Seen on the road

[meteorite]

Boxer, I believe the proper, or preferred, French pronunciation is "pfui".

Any Mini owner will agree with MG, and Sean and I won't. The superior handling of a Mercedes or BMW rarely comes from front drive.

[Sean]

I picked up some Porsche brochures today, for the 911 and the 911 Turbo. I think they just wanted me OUT ASAP rather than have my $700 wonder parked in front any longer.

Which means, of course, that I believe rear engine and AWD = car chase winrar.

[meteorite]

Speaking to the question, while getting milk today (we got home about noon) I saw a very new, very black, Aston Martin convertible come out of the car wash today and bully his way through four lanes of rush hour traffic, I wouldn't risk my highly expendable and easily replaceable van on that stunt. No doubt he had supreme confidence in the handling of his rear real drive Aston - but I'd hate to see it pranged in the name of excess chutzpah.

[ian anderson]

Saw a Jag D type on the road today. I wonder if it's a real one, or a very good reproduction. Considering there's an XJ13 replica, the first one ever iirc, I'm betting it's a replica.

[meteorite]

I suspect that a personal message to lowdrag would bring you all the information you could possibly use - there may be someone who knows more about Jaguars, but it isn't very likely!

[kach22i]

Spotted in another forum....................

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topi ... ost5437472
[quote=mattdavis11;5437472] Car nuts
[/quote]

[meteorite]

Some days spotting can be frustrating. When I was on the way to the doctor's today, I saw a nice new powder blue Bentley convertible coming across an intersection where I was stopped - except that it was in the inner lane, almost totally hidden by the cube van beside it. And they continued in parallel up the street.

Like the small red classic-lines roadster I saw going in the opposite direction when I was out chasing a keyboard. It was likely an Excalibur, as they're more common, though the size and finer lines were more suggestive of a Clenet. But on a crowded, higher-speed stretch of street, it was just glimpse-and-gone, so I'll never know.

[meteorite]

The van picked up a bad case of the sulks, so it got to visit John's shop yesterday. It had some interesting company.

F59Bentley.jpg (112.4 KiB) Viewed 21115 times

This was somewhat newer, but not much:

65Tempest.jpg (157.9 KiB) Viewed 21115 times

While this was larger, at least in footprint:

63Thunderbird.jpg (110.09 KiB) Viewed 21115 times

When I went back to fetch the van today, there was a newly restored Sunbeam Tiger there, but unfortunately it was in a service bay and I couldn't get a picture.

[meteorite]

Encountered a new Maserati Quattroporte headed in the opposite direction today. It was a very nice, extremely modest, light sand colour. This was a particularly good spot as, while high-dollar cars are no rarity in our area, for some reason Maserati seem to be missing their share of the market. With a new dealership on a high-visibility main street downtown, perhaps we will see this situation improve soon.

[meteorite]

Twice today, presumably the same vehicle as it was the same colour, one of the rare first series of Volkswagen convertibles built by Karmann to a Ghia design, so usually sold as Karmann-Ghia. Since they are notorious for biodegrading in our climate if you so much as open the garage door, seeing a well-preserved sample with the top down was a rare treat. Also parked on a street, a nice clean example of one of the 1970s basic Plymouths (or Dodge clone). I think the blue Thunderbird convertible that made a rather imprudent left turn in front of me downtown was actually being driven by a neighbour, but can't be sure.

[meteorite]

Is it just me, or is there a sudden vogue for royal blue metallic Japanese sedans at the moment? And is it just around here, or elsewhere?

Of late it's seemed when I've gone to the plaza and looked down the parked ranks, the only cars that weren't black or white were grey or silvery - no true colours anywhere, except maybe the few antiques. But bright blue is not a colour I'm used to seeing on a new IF-s even if, particularly, a number of lesser Hondas have taken to sporting it. It does make the lot more interesting.

There was also a non-grey car outside the bank, an earth-brown Plymouth Breeze coupe. I won't say I have never seen a Breeze before, it I've seen them so rarely I can understand why Chrysler pulled the plug on Plymouth.

[kach22i]

That Bentley sure is nice.

[meteorite]

It's been a long winter and a wet spring, leaving me so thoroughly grounded that it took two months each cycle to get my van's gas gauge down to the refill mark - no mean trick with a honkin' great V-8 running cold, short rips in midwinter. Spent more gas on getting the engine up to working temperature than on moving in fact, I suspect. And cold and wet does not bring out teh interesting wheels.

But today was our first taste of summer, with the thermometer reading close to 90ºF, and I had to run down through The Village (a.k.a. Affluent Acres) on my way to the dentist. The trouble is that, in very tight fast-paced traffic, one gets a be glimpse of most vehicles without much time to identify them. I still want to know what the sedan with the lines of a Quattroporte but an emblem that was absolutely not a Trident on the grilles, was. I think the black coupe which flashed by the other was was an Aston Martin, but can't be sure. Certainly the black convertible with the winged B on the back was a Bentley, and a very new one, too. And it;s pretty hard to mistake a parked BMW 7-Series L. The high end was definitely out motoring.

