The M3 Broke 100 M.P.H. in the 1/4 Mile but I'm Still Boring

June 26th.  That's the last time I wrote a car blog.  Why?  I've been writing blogs for over 10 years and I've learned that you should write when the muse hits you strong and you're feeling humorous.  Sometimes a glass of wine helps.  The best blogs write themselves.  But that's not why I'm writing tonight. I'm writing tonight because I can.  I'm away on business, which means I can't do anything else productive.  So I have two options, go wander around Seattle at 10 P.M. until I get robbed, or update the car blog.  So.. come on muse, hit me... please. Nothing. Is there wine around here?

First, an update.  In June I told you the BMW was frustratingly close to hitting 100 m.p.h. at the Woodburn drag strip (99 m.p.h. multiple times).   Well, I got the opportunity to try again.  Inexplicably, on a Friday night date, my wife and I found ourselves "driving past" the dragstrip and I begged Kellie to let me make a few runs and she (suspiciously) agreed.

I wanted to lower the weight of the car to gain that needed one mile-per-hour, so I took out the rear seat, spare-tire, stroller(s), stuffed animals, blankets, beach toys, etc.  My lightening attempts didn't work, and I couldn't hit 100 m.p.h.  So for the last run Kellie, who'd been watching from the stands, joined me. We put the seat, tire, jackets, stroller(s), etc back in and went out for one last launch down the track.

And we hit 100.  Apparently the M3 needed some weight holding the rear tires down?   Baffling.

I received a NHRA 100 mile-per-hour club sticker.  I'm proud of it.  How many other M3 owners have those? Probably not many, they're too busy cutting you off in traffic.  I was cut off today on the way to Seattle, by my car's twin.  I felt a little self-deprecation with my anger.  It was good though, it turns out self-deprecation and anger are the perfect emotions for Seattle and are the summary every Nirvana grunge song on the radio here.

Not long after the drag race I took my father out to the Portland Historic Races.  I had one of those light-bulb moments as we walked around.  I was about to say, "You don't have anything like this in your (small town in the middle of nowhere), do you?", when I realized five miles from his house in every direction are a BAZILLION miles of dual sport trails and he has about 10 running dual-sport motorcycles in his harem, not to mention 20 that may run someday.  My dad's freedom to have fun with a motorized machine blows my opportunities out-of-the-water.  Yay, once a year I can watch old rich dudes drive their expensive cars carefully around a race track.

I think the local vineyard owners should take their fences down so I can ride my dual sport nearby.  Britain has something called "the right to roam".  As a fenced in yuppieite I'd like to know more about this.

This summer my buddy Andrew put an LS motor in his land cruiser.  I helped guide it in.  Really, that's the coolest car thing I've done in the last 3 months.  The truck is awesome now.

Now, how about an update on my Lotus project?

Ok, I hate calling it a Lotus because I'm like one of those guys that builds a Fiero with a Lamborghini bodykit and calls it a Lambo.  Its a Fiero!  But my problem is, I didn't start with a Fiero, I started with... nothing... a pile of metal sticks.  I don't think I like what it could be called, being a British design.  In my politically correct grade school days they preached that a faggot wasn't a homosexual, it was a British pile of sticks.  Fine, apparently there's a faggot beside my house.

But British car people are cool.  Aside from watching the rich dudes at the Goodwood Revival truly race their pretty cars hard (and smash them), I met this British gentleman, rallying across the U.S., cleaning his car in front of Starbucks in downtown Portland because... why not?

The frame for my Lotus/Carish Thing is pretty well finished.  I know I'm going to have to re-weld shock mounts, the steering column frame, etc. but at least I can move on and deal with those as fitment issues.

Before and After

Right now I'm re-building and welding the front end. The Ford Mustang II front-end is awesome because parts are cheap!  I bought the hub/rotors for $30, with the Chevy bolt pattern that fits my spare M3 wheels!  They did cheap out on the wheel studs though.  When I placed a M3 wheel up to the hub, the wheel studs stuck out only a 1/4 inch, not enough for lug nuts.  And of course they were a size of stud that doesn't come in longer lengths, so now I'm tapping out the hubs for larger 3" studs I found on clearance at Summit.

