Weather Rant

My Mustang will be six years old in March.  It has never seen rain (...well...once for 20 minutes when I got caught out...).  But it doesn't get stored in winter.  I put 10 miles or so per month on it to warm up the fluids and make the tires round again.  It's easy: wait for rain to wash the salt off the roads, and for them to dry out after that.  Mild winter weather like that is customary.

This winter, the car hasn't been out since early November and, based on the weather forecast, it won't make it until mid-February.  Three months and counting.  This has been the worst winter in Chicagoland in the 24 years I've lived here.  It has combined the worst features of Cleveland (lake effect snow and grey skies day after day) and Minneapolis (biting cold for four months).

But similar complaints are coming in from around the Great Lakes.  People I know in Minneapolis feared they wouldn't be tired enough of winter, yet, when they made reservations for Cancun for mid-January.  They were.  Southern Illinois has had biblical rains and unseasonal flooding.  Even the Southeast got hammered earlier this week.  Among my acquaintances, only one is reporting a mild winter.  In, of all places, Kansas (where one expects blizzards expressed in from the Rockies).

This pic was taken after two passes through the drive-thru car wash and a slow 4-mile
drive home on mostly dry roads.  Before that, the car wash was closed for three days
due to subzero weather.  But doubtless the owner's revenue is way up, season over
season.  Meanwhile, the Mustang sits...and sits...and sits...under its cover.

Failed To Read The Memo

In my January 20 post, I was intrigued (and bemused) that Ford would offer a 2.0 liter turbo as an upgrade engine in the Mustang.  Some people just don't get the memo, or fail to read it: me, for instance.  Most of the non-"Corvette" prototype field showed up at Daytona with 3.5 liter EcoBoost V-6's in their engine bays.  The engines appear to be available to racing teams on lease from RoushYates.

The Ganassi pit was three deep in people in Blue Oval fleeces and Ford Racing baseball caps, giving interviews.   In case you wondered, the EcoBoosts in the back of those race cars "is just like the one you can buy in your F-150."  Race-tuned, it was almost competitive with the 6 liter GM V-8's.  (The Ford teams said they were losing a few m.p.h. on top-end to the "Corvettes."  But they're also running the Riley body which appears to be less slippery.  I wonder if Riley is busy building a new "Mustang.")

The "get" among racing teams for Ford was Ganassi.  Apparently Chip did not decided on an engine deal for 2014 until very late.  The cars were rushed to completion for Daytona.  This showed up in glitches in his normally flawless pit operations.  Ganassi has previously run Lexus and BMW engines, so I wonder if there was a manufacturers' bidding war to wind up in his engine bays.  It appears that Ganassi Racing is the Ford factory team, not a factory team.

Anyway.  Aside from the turbo 4 in the Mustang, Ford had been touting its turbo V-6's with V-8 power, its turbo 4's with V-6 power, and its turbo 3's (sold mostly in Europe) with the power of a 4.  Clearly there is a lot of brand-wide marketing of turbos going on, for those with eyes to see.

On a purely personal note, the GT classes were (again) the most fun to watch at Daytona.

The Riley-Fords led at Daytona only if the field was cycling through pit stops.  But they weren't hopelessly off the
pace.  Let's hope that Riley is working on an aero body kit that makes its cars look as sharp as the "Corvettes." 

Has to be lighter than a GM aluminum 6-liter V-8.  Is this "the new black" in American prototype sports car racing?

Meet The New Car, Same As The Old Car

Williams's 2014 Formula 1 car.

2014 Ferrari F 14 T Formula 1 car.

These are the first pictures of 2014 Formula 1 cars I've seen.  They don't look all that different from immediate predecessors, although the technical specification is way different.  (A mandatory 1.6 liter V-6 turbo with energy recovery vs. a 2.4 liter non-turbo V-8.)  Apparently other regs have changed slightly, resulting in a shallower and lower front wing mounted to a sloping "ant eater" nose.

Still ugly, but a bit less so...

Nervous Idle

Thanks to John Kraman of the Velocity/Mecum team for this term.  I've called it a lopey idle, but like Kraman's description much better.  From now on, in my dictionary, it's a Nervous Idle.