But the only car I saw with the top down was a T-series MG, details suggesting a TD, in apparent fully restored condition motoring along on classic British registration plates with the driver seated on the right. Of course someone immediately barged in in front of us, so the look wasn't what I'd want, but it was great to see the old veteran carrying on. Used to be that we saw a lot of the MGAs (1955 on), but they seem to have vanished completely of late, though various versions of the MG may still be seen. They're almost as common as early-70s Mercedes models here.

Oh well, there is a new truck has suddenly appeared in our neighbourhood, to all appearances an immediate post-war (1948-on), black, neatly restored, looks and smells very authentic Chevrolet pickup. This I will have to pursue.

FOLLOWUP

Another errand through The Village, the parking-constricted streets made narrower by the prevelance of high-end Bimmers and Mercedes, and occasional Jaguar sedan. So I almost overlooked the very demure creamy-coloured Maserati Quattroporte coming the other way, and was just barely able to register the very mean, very black, very purposeful looking Viper convertible also headed the other way. You don't see much outside of your course when running the parked street slalom!

[meteorite]

Maybe my mental library is so overstuffed with images of cars I've seen that I'm not spotting the strangers any more, or maybe I've been around through so many model years they sort of all blend together. Anyway at first I didn't notice anything particularly interesting about the vaguely Corvette-ish but smaller red coupe in front of me at a left turn today. It was only when I noticed the name Stealth on the rear fascia that it dawned on me it was different.

The Stealth was a rebadged Mitsubishi 3000GT sold during the period 1991-1996 by Chrysler dealers under the Dodge name. For reasons not always clear this was in the period of Chrysler's rapid decline, and the various vehicles rebadged and offered under Chryco names during their rather brief alliance with Mitsubishi never really took off. In fact Mitsubishi, for some reason and despite their strong WRC exposure, has never attracted any great audience in Canada.

So it has been many years since I've seen a Stealth on the road, and it will likely be a lot more before I see another. A pity, I suspect, because the Mitsubishi range were worthy contenders and likely deserve a great deal more attention than they are getting.

Add for Thanksgiving weekend: on the way to the restaurant last night, a bright yellow hot rod turning the corner going the other way looked to be based on a circa 1932 Chevrolet sedan body, Didn't get to count the doors. And later as I whizzed by on a through street, a bright red, very new looking coupe with a trident in the grille suddenly pulled forward in a driveway on my right - looked like a Stradale series Maserati - don't see many of those.

On the way up north, while making our turn in Barrie saw one of the 1953 Raymond Loewy designed Studebaker Starlight coupes in very fresh condition. To my mind this is a strong runner for most beautiful car ever put on the road until Sir William Lyons unleashed the original Jaguar XK-E and ended the discussion. Also on the jammed highway we passed by a Lotus Elise in the adjacent lane but while Mrs. M. had her camera at the ready, we never saw him again. May be he smartened up and took to the sideroads; the traffic was no place for a dedicated driver.

[meteorite]

SOME RECENT LOCALS

I think the fact that we don't go much of anyplace in inclement weather has much to do with it, but I've only spotted two interesting cars of late - a small cream-coloured GT coupe with an Aston-Martin grille, and a shiny new Maserati Quattroporte being parked by an expensive-looking female. But then, I still haven't needed to buy gas this year, so I don't get around and have the opportunity to see many interesting specimens right now.

Add, in our local plaza, a new, very black Maserati GT coupe, complete with a quiet but very serious exhaust rumble. This was driven by a man - maybe his car while the Quattroporte above belongs to his wife?

[meteorite]

FORGET THE FIRST ROBIN

Spring is here! It may be only March 7th, but there it was - a nice, tidy, bright red MGB with the top down, motoring up Avenue Road. And it was the pukka goods, too - the sun was shining brightly, and the temperature was 15 (call it 60°F). The true sign - spring is here! Yee haw!!

[meteorite]

When I bought the new Ford Escape last August I felt very daring - instead of the black-white-grey spectrum everyone else was buying, I got bored with a colourless word and bought a red one - somewhere between the Ferrari and candyapple shades. It was a hard choice - the new electric blue that's popped up this year really appealed to me too. But I went with the red.

I was out on a short errand today, taking Mrs. M to one of her doctors. On the way we encountered no fewer than four new red Ford Escapes coming towards us. Did we start a fashion? seems like now the whole city is buying them! In fact from being an oddball eccentricity, the things are getting as common as my old Safari van. And now the blue is starting to turn up too.

