Gettin' busy on sports cars

[waaytoomuchintothis]

For old Mercedes (like the Silver Arrows, 194's, etc), Tamiya Silver Leaf does best, and for the Sunbeam, I went with Mica Silver, because all the photos of the Alpines for racing had very original, very bright paint jobs. Oddly, the Tigers used mostly stock paint, the Alpines went wild- bright yellows, oranges, even a lavender.

[Ember]

I think the Tigers might have been intended for "serious motoring" and the cheaper Alpine for the young, fab and fun.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

That's the way it felt in those days. I lived in Ontario, Canada for that period in my life, and I got a chance to fall completely in love with British sports cars, even if most of them did have the insanely bad (Lucas, lord of darkness) Electric. Loose, Unsoldered Connections And Shorts. London, Ontario had Triumphs, Sunbeams, Rovers, MGs, Austin-Healys, Morrises of every type, Jaguars, a few Bentleys, but I never saw an Aston-Martin, even though James Bond movies were just beginning to show up in theaters. I had a great time living in Ontario- slot cars, curling, hockey, girls in ski pants, those were the days!
The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
Why do the English drink warm beer? Lucas made the refrigerators, too.

[Ember]

I still have a thing for the Brit sports. Sure they may not be perfect but when they are on song they are superb.

[dge467]

Great looking cars!!! Loving the Sunbeam!

[DHansen]

I heard that at one time Lucas all so made vacuum cleaners. It was the only thing they ever made that didn't suck. :lol: I know, old joke, couldn't help myself.

[TsgtRet]

Lucas switches have 3 positions: "ON", "OFF" and "BROKEN"

It took Lucas to perfect the direct short.

How do you fix a Lucas problem? Let all the smoke out.

DHansen started it!!! :laughing-rolling:

[reek455]

That's why the Brit's drink warm beer, they have Lucas refrigerators.

Nice work Rob, those look really nice.

Regards
Rico

[waaytoomuchintothis]

We should collect these jokes. They are all so familiar- like going home- in the dark!

[DAVE]

Being a Brit sports car fan, I have heard all the Lucas " Prince of Darkness" jokes. Heard
a lot of German and Italian car jokes too. Having owned cars from all three countries, I
have to say they all have their problems. Someone should put all the jokes in a book. The
Brits seen to have a better sense of humor about it, though.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Yep, I had a Fiat 124 Spyder that I loved, but I have to admit, I didn't need 3 switches to turn on the wipers nor two ways to dim the headlights. What I needed was less delicate syncros!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Yeah but you could just hang your foot out the door and push while still in the driver's seat. I had a '65 Karmann-Ghia that was 6 volts, and it was always a good idea to start that way so the battery didn't go down so fast.

Just to keep everything transatlantically equal, I also had a 1958 Ford retractable hardtop (Skyliner), that had to be parked pointed uphill to make the top go down smoothly, and pointed down hill to get it to come back up (with some help from my strained right arm). It was red over black, with a gold diamond foil side trim, and the interior was pink and gray mohair. That's on top of it being the ugliest year for Ford ever. My son called it "Daddy's Batmobile". One of many cars that I had big plans for, and a small budget to do them. But it had a big old Y block 312 in it, and it was a shock to some kids who wanted to "run the old guy in the cool car".

[Mayberryman]

As a person who just joined this forum and a long time (and I mean long time) driver of small and sports cars of all nations I appreciate these stories. My first car that I bought was an MGA with the two six volt batteries located behind the seat and it did not have to rain for that car to stop running, just the act of driving during a cloud cover. That car did teach me one lesson and that was to keep the cover off of the battery area so that I could bang on the electric fuel pump to get it to restart. I always thought that the British cars had the worst problems and then, three years ago, I ran into the National Datsun 510 Club at the Jefferson Race at Summit Point. I went there in my Scion tC and was pulling a Tear Drop camper. A few of the guys from the 510 club came over to me and asked to look inside of the camper and made me an honorary member of their club as we all had Japanese Cars. That evening we were camped outside of the Carousel and I asked a couple of the members if their cars had a rusting problem. They both laughed and said NO, their cars rusted every day, NO PROBLEM.