JFT

Lordy! And not a moment too soon. Stupid vehicle for stupid people. But that's just me.

Oh, baby! I'd have pitched this s**thead instructor out of the car at speed. Whoever he is, he needs to be shot. Then skinned. Then shot again.

Depends upon how long your friend would like his MC's trans to actually, like work. Know what I mean? Forward was made to, like, go forward. Reverse was made so that you can, like, reverse? Selection of one direction when the vehicle is traveling in the opposite direction is bound eventually to have consequences. The clue in all this is the brake pedal. Your friend can use this to actually bring the MC to a complete stop - one presumes he knows what that is? - before shifting the trans to travel in an opposite direction. Finally, this: Patience is a virtue. One hears that said from time to time. It might be well to employ patience with respect to shifting from forward to reverse.

Mitch, I'd be very interested in learning more from you about the other cars there at Moran Motorsport. I wonder, would you mind contacting me offlline (via e-mail)?

Matt, that great old car was Sahara, with a saddle-tan interior. Wish to hell I knew if it survived, and, if so, where it is today.

Hanschen was/is a wonderful driver and an all-around good guy. I covered the IMSA races when I worked at Autoweek back in the mid-'70s and watched many a race when he and the great Peter Gregg went at it like madmen. I don't recall that magnificent CSL of Stuck's beating Gregg's Porsche RSR too many times, but man, it certainly was wonderful fun to watch. Them were the days!

Nope, on this car - and for obvious reasons, I remember this clearly - the pedal box was bolted in from the bottom, with the threaded nuts on the floor pan itself.

This happened so long ago that I’d pretty much forgotten about it. But as I’ve been on the hunt for a nice ’02, it came back into my mind and I thought I might run it past the ’02 community for – I don’t know – comment, maybe? This was probably 1971, ’72 or so. I was on my way home from work one afternoon in my ’68 1602, heading up Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance toward the northbound 405 – all this a bit south of downtown Los Angeles. Light in front of me turned red. Traffic in front of me slowed, on its way to stopping. Me, too: I put my foot on the brake pedal. To my horror, the pedal box fell out the bottom of the car. It was held dangling there just by hydraulic tubes and connecting lines. I wasn’t going terribly fast, obviously, heavy afternoon traffic – and used the parking brake to get the thing stopped without any bent sheetmetal or crushed bumpers. When the light turned green, I pussyfooted through the intersection, pulled into a gas station that with luck was there on the corner, and gave the guy there a couple of bucks to let me put the car up on the rack, have a look-see. What I found was that all eight bolts that hold the pedal box to the floor had backed out of their threads. They were all still in place in the pedal box, but had magically all backed out of the threads in the floor. All were still present in the pedal box, standing proud by the same amount. I always carried tools; still do. So I bolted the thing back in place with my handy-dandy quarter-inch socket set and drove on home, proud of myself for being able to fix what could have been a real mess. Thought the whole deal was mighty curious, but then went on with life and didn’t give the incident another thought, until, as mentioned, recently. I’d had no work done on the car that would have involved removal of, or service to, the pedal box. That leaves – well, a really long shot of quirky bad luck, or something else. Now, all these years later, I know what I think but it’s been bugging me – and so, here’s the question: What do you folks think? Ever heard of anything like this happening? And yes, this is indeed a true story.

For what it's worth, it probably is pretty important that you do this, and not just for the smell. If memory serves (and I may be wrong about this, but I think not), rodent feces can carry all sorts of nasty disease. Just inhaling its dust has the potential of making one quite seriously ill. Seems like there was a huge problem with this among the folks who followed the traditional way of life on the Navajo Rez in Arizona a number of years back. Those In Charge had a hell of a time chasing it down. They finally figgered out that microbes (or whatever) in the dust from the mousie poop that had accumulated in the hogans over the years was the culprit. At least I think that's right.

I certainly can't know what Michelotti was thinking, nor what the BMW stylists had in mind, though the lines of the front fascia and the styling of the rear-window profile lines continue to help define what a BMW is. Interestingly, this is something the domestic manufacturers have forgotten how to do - if indeed they ever knew. But I think probably that the upright, low-beltline/high-greenhouse deal was a (quite successful) effort to maximize use of interior space, which was a very big deal with European manufacturers back in those days, inclined as they were to stick with small cars that good gas economy while delivering superior value, utility and performance. I mean, for example, look how useful the '02 trunk is. Lotta room back there. And that back seat - not terribly useful for adults, I'll grant you, but I put a lot of miles on my '68 1602 as a family car, back in the day, when my two boys were small.

