My friend Matt and I dropped by Paine Field on the 6th of August to watch the Flying Heritage Collection fly one of their Focke-Wulf FW-190s along with their Messerscmitt BF-109 for “Luftwaffe Day.” This video, in its short, shaky glory, was shot from my Canon S95 pocket camera, so keep that in mind when eyeballing it.

I’m looking around for a cheap car ($2500 or so) to share the driving duties with the F250 this winter–and I’m enjoying the search. The car will have to be just a little odd, of course, but I’m open to all sorts of machines. Here’s some cars I’ve been considering–I’ve been trying to be a bit more open than I normally am to non-British weirdness.

British

• Rover 3500 (SD1): I’ve never been particularly partial to these machines, but I’ve never been much against them, either. There has been one banging around the local classifieds for a bit. The styling has never quite jelled for me, for whatever reason.
• Ford Cortina: Unfortunately, these are outside of my range for a halfway OK example, but you never know.
• Sunbeam Alpine Hatchback: The ones that look like a miniature Plymouth Barracuda.
• Jaguar XJ6: Cheap, cheap, cheap. XJ40s are the least expensive, but still plenty of mildly ropey earlier S1, S2 or S3 cars in my range. Probably the best “value” in this price range, though you have to be careful.
• Jaguar XJ-S: Talk about rolling the dice…
• Yet Another MGB GT: I’d buy another GT, especially if its brightwork was good enough to eventually go onto the ’67.
• Austin America/ MG 1100: I just can’t make this one work in my mind’s eye. Something about the styling has never jelled with me. Many of them are fitted with automatics which I imagine being as fun as watching paint dry.
• Land Rover Discovery or Range Rover: Cheap ones are a gamble, but very practical in an unpractical way. I like the classic Range Rover look, pre-1995, and they’re usually cheap unless the seller is delusional.

Italian

• Alfa Alfetta sedan or coupe: I’ve always like the Alfetta GT or its later incarnation, the GTV-6. I also sort of like the later 164 sedans and all of the early sedans. A real crap shoot but hugely entertaining cars with great engines.
• Lancia coupe (or sedan): I cannot afford an early machine, but I like the later Beta and Scorpion coupes. Don’t care for the Zagato semi-convertible. The coupes used to be fairly common but all you can find these days are the Zagatos. I’ve never actually seen a sedan for sale, so that’s not too likely.
• Fiat X1/9: I’ve always thought this was a neat car. I don’t know that means I would buy one.

Swedish

• Various Saabs: Saabs have no love in the aftermarket, and you can get an early 90′s car in good working order for cheap. They’re definitely weird and interesting, and a good winter machine. I find the early V4 cars appealing as well, though their collectibility makes it unlikely I’d find one.

German

• Porsche 944: OK, 944s in this range are scary. But this is a car I loved back when I was a teenager, and it’s still a handsome coupe.
• Porsche 914: I’ve always liked these, for reasons that aren’t at all clear to me. I imagine living with a dreadful one would cure me of that.
• BMW 2002: I really have no love for BMW, but the 2002 was a sharp looking little sedan and are fun to drive.

Japanese

• Early MR2: Biggest problem with any Japanese car is finding one that hasn’t been modified out the kazoo by “ricers,” and the MR2 is one of the victims.
• Early RX7: I recognize that these cars are stylish, but they’ve always seemed a bit feminine to me. The restyled mid-eighties cars are gross.

American

• Jeep Wagoneer: I don’t know why, but I’ve got a soft spot (in my head, no doubt) for these big utility machines, preferably with wood grain sides and a really funky 70′s paint color.
• Early Mustang: I love the fastback, but I don’t have tens of thousands of dollars. But occasionally a notch-back, usually a six cylinder, floats down into my price range for this exercise, and now that they’re not seen every day they’re interesting machines.

We’ll see how this all turns out, but it’s a fun exercise combing craigslist for oddball stuff.

The cars on show at Carillon Point are there by invitation only–and the show tends to feature what the folks with real money would call “proper classics.” Truly a wonderful assortment of machinery, this year focusing on vintage Mercedes, “orphans,” classic hydroplanes and motorcycle/sidecar outfits. It was a treat to see these fantastic machines…I more or less took random photos, and there are a lot of them below.

If I can find a few minutes later this week, I’ll try to identify most of these!

Most classic car enthusiasts have fantasies of finding a rare car while poking around the countryside–perhaps a Deusenberg sitting on four flat tires in a barn, or a “fuelie” Corvette waiting to be rescued in a carport. Heck, if we’re going to dream, maybe even finding one of the factory Jaguar E-Type Lightweight race cars in a suburban garage under a pile of boxes–but who am I kidding, that’s preposterous.

What I tend to find are cars like this decaying Biscayne, discovered in the woods on a piece of property we were considering a few years ago. (Needless to say, it’s still there.) The Biscayne was the bottom-of-the-line full-size sedan in Chevrolet’s 1959 line-up, though they aren’t often seen these days for that very reason. What struck me about this car was how very complete it is, glass aside. There are a couple of minor bits of trim missing, but otherwise it looks like it was driven to its current resting place–mind you, probably about 1979!

xkedata.com (another of my empire of non-money-making web sites–a proud Roger tradition) is selling 2009 calendars featuring either XK120, XK140 and XK150 Jaguars or E-Type Jaguars. The monies raised (I get a slice off the top of the purchase price) help pay for hosting–I don’t typically sell many, but every one helps.

You can see all of the images selected (above is the January image on the XK calendar) on xkedata, or you can buy them from Cafe Press.

Note: To see the item below, you have to have the photosynth plugin installed. You may be out of luck on a non-Windows machine, too, sorry about that–I’m just fooling around, here.