Here's lopey.  We've all heard it.   (The car sounds good at higher revs and I don't disparage a lopey idle: I paid extra to get one.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71rGFVP6kRQ

A lopey idle is a Cheetah cruising the Serengeti, looking for prey.  A Nervous Idle is a Cheetah getting ready to pounce.  If all you brung was your lopey idle, you're the Wildebeast calf.  Move more toward the center of the herd.  Here's a Nervous Idle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlKkds2Lhx8

A nervous idle doesn't necessarily require a big-block.  Small-block unblown gassers and Trans Am racers had one.  All you really need is a radical camshaft, big compression, and a fairly open exhaust.

Discovering The Lancia Aurelia

This Aurelia B 24 went for $561,000 at a Gooding & Co. auction in 2012.

When I was young, the Aurelia was barely on my radar.  It seemed an Italian Thunderbird: an overpriced, overstyled, underperformer.  The upright grille struck me as prewar, old-fashioned.  In the decades since, I didn't think about the Aurelia at all.  So when one went for $561,000 at auction in 2012 (which I saw recently on TV), it was an eyebrow raiser.  And last year another one went for $803,000. Wow!  That's Ferrari money.  Why?

The Aurelia claim to fame I knew of back in the day was that it was Juan Fangio's daily driver.  If the World Champion chose to drive an Aurelia, that's high praise.  Why?  In the 1950's, Jaguar and Ferrari easily outperformed the Aurelia, and some Alfa Romeos and Porsches equaled or bettered it.  In those days, before private jets and helicopters, a Grand Prix racer's daily driver was how he got to the events, in trips that took 1-3 days.  So the Aurelia was an interesting choice.  Maybe Fangio had a deal with Lancia.  (In 1954-55 Mercedes supplied him with a car.  That was a major product placement failure by Enzo Ferrari, for whom Fangio drove in 1956.)

Fangio with one of his several Aurelia  B 20 GT's.  He also owned at least one B 24 convertible.  If any other front-rank
Grand Prix driver of the 1950's drove an Aurelia by choice, like Fangio seems to have,  I'm unaware of it.  Of course,
Fangio was from Argentina and didn't have to "represent."  In those days, unless they were under contract to a
foreign manufacturer, British, German, and Italian racers drove cars road made in their home country.

A "product placement" deal aside, one reason Fangio might have chosen an Aurelia was that it was an engineering tour de force.  It had the first V-6 in a production car.  Aluminum.  That's no big deal in 2014, but there are balance issues in a V-6 that don't exist in a straight 6, so props to Lancia for solving them first.  It had pushrod overhead valves and ranged in size from 1.8 to 2.5 liters over the life of the car.  The larger engines made 125 horsepower.  To balance the car itself, Lancia put the gearbox and clutch  in the back with a transaxle and inboard brakes.  The Aurelia had fully independent suspension: a De Dion tube in the rear and Lancia's patented sliding pillars in the front.  It was one of the first to be equipped with radial tires.  Sophisticated stuff for an immediate postwar design.  The car was designed under the supervision of Vittorio Jano (there he is again!).

The Aurelia was produced from 1950 to 1958 in small numbers: 18,000 total, across four body styles, and not more than 4700 in a single year.  With these numbers and this specification, it's easy to see why it was an expensive car.  But I can also see why Fangio drove one: public road performance and comfort comparable if not equal to 3 liter (and bigger) GT's in elegant engineering and style.

Glub, glub.  Lancia made only 376 Aurelias in 1956, so I hope the 20-odd that went down with the Andrea Doria
were insured.  This disaster is my own earliest memory of a "public event."  I remember seeing this picture on the
front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and being compelled to read the article and follow subsequent news
coverage.  Fifty people died, but they were all killed in the collision with the Stockholm.  The rest of the
passengers got off safely even though the ship was listing so heavily that only the starboard lifeboats
could be used.  It was probably this event that caused me to read my first adult book, A Night To
Remember, by Walter Lord, about the sinking of the Titanic.  The fact that a shipment of
Aurelias went down with the Andrea Doria wasn't mentioned in the news coverage.

Whither Mustang? And A Modest Proposal

2.3 liter, 305 h.p., turbo 4-cylinder engine available in the 2015 Mustang.  Forged and heat-treated and bi-metallic
 or coated "everything," and a balance shaft--so it likes to rev.