A number of familiar cars were out, including the old Dodge Coronet convertible (early 60s if I recall) and a roughly contemporary Buick sedan. The new black Maserati sedan was around too, but the outstanding recent car was a bright yellow Ferrari roadster, though identification was prevented when traffic obstructed the view.

With summer apparently planning an early arrival, wonder what will turn up next?

Aug. 6: The game you see when you don't have a gun! On my daily heart walk about the neighbourhood, spotted a dark green truck with far from modern lines parked at the curb near my route. On closer inspection it appeared to be an older restoration of a 1951 Chevrolet 3800 One Ton pickup. And of course I didn't have my camera with me, and now that I'm trying to sell a vehicle not buy one, it was for sale.

May 29th: Answer, a nice red Maserati GT coupe - unfortunately going in the opposite direction in heavy traffic, and the current design has been around since at least 2004, so can't specify the year, but it was very tidy.
Aug.8th: The coupe in the plaza had fine Italian lines. The five-spoke wheels were as characteristic as the prancing horse badge on the fender, and the script was correct for the Ferrari badge on the trunk. But, saints preserve us, it was BLUE!
Oh well, the silver convertible that parked beside me at the grocery was undoubtedly a BMW 325, but what year? the CHMSL on the rear deck lid had that afterthought look of cars that had new models in production just before the law was introduced, and weren't about to buy new stamping dies for a year or two yet, and it had "no-draft" style vent segments in the front windows. That would make it mid-70s, about the age of the equally well preserved blonde driver. Nice.

Aug. 13th I called into a body shop that is the joint venture of an eight-dealer group, where the most eye-catching. specimen was an apparently brand new deep black Jaguar XJ sedan being buffed up for delivery. Man, that machine is monstrous! But the most fascinating machine by far was an honest-to-Sir-Henry-Lyons Jaguar XK-120, the first of the fabulous XK series. The machine was in pieces, with the 3.5 litre double-knocker six, grille and headlamps among other things out for rebuilding. But the shop manage emphasized to me that the car was not being restored but just being repaired, with the original parts going back in when tweaked.

The car was first introduced in Canada, IIRC, in 1951. On one of my first university football weekends, I saw one parked at the curb on the street in Kingston, Ontario. This was in the time when the styling of the more modern cars tended to resemble a matchbook sitting on a brick, and most cars still around still had separate fenders (as does the XK-120 itself). But the sleek, streamlined, incredibly low-slung styling was already effectively launching the XK series dominance as the greatest crumpet collector of all time. Unforgettable - and to see another returning to the road made my day. By comparison coming face to face (so to speak) with a nice new silver Maserati sedan ws no more than the cherry on top.

[meteorite]

Starting a new segment.

A new car has appeared in our neighbourhood, parked from time to time outside what was till recently, and may still be, the most expensive house in the neighbourhood. Normally the driveway denizens are twin black Lexus 570s with other cars parked on the street outside. Don't know if they are owned or loaned for business reasons.

But I'll have to ask about this one - it's a Quattro (Audi's hot-rod division, like Chrysler's SVT) RS5, a very limited production high performance Audi-based sedan with a 4.2l, 450 hp Audi V-8. It's been round a few weeks now, even though it has only been announced in the U.S. in the last couple of days. The backstory could be interesting.

Later: seems the RS5 belongs to the young Oriental couple who own the most expensive house in the neighbourhood, where the husband is an aficionado of performance cars. He somehow got wind that Audi had this model in the works around a year ago and has been bugging the dealer to take his order ever since. So the dealer consummated the sale as soon as he could. It may be that he release date in Canada was different from the American launch date; this happens with great regularity.

Meanwhile a dinner run up by Collingwood yielded a fair bit. Could not identify the older Linconesque vehicle with the apparent product name Continental across the front but it did have Ford corporate lines. Unfortunately the road was two-lane with an 80Kph limit, and we were going in opposite directions, so could not make positive identification. Ditto for a pair of early '60s Ford Thunderbirds, seen in passing. Prize of the weekend was a restored 1938 Plymouth business coupe that parked in the lot of a museum we were visiting, and we encountered the owner restorer inside. He even has colour business-size cards he hands out showing before and after views if the car. There was also a ice bright red Sunbeam Alpine roadster being admired on a front lawn just down the street. The holiday, bright sun (though the wind was cold) and fading display opportunities apparently inspired many of the special-interest car owners to come out, especially those with convertibles who luxuriated in likely the last top-down opportunity of the year.

Well, we are down into single digits, so it's sedan weather. A grey Maserati Quattroporte caught my eye, crossing an intersection in traffic, while a quite well preserved big Mercedes-Benz 560SEL, around a quarter-century old, parked in front of the house next door for a day. Looked very original, more well maintained than restored. Our part of the city seems for some reason to be well supplied with historic samples of almost all M-B models for the last thirty years. Looks like they wear well and do not rust out.