This was automagically stitched by photosynth, a Microsoft Live technology. I uploaded the photos from my visit to the flight museum, and it was able to put a few together. When it works it’s pretty neat, but some of the failures leave me scratching my head…not that software like this isn’t insanely complex, and it’s neat it’s available at all. But there are a few examples where the photos would seemingly be easy to stitch, and yet they’re not.

Anyway, if you can see it, enjoy.

Being just a tad mental, I cruise craigslist almost every day to check out what might be for sale in their “ye olde English clunker” section. With gas prices what they are, copywriters are getting quite imaginative in their descriptions.

I have owned a number of MGBs, some good, some crummy, some with twin carbs, some with single Weber DGVs, and I have never, ever gotten much more than 27 MPG–on the highway. I’ll concede that a nicely tuned, overdrive-equipped car with a gentle driver could possible get somewhere in the low 30′s–again, on the highway. However, I now see ads touting 35, 40 and even 45 MPG from the Abingdon product, which is ridiculous. Heck, 40 MPG would be stretching it from a Mini 850 or an early Midget.

There’s an ad for a Jaguar XJR similar to the one I owned that suggests it’s “a powerful gas-saver.” Uh, sure. I got in the mid-teens from mine around town and no more than the low 20′s on the highway. I suppose compared to my F250 (about 10 MPG no matter what) that’s saving, but…c’mon. Are we all so used to driving giant SUVs that anything above 12 MPG is considered frugal?

Of course, the same folks who make up MPG figures like this also believe everything written in the laughable NADA Price Guides, which exist solely so state departments of licensing can rip you off when it’s time to transfer the title on your car. Hint: take the values in NADA and divide by two–that’s a good start; go down from there.

An older car whose surprising mileage claims you can believe (a little!) are 88-94 XJ6 (XJ40) sedans. They’re kinda crummy around town (17 MPG) but on the highway I achieved over 30 MPG on a very fast trip from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon. For a big, heavy luxury sedan, that’s pretty reasonable.

Thanks to cobalt123 for the use of the photo.

What is the guy in the Jaguar doing? How many miles did he drive cross-country (with his five-inch ground clearance) to reach the lad he’s talking to? Did people really herd cattle in traditional dress through the 1960s? Where is this left-hand-drive car supposed to be? Africa? The Indian sub-continent? The Steppes? Argentina?

(If you look carefully at the car, it’s clear not all press cars were carefully vetted. The door fit is questionable, as is the bonnet. Makes it quite clear that most E-Types that are “show quality” are much better now than they were when new!)

(Forgive the pun!) My friend Paul and I travelled to Olympia today to look at a Frogeye Sprite and a Mini “Cooper” that a gentleman down there has. His shop was absolutely stuffed with 2-stroke Saabs, some of them quite rare these days.

The Mini and the Frogeye were interesting cars, the frogeye, despite appearances, being a pretty sound car. The mini was more problematic, at least to me, as in theory it’s a Cooper but lots of questions without actually checking numbers. The owner has spent a lot on the car, but it’s definitely not how I would have spent my Mini money if I had any.

Paul’s thinking about the Frogeye, it will depend on what price the owner decides to hang on it.

Chuck brings up in the comments on my “disconnect” article that I could (possibly) have bought a $120,000 car based on the money flushed down the toilet paid for the cars listed in the column at page right. Is it true?

I did some math based on my increasingly leaky memory…I guesstimate that the purchase price of all the cars combined (over 23+ years, mind) is $150,000 or so. Add in running costs (this includes the very expensive, gosh-was-I-ever-that-flush? bodywork restoration on the ’61 XKE) and you get a total close to $240,000, or $11,000 a year. That doesn’t include gas or insurance, but does cover repairs, restoration, therapy, lawsuits, beer, etc.

We can subtract from that shocking sum the money realized whenever I sold one of the fine machines in the “past indiscretions” category to another sucker enthusiast. That’s about $105,000 (you can see a problem here, but never mind). That leaves us $135,000 in the hole, money I could definitely use. However, if you add back what I could get for the machines I own (everything as-is, but pretending the E-Type is assembled and finished) I’d get back $80,000 – $110,000+. On a yearly basis, the hobby costs me $1,500 – $3,000 in “lost” money, or about $150 to $200 a month.

Chuck’s point stands, though–by taking the bus I could have saved enough to buy a car I don’t particularly covet (which is to say most any new high-performance machine).

I don’t have a Camry or other appliance for commuting in (nor do I commute), so there’s no hidden “sane” car that is also costing me money via a car payment.

Of the cars I’ve sold, money was lost on 17 of them. Worst cases were the ’84 XJS which I lost $9,000 on, mainly due to buying a well-used example and paying through the nose for maintenance and repairs, and my ’98 F150, which I bought lightly used and which depreciated as all new and newish cars do…it went down $10,000 in value during my ownership.

I made money on nine cars, best by far being the ’59 100-Six which I sold for a $4,500 profit, back when $4,500 was a significant chunk of what I’d make in a year. Most of the money-makers only add a few hundred dollars each to the bottom line, but that bit of profit trumps the running costs, so they were “free” transportation while I had them. I broke even on an additional four cars (not including the running costs).

Of my current fleet, I’m very modestly ahead on the ’63 MGB and ’64 MGB, breaking even on the BSA, Ferguson, Ford, Rovers, and E-Type, and behind on the Triumph.

While the numbers are interesting, money isn’t why I do this (clearly!). I enjoy tinkering and buying old wrecks, and most hobbies have a cost–with this hobby, the acquisition costs can be high and you often have a lot of money tied up, but in the final accounting it’s about the same per month as the payment on a $10,000 used car.