Hotshoe and I discussed the 2015 Mustang at our January Great Pasta Blowout.  As former and current owners, we (and Watchtower) have an active interest in what Ford is doing with the car.  Neither of us has a problem with independent rear suspension: finally.  But when I said I'd consider the 2.3 liter 4-cylinder turbo, Hotshoe grew quiet.  I said, "Hey, it removes 200 pounds from the front axle.  With a brake and suspension package, that sounds like the fastest Mustang in HSAX to me."  He remained quiet.  It turned out he was thinking about those coked-up, blown-up turbos of the '70's and '80's we'd heard about.  (Yes, Hotshoe now owns a turbo: no one, not even the Great Wannabe, is immune to congnitive dissonance.  But I'm pretty sure Hotshoe would order the 5 liter 4-cam V-8.  I probably would too.)

It's said that the 2.3 turbo is aimed at Europeans, who pay 2-3 times what we do for gas.  A right-hand drive version will be sold in the U.K., so it's not just a case of exporting a handful of cars for conversion. But Mr. Catchpole of evo TV seems skeptical about the reception it will get over there.  Maybe, if you're a European who can afford a Mustang, you can afford the gas for a 5.0 V-8 too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CfU3kLotwc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUFwzOXPZKE6aH3fAU0d2Cyg

Hotshoe and I didn't discuss styling, but it's only OK with me.  Lower the hoodline and slope the nose, lose the creases,
and lose the phony rear diffuser.  My heretical idea: make the car 15% smaller.

It would be nice if the 2.3 turbo had less size and mass to push around.  But then, I didn't have a problem in the 1990's when the car that became the Ford Probe was going to be the next Mustang.  In retrospect, I was dead wrong about front drive.  That's a bridge too far for the character, not to mention the image and heritage, of the car.

The Ford Probe of the early 1990's.  The pin stripes are non-standard.  It was "right-sized," and remains a styling hit
with me.  I'd have bought one, especially if it had a wheel/tire/handling package.  But it was a swing and a miss
with the car-buying public, no matter how it was badged.

A better solution: the Mercury Capri of the early 1970's (it was a Ford in Germany, where it was designed).  A friend of
mine back then had one with the 2.6 liter V-6 that looked just like this.  It was a sweet, quick car.  And, unlike the
Probe, it was a sales success.  Its major failing was a solid rear axle hung from leaf springs--just like the original
Mustang.  IRS will fit under this car "no problem."  Just downsize the rear seats and trunk.  Current Mustang
owners are already used to a laughable trunk and rear seats.

Full disclosure: I'm glad I had a chance to drive my cousin's 1966 GT 350 before he sold it.  But I prefer my own '08 GT, although Watchtower assures me that even the Ford Racing suspension (ahem...) doesn't turn it into a sports car.  The "manly car for manly men" feel of a GT 350 can get tiresome after a few cycles of clutch use and horsing it around street corners and parking lots.  The muscle car piece of the pony car formula has never pushed my buttons.  But putting more sport in the sporty is just fine with me.

So my question remains: if Mustang is going to offer a 2.3 liter 300 horsepower turbo 4, why not downsize the car to go with it?  There's no reason the next Mustang redesign couldn't be a Capri-sized rear-driver with independent rear suspension.  There would probably be room in the engine bay for a non-turbo V-8 smaller than the 5.0.   A 3.5-ish would maintain the Mustang tradition and bring the car in at around 10 pounds per horsepower.  And it wouldn't hurt a 50/50 weight distribution...much...

TR-6 Restoration (#14)

Mrs. Cuz sent some iPhone pix.  "Looking like a car again."  Regular readers will recall that the TR is a present to Mrs. Cuz.  Partly, I suppose, for following Cuz's dreams across the continent and back.  How appropriate that it should be a car!  This project has taken longer than either of them hoped or expected.  So I asked the obvious question:

"Ready for you by Valentine's Day?"
"Surely you jest!  No engine install yet."

Right door card and roll-up window installed.

Original-spec, jute interior padding is going in.

But the wiring and dash remain on the punch list.

 Mrs. Cuz chose the visuals: green/tan, chrome wire wheels.  She has excellent taste, doesn't she?

But she may be a tad optimistic when she writes "looking like a car again."

"...How Fast WAS It...?"

Jay Leno says in the video that the Lotus Elan inspired the Mazda Miata.  I "always" thought that the MGB inspired
the Miata.  Both, for example, have all-steel unit bodies designed for high volume production.  The Miata has an
almost uncanny look and feel of an updated MGB, especially from the cockpit.  A more apt inspiree would be
the Honda S-2000.  Whatever.  The Elan remains the design and performance benchmark of the small,
open, 2-seater sports car.