Why I'm Re-Welding A Arms

Yes, I know that last paragraph was incredibly boring.  I'm bored too.  Considering deletion.

See, this is why the writing muse hasn't hit me.  Building cars around the frame is BORING.  I'm even bored when I'm doing it.  My friends think I like to work on cars.  I don't.  I just want to drive a fake Lotus Seven and I can't afford one that's finished.  So here I am.

One last note on building the Lotus, I somehow managed to match the 400 holes (not exaggerating) on the bottom of the frame to my new steel floorboards for riveting. Don't ask how, it's beyond boring and it took me two days.  But I did it, and I feel some sense of accomplishment.

Oh, and I found an older picture of my own Lotus/Car Type Thing when browsing Google Images for Lotus Sevens.  Turns out my car was a featured car on barnfinds.com when someone sold it in 2015. It was still ugly in 2015.

Argh, Mark Knopfler automotive lyrics just played on my radio and they blow away anything my mind can produce tonight.  I'll leave you with something well-written (and with British words again).  It's the least I can do after writing this blog.  Music and lyrics to Border Reiver by Mark Knopfler -

Southern bound from Glasgow town

She's shining in the sun

My Scotstoun lassie on a border run

We're whistling down the hillsides and tearing up the climbs

I'm just a thiever stealing time in the Border Reiver

A hundred thousand on the clock and plenty more to go

Crash box and lever - she needs the heel and toe

She's not too cold in winter but she cooks me in the heat

I'm a six-foot driver but you can adjust the seat in the Border Reiver

"Sure as the Sunrise"

That's what they say about the Albion

"Sure as the Sunrise", that's what they say about the Albion

And she's an Albion

She's an Albion

The Ministry don't worry me my paperwork's alright

They can't touch me

I got my sleep last night

It's knocking out a living wage in 1969

I'm just a thiever stealing time in the Border Reiver

The Lotus 7 Wannabe... or Peter Egan & Darrell Rock

The Lotus 7 Wannabe

I'm back fully engaged in the classic car world!  I picked up a (sort of) Lotus Seven for $400.  But this isn't just a story of my latest case of consumerism, it's also an excursion into the writings of a poser writer, the redemption of Craigslist, and a hope for the future of car culture (named Darrell).

A $400 dollar Lotus 7?  What, did I buy a wheel?

Well, it's not a Lotus 7, it's a Nothing.  Seriously, someone made it completely from scratch.  From what I can tell it has a (terribly) welded space frame, Mustang II spindles, a MGB rear end and some MGB wheels (only two).

Sounds terrible right? 

But its awesome! For some reason I can't look at it without thinking how much I like it. And I mean "like" as in visions of keeping it until the day I die and willing it to my favorite child. Of course this may change after I start working on it but right now I think it's the essential 1950s sports car; there is nothing but the bare essentials of fun and it looks like it will be a complete blast to drive.

The story of how I ended up with it is a little odd.  I was shadowing a trainee at work.  We work 12 hour shifts monitoring a system and I can say that not every moment is engaging, especially when your role is to look over someone else's shoulder.  During one of those slow moments I was perusing the search term "project" on Craigslist's autos pages (if you haven't used that search term I'd highly recommend it; it's fun to peruse other people's failed projects and consider if you'd pick up the torch).

Suddenly a fairly complete looking Lotus 7 popped up for $600.  The ad said that the owner was moving "today" and didn't want to drag it with him.

I'd never even seen a project Lotus 7 pop-up on Craigslist before ("project" being a common search term for me) and I couldn't believe the price.  I called, called and then called again.  Finally someone answered on the other end sounding somewhat exasperated.  The Lotus was still available and not far from my work.  I begged my boss for a couple hours off, grabbed some cash and headed to the warehouse it was stored in.