It's a Momo Prototypo, looks to me like. Big with the Porsche crowd, as these were the wheels the factory put on its race cars during the '60s and '70s. You'll see a lot of them even today on 911s, 912s and 914s - looks like the dash of the latter model in the picture shown. I personally prefer the Nardi black/black 14-inch wheel. It's just as nicely made, a bit different in that it has long slots in the spokes rather than holes. Also, the back side of the rim has - well, finger-sized depressions all the way around, rather than being completely smooth on both sides, as is the Momo. Provides a nicer grip. Alas, it's gotten quite difficult to find these wheels, and their hubs and horn buttons. I've got one, but it's still bolted to its Porsche hub. Will do something about that when I finally equip my garage with "just the right car," for which I continue to search.

Yep - '76 and newer only - they're the ones that need emissions testing. At least so far. It seems that every year or so some loonie in the legislature introduces a bill that would require that all older cars pass emissions testing. So far, these have been slapped down. Keeping fingers crossed that this continues.

Wow. American car magazines have come a long way. Thank God! This was from the days when John and Elaine Bond owned, and ran, the magazine. I had not yet finished J-school, and was a good ways, still, from writing for car books. James T. Crow and Henry N. Manny, though, worked there. Family atmosphere. Friday afternoon wine-and-cheese gatherings. If you knew all those folks, as I did, they were the the semi-good old days. Meanwhile, though, David E. and the team at Car and Driver was preparing to kick some R&T ass in terms of style and quality, pretty much changing forever the way enthusiasts looked at car magazines. To see that, compare this test to Davis's famous "Turn Your Hymnals to 2002" piece. Kind of the difference between the New York Times and Hunter S. Thompson. Still, this piece speaks to a much simpler time that I, codger that I am, rather do miss.

When one of mine failed, its symptoms were rather like running out of fuel. Sputtering and jerking which got worse over a very short distance, then silence. Well, then the auto club, the trip home, then the new coil. Don't know why it should have been so, but in my case, it was.

I gather that one of the reasons folks move from 13-inch wheels to 14-inchers is because of the paucity of choices when it comes to 13-inch tires. Dunno, maybe you folks all know about Coker Tire. They buy obsolete molds and continue to produce those tires. Thus the Michelin XAS and Vredestine Sprint - both pretty good tires - remain available through Coker in 165-13 sizes. Just thought a few of you might be interested.

If it were me, I think I'd request that a flatbed be used. You don't want to tow the thing on the end of a hook, with the rear wheels on the pavement.

Yep. Try doing a site search.

Yep, I've used 'em too. Good site, good product. My experience was a dead-nuts on paint match.

But, but, but... Friends and neighbors, by now, the era in which 2002w were being built and used, the Germans were using black leather steering wheels, not the oh-too-British wood ones. (Tea, anyone?) Iconoclast that I am, I would insist that the wooden-steering-wheel thing is best left to antique Morgans and MGs and suchlike, and that real black leather wheels are the best tools for use in guiding serious motorcars such as BMWs and Porsches. But that's just me. It's your car, do whatever you like, however wonky it may look.

As yet another member of the left, I also enjoy busting clay pigeons with a 12-gauge. It's really fun, and as someone noted, quite addicting. I shoot a bit of trap and occasionally go out and embarrass my self on the sporting-clays course near here. Quite challenging, but a lot of fun. And yes, one's shoulder does soon get used to the recoil. You might not think that there would be ranges handy here in So Cal, where I am, but there are a couple of nice ones - one right in the middle of the city in a recreation area that's build in a flood-control area, and another quite nice club right up in the foothills. A third one got burned out in the Station Fire last summer. Shame. At that one, you would see various law-enforcement folks shooting all kinds of interesting stuff.

Tony Euganeo is "The Key Guy." He specializes in classic Porsche keys but does other makes as well. If he can't help, he'll most likely know someone who can. Find him here: http://www.lockandkeyid.com/

They don't run full. That's just the way they work. Don't stress over it.

Sure looks like something out of, maybe Ghia, or something? Not my taste at all, but that's what makes for horse races.