of the creature comforts of A/C, an audio system and black hard top. This tourer is the antithesis of the previous 2 vehicles. It is smooth, comfy with lots of room for your luggage and any souvenirs you buy.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2000 Honda S2000 Sold for $35,500 on 8/10/22
Off-Road: 2003 Land Rover Discovery II HSE Sold for $15,000 on 8/11/22
Touring: 1977 Honda Accord Sold for $12,250 on 8/10/22

Sport, Off-Road, Touring: Year 2 by the Numbers

Well, another year has come and gone of my selecting each week the perfect 3-car garage from Bring A Trailer. One is a dedicated sportscar, one off-road vehicle and a car that is suitable for road-tripping.

Last year I created a post that wrapped up the previous year’s cars and now I’m sort of obligated to do it again. Unlike last year when I had to look back at every week to collect data, this time I have kept the spreadsheet updated as I have gone along. This means it will get posted about a week sooner than the last one.

Like last year I once again picked 156 cars, which is three times fifty-two, but unlike last year I missed picking cars one week. We were on our second day of a two-week driving vacation and I forgot (I did remember for the second Monday though.) So how did I end up with the same number of cars? For something different on Christmas week, I decided to pick a dream garage of red & green. To get an even amount of each color I decided to go ahead and pick one of each color for each of the categories.

If I actually won all auctions of the cars I chose during the year I would have spent $9,695,567. Making it an average of $62,151 for each vehicle. This is down around $1.5 million and nine thousand respectively.

The most expensive car I picked was once again in the Sport category, a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina Coupe at $491,000. The most expensive auto in the Off-Road category was, like last year, another Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG at $205,000. The highest priced auto in the Touring category was a 2021 Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 at $253,000. There were 18 vehicles that went for over six figures. Last year there were 23, with two of those over a half million and one went for $1.1 million.

The least expensive car I picked was yet again from Off-Road category, a VW Beetle based 1977 Fargo Dune Buggy at a measly $5,100. The least expensive Touring vehicle was a no reserve 1999 Chevrolet K1500 Suburban LT 4×4 that sold for $9,300. The least expensive Sports car was a 1973 Porsche 914 that sold for $12,000. There was a 1969 Datsun 2000 Roadster that I “bid” $8,000 on, but there was no sale as the reserve wasn’t met. These four cars were the only ones that went for under five figures.

The oldest car I chose was a 1931 Ford Model A Pickup Hot Rod that set me back $68,000. There were 2 more cars selected from the 30’s, four more from the 40’s, 20 from the 50’s and twenty more from the 60’s. There were two dozen vehicles selected from the 70’s, 17 came from the 80’s, sixteen were from the 90’s and the 2000’s was the most popular decade again with a total of 25. There were 18 picked from 2010-2019 and the 2020’s accounted for the last nine of the 156 total. The newest cars were from the year 2022, and 3 of the 4 were just because one Monday for kicks I picked brand new cars and priced them to MSRP. Taking all vehicles into account, the average model year car was 1985 compared to last year’s 1986.

The cars came from 43 separate manufacturers, two more than last year. The most popular make was a tie between Porsche & Chevy with 16. The runner-up was another tie, VW & Ford came in at fourteen. Jeep was third with 11. There were 20 manufacturers with one car chosen and 10 more with just 2 models. Last year I picked only one car from Mazda, a lonely Miata, but this year there were 8 from Mazda, including four Miatas.

The most chosen model name this year was Type 2, AKA VW Bus with 7, Land Cruiser & Wrangler were the runners-up with 6 and 3rd place were Bronco, Cayman & Corvette with five picks. A little less than half, 76, were one and done model names.

Now, using fuzzy logic, the most popular car of this year, if it existed, would have been a 1957 Porsche Type 2 that costs $22,500 and the most random car, if it existed, would be a 1978 Mercedes-Benz Patrol that costs $50,500.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Here We Go Again Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 8, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2000 Honda S2000 2003 Land Rover Discovery II HSE 1977 Honda Accord
First thing I’d do would be to add two 8″ red stripes accented by 1″ black stripes on each side. 🙂 This vehicle is located in Flemington, NJ. Hmm, that sounds familiar. I’m sure someone will remind me. The first car Donna & I bought together was a 1978 model identical to this while we were on Guam.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1973 Porsche 914 2.0 Sold for $23,750 on 8/7/22
Off-Road: 2003 Lexus LX470 Sold for $20,000 on 8/3/22
Touring: 2003 Mercedes-Benz SL500 Sold for $36,000 on 8/7/22

828 Days In The Making

The Blipshift T-Shirt of April 29, 2020 was called AsteRISK and I thought that maybe I’d buy one. But, I hesitated, so I missed out on it and it came to be called my biggest regret of the year.

Sometime early this year Blipshift started selling a bumper sticker with that statement on it and I thought maybe I should buy that. But, on second thought, the black bumper sticker just wouldn’t look good on the CTBNL’s silver bumper, so I didn’t.

Then in February I did buy one, just to have it before they stopped selling them. And you never know, our next car could be black. Which is exactly what happened. Not one we bought, but When we took our trip to Santa Fe we rented a Mazda CX-5 and it was black. I put the sticker on its back bumper and left it there for the 2 weeks we had the vehicle. Since then it has been stuck to the top of my tool box.

Occasionally Blipshift does reprint a particular design, usually in a different color, but they never did. This past Thursday and Friday, plus all next week, they ae celebrating their 10 year anniversary by reprinting the best designs from the past decade. Guess which one made the cut? AsteRISK did!

This time, 828 days later, I didn’t hesitate, I ordered one.

47,001 Reasons

I have a lot of reasons as to why I haven’t written anything real here, the Monday car posts don’t really count, in almost 2 weeks.

Fourteen of those reasons are I decided to rewatch, for possibly the 4th or 5th time, that 20-year old short-lived space western, Firefly.

A quartet of those reasons is I discovered The Brokenwood Mysteries. There are 8 seasons with a total of 36 episodes, but only 4 are available on Prime Video. Like a lot of mystery shows that tickle my fancy, this is one also has a quirky detective whose personality is mirrored in their car. Like Columbo with his old Peugeot 403 convertible and DCI Vera Stanhope with her Land-Rover Defender 90 Tdi. In this show, set in New Zealand, Senior Detective Inspector Mike Shepherd drives a 1971 Holden Kingswood. Come to think of it, all three of them come from the “almost leaving, but before going, turn around and ask another question” school of detectiving.

But, most of those reasons are because nothing exciting has happened to write about, until this morning. When I got in the Mini to run to the store the odometer read 47001.