Driving

[TC Chris]

This has been an odd summer for me, in part because of odd weather patterns. Rain on weekends.... The Mustang has stayed in the garage a lot more because I've been putting miles on the Ranger, since it's going to rust away before it ever stops running, But the weather forecast was good for the weekend so I drove the Mustang across the state to where the Chevy lives. An old black willow at my cottage had lost some big branches in an extreme storm event last week. The big ones will be a tree-service job but I spent the morning cutting as much brush away from it as possible so I could reach the house. Then I went sailing--got "Mustang waves" from the other pony-car drivers on the way--and afterward did a car switch for the Chevy. I store it with the top up but have been putting the top down as much as possible.

So I was driving it back to the cottage in the dark, top down, and decided to try the high beam switch. Worked just fine. I was worried it was sticking. Then going through the state park with high beams I tried to switch them down. Darn, no luck. Stuck on high. Stomp stomp stomp on the floor. Bah! Then I realized the foot switch was about 4" higher than where I was stomping. Get the toe in the right place, and the little floor switch worked just fine. Climbing the learning curve....

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Ain't old cars fun? How did we survive back in the day when they were the best there was and all we had?.....

[TC Chris]

I had a nice top-down drive today to buy some no-ethanol "rec gas"--the first fill-up since last October, just before going into storage. I did not do a gas mileage calculation, because on cars of this era, and with a two-speed transmission, I would rather not know.

And on this nice lazy day, I read the latest Hagerty magazine. Their "Driver's Club" includes a really good car mag. This issue had a piece on Ford flathead V-8s and the hot rod movement, a history of horsepower in car engines, a comparison of a '67 Mustang GT 500 and a '67 Lamborghini Miura P400, a guy's resto-moddeed '46 Dodge Power Wagon and '48 panel van, Jay Leno's write-up on his Owen Magnetic engine-driven electric car, a comparison of a McLaren F1 and T.50, ad next year's 1064 HP Corvette. I'll probably never get with 100 miles of a McLaren or an Owen Magnetic, but the write-ups are interesting.

Chris Campbell