I've been waiting (for a year!) for the final Jay Leno video on the demon-tweaked Lotus 26 R his shop has been building.  Leno has alluded to the car being finished, but we still haven't seen it.  Except in this short "bystander" video:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbMcV-LdHuw

But in double-checking the website, I came across this video of his "only slightly modified" Elan, which I hadn't seen before:

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/1969-lotus-elan/n35103/


Jay waxes poetic about how fast the Elan was and is.  I wish I'd had a chance to drive one.  I can attest to how fast they were back in the day.  The Alfa GTZ I crewed for raced against one at Mid Ohio at an SCCA National in June, 1964.  This C Production event turned out to be a three-horse race: the GTZ, a Porsche 904, and a Lotus Elan.  The rest of the grid finished half a lap or more further back.

The GTZ was an all-out race car built to compete in the FIA's 1.6 liter GT class: tube frame, superleggera aluminum body, 5-speed box with racing ratios, factory-tuned engine making 175 horsepower.  The 904 was a less "to the max" race car  but with its 4-cam racing engine, it ruled the 2 liter GT class in Europe.  In the States, in C Production, "acceptable modifications" were allowed to the Elan, but it was essentially a production car.

The race was won by the 904.  Although the GTZ led, it just didn't have enough torque to get away from the 904, and finished second about 3 car lengths behind.  The Elan retired.

But for 70% of the race, the Elan had no trouble staying in touch with the leaders, sometimes threatening second, although it was giving up 50+ horsepower.  It gained yards and yards on the leaders though the Carousel onto the pit straight, where I was watching.

Lotus 26 R: the Elan brought up to full FIA GT spec. for international racing.  Even faster than an SCCA-prepped Elan.
But still a "GT racer" in the original meaning of the term, in that it was a production car modified for racing, not a race
car "built down to" the FIA's GT rules.

CarMax: One And Done. Painless.

No fun, but a no-brainer.

My sister mentioned that both of my nieces and their husbands are looking for new cars.  Or new used cars.  They both need People Movers capable of ferrying children and/or dogs, luggage for treks to visit relatives, and the Mongolian Hordes that come with raising young children (soccer teams, etc.).  They don't care about cars.  They don't want to waste a lot of time shopping.  I suggested they to go to CarMax and buy a minivan.  Most minivans would do, Japanese or Korean preferred.

Two of my non-buff friends, looking for inexpensive and reliable transportation, bought used cars at CarMax.  Niether enjoyed shopping for cars (who does?).  One chose a Toyota Camry, about 3 years old, with average mileage.  The other chose a Pontiac Grand Am, rather old, with high mileage.  Both were delivered in fine condition and gave reliable service for years.  From what I can tell, CarMax does thorough inspection and reconditioning of its vehicles.  I looked for shortcuts, oversights, and misrepresentations and couldn't find any.

If your shopping habits are "grazer," buying a car at CarMax can consume the better part of an afternoon.  If you're very specific about what you want, you can do the deal in an hour or less from the time you arrive, including a test drive or two.  For those who just want transportation, and an inexpensive and reliable used car, it's hard to do better than CarMax.

Remembering Bob Nikel

Bob beginning initial tear-down/inspection of the engine of his Porsche 914-6 race car in 1971.

Bob Nikel died on January 7, before his time.  (He was in his early 70's.)

I met Bob in June of 1963.  He was already the go-to mechanic at Stoddard Imported Cars, at a very young age.  Some of the other mechanics had resumes that Bob didn't, like fabrication or aircraft certification, but nobody was better at diagnostics and trouble-shooting.  This required a good knowledge of six marques and even more power trains.  And it was in the days before you plugged a diagnostic unit into a USB port.  You read the sounds, smells, and tea leaves.   Then you got it fixed fast and right.  Bob's work didn't come back.

His daily driver was a baby blue Austin Healey Sprite with a big single side-draft Weber carb, a cam, and Michelin radials on alloy wheels.  It was the fastest street Sprite around, and of course Bob built it himself.

