Paging Moggie...

[onager]

I've looked all over for a post of yours about driving a 40-year-old British car with Lucas electrics. Couldn't find it, so I will waste a whole thread.

Just wanted to mention this amazing sight I saw last week.

I was in Budapest on vacation, walking around, and saw a gorgeous black Aston-Martin DB 9 convertible. (I prefer the old British term "drophead coupe," just because I like the sound of it. The French term for a convertible gives me an even bigger laugh: decapotable, which I always read as "decapitable," just like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.)

Anyway, I had to stop and take a peek inside the DB 9. What I saw was a mass of tangled wires, some with bare ends. lying on the console and snaking around all over the place. Nothing seemed to be missing out of the dashboard, such as the stereo. So I naturally wondered what the heck was going on.

That is, in US money, a $175,000 car. I should only be seeing acres of dead cow and felled tree, shouldn't I? Not an electrician's nightmare.

Conicidentally...for the plane ride I took Tony Davis' snarky little paperback, Lemon!, which mostly deals with bad British and European cars--the Leyland P76, Jaguar XJS etc. Though picking on things like the Lada or Trabant calls to mind sayings about sledgehammers and houseflies.

But the snark is usually pretty good, like this example:

When an owner stands by his Triumph Stag, it's usually because he can't get the door open.

[moggie]

1. Running any classic is a battle against entropy

Even an outwardly immaculate classic will often have horrors lurking just out of sight, particularly if the owner is engaged in a rolling restoration. That said, I wouldn't really know about the DB9: those are so new that the paint is barely dry, plus it's not a real Aston, it's a... a Ford! And it probably has that new-fangled electronics. If you can't repair it with a spanner and a hammer, I don't want to know. I once effected a roadside electrical repair using a lump of wood: I don't do subtlety.

When an owner stands by his Triumph Stag, it's usually because he can't get the door open.

Damn, you've reminded me of a job I need to do this weekend. This will require particularly careful work with the hammer.

[onager]

2. Thanks! I used to be owned by some old cars...

In my case, "rolling restoration" usually meant "I have to drive this thing every day." Eventually I bought a humongous cheap old Ford station wag...er, estate. I used it as a sort of covered pickup truck for fetching parts etc.

At the time, I lived near two wonderful junk yards in Los Angeles. Both worked the same way. You paid one U.S. dollar at the gate and brought your own tools. You could then remove any parts you wanted and the yard charged a flat rate for the parts at the exit.

I've spent more weekends than I care to remember in those yards, but it was always interesting. Once I saw two couples roll up in a gigantic old Chrysler convertible with damage to the front fend...wings and grille. The two boys and the two girls found a sedan of the same year in the yard, went to work, and in no time had all the front sheet metal yanked off. They crammed it into their car and drove away, using the trunk...boot and interior to hold their new treasures. I remember thinking I probably would not see many double dates like that one in my lifetime.

Looks like one of the yards is still around:

http://www.pickyourpart.com/