Any Gearheads Out There?

Another of my hobbies is playing with old cars.

A guy on one of the groups I hang out on built this coffee table cum wine rack out of an alloy Cadillac engine:

[img]http://www.efwperformance.com/V8/Table3.jpg[/img]

Presumably 8 bottles would be enough, as there is a steep price increase for the 12 cylinder....er, bottle model!

Very nice!

You might appreciate this blog, by a Los Angeles fellow who also loves
to tinker with old auto gear:

http://www.hooptyrides.com/

Actually, I can't get over that rug underneath it!

I have some stuff that wouldn't be suitable for a coffee table. A connecting rod with no top, a couple of pinions with no teeth, several small pieces of the cylinder block from a Cosworth BDD, some main bearings spun into foil....

A quarter of a century playing with toys!

Hey, John - I use a couple of laygears (missing a few teeth) as candlesticks, and I have a really nice 'S' shaped connecting rod.....Paper weight at the office.

Nice.

Despite the fact that I support the #8, putting a #24 decal and then filling it up with 8 bottles of Jeff Gordon's Chardonnay would probably be fitting.

[David M. Bueker]

Nice.

Despite the fact that I support the #8, putting a #24 decal and then filling it up with 8 bottles of Jeff Gordon's Chardonnay would probably be fitting.

The #24 is never appropriate, under any circumstances. #8 is ok, but #20 is the where the smart money is.

I'd flip the last two but I honestly didn't think anyone would know what the hell I was talking about. On top of the fact that #24 = Bad + #48 = Bad, #24 Screwed me in Fantasy NASCAR because I picked him to wine the Pepsi 400, and my league pays at the half so I lost money and dropped out of cash.

[David M. Bueker]

Well see if you can figure the pattern for me: #88 OK, #43 OK, #18, #11 and #20 Big Thumbs Up.

Great Coffee Table! I once saw something similar done with a Jaguar V-12. The glass rested across the valve covers. It was beautiful.

-Daniel

Great Coffee Table! I once saw something similar done with a Jaguar V-12. The glass rested across the valve covers. It was beautiful.

The Jag engine looks rather nice once you get it out of the car (you can hardly see any engine under all the clutter IN the car).

The Lamborghini engine looks even nicer, but I don't happen to have a spare one to turn into a table.

I did run the idea of doing this with an MG engine - I race an oddball old MG with a double overhead cam engine - by she-who-must-be-obeyed. The cam covers would make a nice base for the plexi or glass top and I thought it would be a good looking conversation piece. The answer I got was that apparently a man's home is NOT necessarily his castle, and the true master of the manse would not countenance such an abomination!

Why are women so unreasonable....?

[img]http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/i/non-rhodo/MGA_engine_compt.jpg[/img]

Bill, that is brilliant. I love it!!

I'm generally a #8 big thumbs up, #1 big thumbs up. If that fails #20 & #27 I find extremely amusing so that'll do as well. Used to be #15 big thumbs up but now #55 is fairly irrelevant + Toyota = Bad for a Redneck like me.

[David M. Bueker]

Anyone past, present or future associated with Joe Gibbs racing is ok with me.

I did run the idea of doing this with an MG engine - I race an oddball old MG with a double overhead cam engine -

Bill, what is so odd-ball about an MGA Twin Cam? Very desirable cars, and yours looks great. (Drool smilie icon here)

Bill, what is so odd-ball about an MGA Twin Cam? Very desirable cars, and yours looks great. (Drool smilie icon here)

Only that they only made a couple of thousand, no one in their right mind races them and most people don't even know they existed.

I congratulate you for being one of the cognoscenti who apparently has heard of them!

I have always played with oddball British cars -

[img]http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/i/non-rhodo/57Jamacian_9.jpg[/img]
of course you recognise that as a rebodied 1957 MGA, and this:



which you might recognise as a 65 Jensen

Must admit I havn't heard about the Jamacian body kits here in NZ. Or ever.

We have been in the Auckland MG Car Club for about 6 years now. Sue always wanted a TF or TD from way back. We settled for a 1997 MGF in BRG, and ran that for about three years until it got written off. We then got a new 2003 MG TF120 (the auto version) in Trophy Yellow (it is bright!) and have recently got a 1975 MGB GT Jubille Edition. We have owned this for about a year now, but it took a long time to get refurbished. I have not got photos of this car onto the web site yet, but you will find the F and TF here.

http://neilandsue.tripod.com/mgf/mgf.htm

So will you be putting your name down for an MG TF Coupe when they start building them in the US in 2008?

We didn't get the latter models actually built by MG and I doubt I'd be interested in any modern car with that name stuck on built by the Chinese.

Its like calling a Veyron a 'real' Bugatti or an S-V8 a 'real' Jensen. Yes, they bought the name. No, they aren't real in the sense of being a continuous stream of thought from the original.

But then I figure just about anything built after about 1972 (the year we got smog stuff on North American cars) is a bit inferior to anything before.

Which is why I have an early Interceptor, the CV-8, a gaggle of MGA (including the mutant one with Fiberfab body) and old Lamborghini (my one false step away from Britain).

I have a bunch of photos at http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/carpictures.html including a few I've since got rid of - TVR and such, and of the Jamaican at http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/Jamaican.html

I wouldn't have minded being able to buy (well not financially necessarily, but I mean having available in this country) the higher output 90s MGs which I saw when in France.

And here I thought this was about corkscrews...

Fascinating!

And here I thought this was about corkscrews...

Are you suggesting that we have indulged in a bit of thread drift, Sir?

Guilty as charged!

I submit to suitable punishment.

And here I thought this was about corkscrews...

Are you suggesting that we have indulged in a bit of thread drift, Sir?

Guilty as charged!

I submit to suitable punishment.

Corkscrews? Where did THAT come into the picture?

From my perspective, the MG TF Coupe will be a British designed car (it must have been very close to production when MG Rover went belly-up), built by US people, backed by a LOT of US money, and only controlled by the Chinese. Not sure why they decided to go to the US to do this, but it probably has a lot to do with the odd billion or two dollars that US financiers are stumping up.

Just what engine they are going to use is another question though. If they can find a nice V6 to shoehorn into the back it could be interesting. Or maybe it is going to be front engine, rear drive configuration. Nobody knows yet. The Rover K4 engine was not certified for use in the US, but it may have been changed by the time that the Chinese engine plant is up and running. But wou I buy one? Probably not. I like the soft top at the present time. Even if they did make them in RHD.

Lovely cars, Bill. I regret that when I was there I was too exhausted to get a tour of the garage as well as the cellar. FWIW, I cut my teeth on road rallies in HS with a friend who drove a '56 MG A roadster:


but the car that I've always lusted after is my uncle's Armstrong Siddeley convertible :


At 98, he's now decided that he's too old to drive it, but he'll no doubt give it to one of his daughters. Oh, well, I can always dream...

Mark Lipton