In summertime, we all ate lunch sitting on our butts on a concrete apron outside the shop, leaning against a cinder block wall, where it was cooler and sometimes breezy.  Conversation was lively and sometimes funny.  If we got onto  technical or operational issues, our eyes would eventually settle on Bob.  He was usually last to speak, slow to speak, thoughtful and measured.  He had a sly sense of humor and didn't anger easily.  He was a natural leader.

When I returned briefly as a salesman in 1971, Bob was Service Manager.  He'd bought a salvage Porsche 914-6 that he was prepping for C Production racing.  He was saving his money and learning dealership operations from bottom to top.  In 1976 he and a partner started a new store, Sewickley Porsche/Audi in Sewickley, PA.

In 1971 Bob taught me a lesson that saved me some money over the decades.  It was this: I had no future in road racing.  The dealership sponsored a Porsche Club track day at Nelsons Ledges.  We took a couple of demonstrators down, including the 914-4 that I regularly drove, and in which I thought I was fairly quick.  I did a few laps with Bob riding shotgun.  As I was understeering through the Carousel for the second time, Bob moved his left foot over on top of my throttle foot and pushed it to the floor. The car didn't have enough oomph to transition to power oversteer--it just took a wider line.  But I wasn't driving the car close to its potential.  I didn't know where its limit was.  Even as a journeyman racer, Bob was effortlessly faster.  As we pulled into the pits, he gave me that wry smile of his.  Yeah, I could have gone to driving school.  But I was far from "a natural."  Lesson learned: used clapped-out race car not bought.

I went on to a career outside the industry and Bob went on to a successful one in it.  We were out of touch until a few years ago, after we'd both retired: me fully and him semi.  He was enjoying the sporty car scene in Pittsburgh and his own car collection.  He and his wife were snowbirds.  He was proud of his family.  Life was good.

Bob hauling the mail in his 1998 993 GT2 at Porsche Club track day.

Liveries, Escutcheons, Dragon-Slaying, &c.

"There were three days of 'jousts royal in the King's Palace of Westminster...'  On the first day the challengers wore the King's livery of green and white, the Tudor colors, but all sported a badge with the Queen's livery of blue and mulberry on their helmets."
                                                                                        --Elizabeth of York, by Alison Weir, p. 313

Sounds like a good meet to me.  I hope they didn't make the Queen run Powder Puff only.  The girls should be allowed to swim at the deep end of the pool.  Regular readers know how nostalgic I am for

Elizabeth of York's colors (take your pick of shades).

the era of national racing colors, before racing cars were tarted-up with advertising.  Yeah, I know: "Get over it, Pilote."  I enjoyed the times when a racing car was instantly recognizable by its shape.  And its team was instantly recognizable by its color and escutcheon ("an emblem bearing a coat of arms").  And drivers were instantly recognizable by the way their helmets were painted.

Brave Sir Robin [Eric Idle]: instantly recog-
nized by his coat of arms: a yellow chicken.

There is a tradition behind "colors" and coats of arms.  In medieval times, they made knights and nobility known to each other on a battlefield.  The coat of arms itself was intended to say something about you, like a noble family's motto.  It was a kind of uniform before the days of mass armies.  Nobles would dress their archers or pikemen in their colors and liveries: "These are my guys: I paid for them to be here.  Also, we're on the same team, lest you be in doubt."  My favorite example is Eric Idle's Brave Sir Robin in Monty Python & The Holy Grail: his symbol was a Yellow Chicken Rampant.  Brave Sir Robin did not appreciate his minstrel singing praises of his cowardice.  But he exemplified the Code of the Python Round Table: "run away, run away!"

The tradition continued long after combat ceased to be organized around nobles who paid footmen to show up on the battlefield, or knights wore their ladies' colors in tournaments.  In horse racing in Europe and America, for example.

Renault vs. Ferrari...er...two jousting re-enactors going at it.

NOT a factory car: Ecurie Ecosse was glad to race D-Type
Jaguars with factory support, and their national color was
the same (British Racing Green).  But Ecosse took their cars
to LeMans in metallic blue, capped with a St. Andrews Cross,
the symbol of Scotland.  "Ecurie Ecosse" is French for Team
Scotland.

