Carfreax

DRIVEN

At the edge of the gathering the speedster is parked in between some RV's. Red and white with a classic stance. The sheet metal bonnet is popped up, hard shadows accentuate the cars footprint. What might become the picture of the day will turn to an everlasting experience. "Hi there, should I close the bonnet, so you can take better pictures?" "I can park it out there in the open space if you want."

The conversations unfolds as we get into detail. 300 something BHP. "Jump inside I you need to take close up shots. The sound is great, wait a minute, I'll rev her up". Larry is one of these driven and passionate owners who likes to share. He takes it very literally today. "You wanna join me for a ride, I'll show you around." Wind and whirring cogs, click clack, second gear. In between I hear something about ditching windscreens, dust, visibility and Bonneville. Click clack.

As we return at our starting point Larry unlocks the big round steering wheel to get our of the car and hands it over to me. "Slide over to this side, now that you know how it works, it's up to the two of you!" " I am damn serious buddy!"

An endless drive in open space. Hours later we get stuck into down town traffic as we hit Los Angeles. I still have the image of that smiling guy in his white Nascar sweater giving us signs every time we want to return him his V8 speedster. "Come on, go for another round!"

-Matt.

GENE

Hey dude, where are you from? You look like you're new here. Germany. You know, I have been hanging around at the lake here for the past twenty years, but you Mr Germany, this is your day. Just walk past those officials and take that picture you need, right there at the starting line! Just do it!

A couple of minutes later I find myself in the middle of the action, a few meters away from the starting line. A motorcycle trails of and vanishes in a cloud of dust. As I turn around to see who is next, I realize I stand face to face with a legendary car. Low, rough, raw, a deep purple bastard. The crew gathers around its driver, providing some shadow.

After the race, when everything has cooled down, I walk up to purple car. This is my personal icing on an already fantastic cake. Shake hands with Mr. WInfield. Eighty-six years old and still full of energy, driving cars like he stole them. Gene is not only one of the scenes last legends, gene is part of hot rod's DNA. I help his crew to push the 501 gently into the trailer. El Mirage, California, it doesn't get any better than this.

-Matt.

DARWIN

Keep modifying, keep testing, keep racing. 

This sunday at El Mirage is a perfect opportunity to get an overview of Hot Rod history. Different stages of evolution are parked side by side, here and there with some strange mutations. Dead ends? No, these contraptions spice up the experience. Top chopped, channeled, shaved. Modified, Specials. From post war Belly Tank racers to mind blowing airplanes without wings.

It is  worth to take a peak inside the cars and imagine what it must feel like to sit in a cramped cage at such high speeds. Sometimes all you need in a cockpit is a rev counter and a bit of faith, hence the little religious figurine. Sometimes all you need in a cockpit is a rev counter and a bit of faith, hence the little religious figurine.

-Matt.

DEVIL & DETAILS

Dressed up to the occasion, visitors drive around the dry lake bed. See and be seen. Perfection meets dust. White walls, red spokes, lucky dice, mexican textile and pin stripes. The devil is in the detail.

-Matt.

PUSH PULL

Slick versus rough, mean versus friendly. Two cars, one model, opposite characters. One to push, one to pull off. Both of them with an eye for detail. Pragmatic use of wood here for low speeds, slick aero solutions there to reduce drag or simply to get a grip on vibrations. 

-Matt.

CLOSER

A gathering of metal in the middle of the desert. People hanging around the starting line, waiting for their start. T-minus. A chance to get closer and take some shots.

-Matt.

ADAPTION

No one comes to El Mirage with something from the shelve to beat the timing machines. Everything you see here has a personal approach, is handcrafted and purpose built. It is a race against the clock, trying to improve that "personal best" rather than win the race.

Duck down to go faster. I love the details; steering, saddle, gears on this motorcycle. All adapted for high speeds.

-Matt.

VIBES

The world's fastest Indian. I have to think about Burt Munro a couple of times this day. A stranger on a journey, a man on a mission. We have come here to El Mirage to visit the SCTA start of the season. Racers, Lakers, Petrol Heads, Car Nuts. It's a heavy local gathering and at the same time this place is so welcoming to first timers. "Is this your first time at the Lake,where are you from?"

-Matt.

HEAVEN ON EARTH

Movement at the horizon. This is just the beginning. Where to look. I can't wait to jump out of the car. With low speed we roll on the sun dried lake bed.  A deep vrooooooooooaaaaaarr in the far distance.Trails of dust cut through the vibrating air where the ground reflects the sky. El Mirage truly is heaven on earth.

 -Matt.

HISTORIC SOIL

We leave the gravel road and the horizon widens. Hot dry air slips through the opened windows as the sound of the tires disappears. No tickling stones. We enter historic soil.  I have been here before, many times in many years. Be it in childhood magazines, car books or eighties television series. Where beige tones blur into blue hues the air burns. I wait for that black Pontiac to roll into our scenery. Finally, El Mirage!

-Matt.

GETS THE PEOPLE GOING!

Naming the fruit of one's hard concept-car-designing labour 'provo' (with small p) appears rather redundant, as being provocative typically is the main - if not single - goal of any such product. Perhaps having a pro-cee'd in the model lineup helps explain.

Whatever. The KIA provo impressed in Geneva. And as a few of us -including myself- were still missing this little PALEXPO pearl in Rik's hot report, here's for some (long overdue, I know) compensation.