Some European car manufacturers adopted badges (close enough to an escutcheon) that identified them with a place or person or aspriation.  Alfa Romeo's distinctive and elegant badge is a good example.  It incorporates the insignia of Milan, Italy, where Alfa was first manufactured and remains headquartered.  Ferrari's prancing horse logo was bequeathed to him by Count Francesco Baracca, a World War One fighter ace.  (Or appropriated by Enzo, depending on who you believe.)  The horse on Baracca's plane was red.  Ferrari changed it to black, and added a yellow escutcheon.  Yellow is the "color" of Modena, Ferrari's birthplace.  Some anciens may remember badges like Hudson's, a sailing ship on stylized waves, which only symbolized the coincidence of name between a Detroit investor and a European explorer.

Ninian Sandersen and John Lawrence of Ecurie Ecosse doing their thing to  finish 2nd at LeMans in 1957.  The D-Jag
that won that year was also an Ecosse car.  For the entirety of his racing career, Dario Franchitti's helmet featured a
St. Andrews Cross on its crown.

Today, amateur racers and people who drive muscle cars and tuner cars sometimes run "their colors." Cruiser motorcycle riders often paint their helmets to match their bikes.  But the true heirs to the liveries tradition, especially when it comes to distinctive themes and colors, are sportbike riders.  As for dragons, when a lot of riders show up on the same day to slay the same one, it's probably a good idea to have a liveried helmet so you don't wind up wearing somebody else's, and vice-versa.

21st Century jousters slaying a dragon in their personal colors.

Bring It Back (Citroen DS 19)

Citroen DS 19

I watched a "Wheeler-Dealers" episode about the Citroen DS 19 which reminded me how much my admiration for this car has grown over the years.  When I was young and focused on speed, the DS 19 seemed overpriced and underpowered.  Its claim to fame, a great ride and good handling from its self-leveling, variable ground clearance, hydropneumatic suspension, were of little interest to me.  Not to mention its semi-automatic transmission, powered by the same hydraulic system.  Or even its inboard front disc brakes, which reduced unsprung weight (again, that great ride).

My Dad, who was then Director of Purchasing for a mid-sized corporation, called it "an engineer's car." He did not mean this as a compliment.  Some of the engineers where he worked drove DS 19's.  As he saw it, the engineering department was his minor cross to bear.  "They're always specifying exotic stuff when I could buy something  generic that works just as well, less expensively."  With benefit of hindsight, I see that the engineers were impressed with the cleverness of the DS 19.  The central hydraulic system was an elegant simultaneous solution to several design problems.  Add the ahead-of-its-time aerodynamic body and you had a "typically French" logical, practical, approach to engineering. But not a low-cost one.

Much later, I became acquainted with the Maserati-engined Citroen SM.  It was a fast car that added power and luxury to the basic design features of the DS 19.  It's the closest the French have come to a GT.  More correctly, the SM is the French approach to a GT: a comfortable, quiet car for high (but realistic) speeds on public roads.

There's no reason the DS 19 couldn't be brought back, updated for 21st Century conditions, and be a winner.  It could compete in the lower range of the luxury market (Acuras, Infinitis, entry-level Mercedes and Bimmers).  Put a 1.5 liter turbodiesel or a 2.0 liter 16-valve in it.  Nobody has improved on its aerodynamics--which are more important now than they were 40 years ago.  Modern fixes to the body shell, like a more raked windshield, thicker A-pillars enclosing air bags, and faired-in headlights would be easy enough.

The "DS 21" (for 21st Century) would need to lose some of the 19's quirky features, like the single-spoke steering wheel and the "dimmer switch floor button" brake pedal.  But then, Citroen long-ago abandoned its relentless Frenchness when it went bankrupt and was taken over by Peugeot.  Both firms sell cars throughout the European Union, like German, Italian, and Japanese firms do.  But they could do it with some French flair.

DS 19 dash: some of the quirky Frenchness would have to go.  But some of the French logic should stay.

The Citroen SM: the DS 19's basic concept taken way upmarket in a larger, two-door, fastback coupe with a Maserati
4-cam V-6 engine.  One of Citroen's goals was to demonstrate that a truly high-performance car could be front wheel
drive.  The SM was the first car to have variable-assist power steering, now universal.

Age & Treachery Beats...Age & Treachery

You know the old saying: age and treachery beats youth and enthusiasm.  This is just for fun; I got a couple of smiles out of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht59WR-q6A0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUFwzOXPZKE6aH3fAU0d2Cyg

Purdy Car, Purdy Picture (Ferrari 250 GT Lusso)

Maybe its best angle, but it looks good from any.  The Ferrari 250 GT Lusso (luxury).