First question is: how do we categorize this little road racer? Potential competitors as the Mini Cooper (Works?), DS3 Racing (S. Loeb?) and 500 Abarth (Esseesse?) spring to mind - but perhaps even closer is that tiny, nimble yet similarly muscular bombshell named smart Roadster (Brabus!), Michael Mauer's claim to fame before moving on to head Porsche. Nimble is perhaps not exactly the word to describe the muscular creation of the team lead by 'Larry from Texas' - my PSA École d'Été buddy from times long gone. Fact is that the eye of the KIA tiger is winking at the premium market - carefully starting at the bottom segment. The later introduced (tiger-) Cub should not stand in its way, if it were up to us.

The LED-inspired flexible headlamp graphic plays with the essence of light units in defining a car’s face. We're not fully convinced by the now rudimental ‘tiger nose’ graphic – downplayed in favour of a strong, full-width musclecar-like mask though. 

Behind a scultpted and chromed sill panel in the spirit of what we’ve seen in Citroen’s DS numero 9, we find a fashionably layered door composition and cross-cabin cross-stitched seat upholstery. And do we sense a spell of Ford GT in those central controls? Could be that we're slowly getting over-enthousiastic, but it’s not a bad association, is it?

Now isn't it time, after all that show car powerplay of recent years (Pop, GT, Trackster...) and after those truly crowd pleasing production cars (Optima, Sportage, Rio...) that the korean cat starts using its fangs once again? The hunting territory of the premium mini seems wide open for this oriental addition.

- Geert.

 

Goin' back home

For the annual trip abroad, the Alfaclub of The Netherlands selected once more Italy as the place to go. After the 2010 Centannial trip this was going to be the second time for me to take part. For friend and co-Alfisti Huib it was business as usual, for he's taking part almost every year. For me: It's the call of Italy that does it all: taking the car 'Back Home'.

The trip to Italy would take us across three mountain ridges: The Vosges in France (overnight stop in Colmar), The Alps through Switzerland towards the Dolomites in Italy (2 overnight stops in Bolzano) and back west through the Italian Alps to Lago Maggiore (5 overnight stays in Baveno). To any car-enthusiast/Italy-lover that should sound like a dream. 75 clubmembers understood this was an offer they couldn't refuse. Cars ranging from brand new Giulietta's to the oldest participant: a 2600 Touring Spider, 8C's and SZ/RZ's, 70's and early 80's Alfetta's and Giulietta's and of course many, many cars of the famous 105-series: Giulia, GT Junior/GTV, Spiders & Berlina's. To manage technical hick-ups, a technical back-up team followed closely.

Through France and Switzerland the Spider was driving great. But the closer we came to one of those all-time bucket-list destinations: The famous Stelvio-pass, the car started to behave funny. Backfiring like mad, running on only 3 pots. Turned out to be a combination over overrich mixture on the second cilinder and contactpoints that were eaten up quicker than they should. Huib and I managed to get the car limping 'home' to Bolzano. We had to decide to leave the Stelvio for another time though. The technical guys finetuned the car back into shape that same evening. (The problem only came back some 100 km's before we reached home on the last day of the trip, got there limping again. Further investigation revealed that the ignition capacitator had died.)

The trip from Bolzano, travelling through the Alps north of the lakes, to Lago Maggiore went like a dream, taking multiple passes, circumnavigating the lakes, enjoying all those Alfa's around us. As a matter of fact the Italians did as well. What a joy it is to be so welcome, we had 'innocent bystanders' applauding us for our noisy, stinking cars.

With that in mind, one of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Vigevano, a town sporting the famous Alfa snake everywhere (The Lombardian Visconti and Sforza families being responsible for that, as well as for its position in the Alfa logo). The Italian Alfa-club had arranged police motorcycle-escort for our 75 cars to move at high speed from the outskirts of town right to the Piazza Ducale: Only in Italy! We felt like we were taking part in the Mille Miglia! Our cars were parked on the Piazza for everyone to see. The mayor held a speech, music was made by people in medieval dress, flags were thrown about. To top it all we had lunch under the trees on the Sforza castle square.

Spending time in a superb hotel located right on the boarders of the lake also contributed to this general feeling of joy and happiness: As if died and gone to heaven.............

 

 

SURF AND TURF

A walk through Venice. Surf and turf, boards and bikes. Bike lanes on Abbot Kinney. Streetlife is changing here. Less car, more cycle. If you are around, make a visit to Deus on Venice and Lincoln! Enjoy.

-Matt.

CURBED KARMANN

Meanwhile in Venice. Crunched, cracked, curbed Karmann.

-Matt.

OVER THE FENCE

No one home, a walk around the compound, a look over the fence. This is as close as we can get. Mind the dog. "Do you see those welding lines across the pillars? Top chop". Stacked polyester moulds sandblasted by the desserts winds of the Mojave. Future surrounded by history. That could have been  one of the police cars from the Robocop movie.

Shaved. Car bodies reduced to their essentials, as flush as possible. Who needs door handles anyway? A white and crisp canvas over here, a rusty bucket over there. A landscape of projects. Where to start or...where to stop.

"Pasadena find, old lady owned". What we are looking at is the gold mine of Gene Winfield's Rod & Custom Shop. A place where American car history is being recycled, remodeled and refined. Lower, wider, longer. Turning old sleds into the sleek sketches they once where on Detroit's drawing boards. Circle closed. And what about Gene? I did not have the guts to walk up to the door. It turned out he was not at home anyway, but that is on another page.

to be continued.

-Matt.