Pulling up I saw a Series 2 Land Rover and Ferrari GTO 250 (Datsun 240z body kit) on trailers.  This instantly raised my spirits,  There was hope the ad wasn't a total lie designed to lure me to the scene of my murder, which I'd pay $600 for.

I found the owner cleaning out his warehouse just as the ad claimed.  He told me he was moving to a different warehouse and didn't want to move the Lotus because it didn't roll.  A number of BMW 2002's, Honda CB750s, a homogolation special Mercedes, etc littered the shop still.

The Lotus in the ad had looked wonderfully complete.  In truth it was highly mocked, with Nissan wheels leaning against the rear end and loose fenders placed carefully on tops of tires,  but there was a lot of car there.  I offered $400, asking to leave the Nissan wheels, and he agreed.  Basically I wound up with a frame, nose cone, front end, aluminum body pieces, fenders, rear axle housing, and windshield mounts for $400.  This redeems my terrible Canada trip (read about it here); you can find good deals on Craigslist!

I had no idea how to get the Lotus/Nothing home. Before seeing it in person I was thinking it was go-kart size and I'd just throw it in my Ford Ranger bed.  Well, a Lotus 7 (at least this one) is about ten feet long and still weighs in at several hundred pounds (at least) without a motor and tranny.  I called Uhaul and Hertz but they don't rent flatbeds and their car trailer's tracks were too wide for the narrow wheelbase of the Lotus.

My buddy Andrew came through.  He called someone named Darrell, who came down from Washington at rush hour in pouring rain, to load my car onto a flatbed trailer and drag it an hour into the Oregon countryside.  I still don't really have any idea who Darrell was, but I think of him as some sort of almost priest-like character, the embodiment of a potentially achievable brotherhood of classic car nuts (not just narcissistic buttheads working on cars by themselves in their garages).  I gave Darrell $100 bucks I had in my wallet and asked Andrew if I should get him more later.  Andrew said Darrell just likes to help people.  Thanks Darrell, you're the man.

Once the car was tucked away in the side yard I remembered that Peter Egan had wrote many articles on his Lotus 7 project.  I broke out Egan's Side Glances and was reminded why I started writing.  I realized that I could still remember Egan quotes years after reading them.  Here's a memorable one regarding the car I'd just purchased that I'd been thinking of when I bought the car - "Colin Chapman built the frame and then started removing tubes, one at a time, until the frame collapsed under its own weight.  Then he put one tube back in."

And that's when I realized, with my failed books (buy on Amazon here), slightly humorous blogs, ownership of random British cars, etc., that I'm simply a poser Peter Egan.  If you've read until here you're either family or bored.  You can stop.  Just go pick up Side Glances and you'll read everything you were hoping to find there.  It's hard to explain, but I have the humility to admit I haven't achieved Egan's skills at sharing enjoyable classic car stories.  Can those skills be developed, or is it God given talent?  I don't know but I'm hoping for the 1st.  Time shall tell.

On a more positive note my buddy Andrew is stoked about the Lotus 7 as well, and he'd like to be involved.  It'd be fun to work on something with someone.  Get beers, barely pause for food. Really get stuff done. Work long days with good jams on slamming this thing back onto the road (if it ever was).  A picture of redneck efficiency.  Then I remember we have wives, kids, families, different job schedules, and we live 45 minutes apart; these are the stark realities of adult life.  Even as I write this one of the kids just started crying in the next room for no apparent reason. Sigh. Today was supposed to be my day to work on the Lotus but it's 12:30 and my wife's still not home from her 9:40 appointment.  The reality I'm expecting is getting a full day to work on this thing about once every two months, if I'm lucky.

You know what though?

I've resigned myself to being ok if this project takes years. I'd love it to be ready sooner but  I have a sports car (BMW M3 that understeers like a tank I found out at this weekend's autocross), and I have no pressing need for the Lotus.

Plus, the Lotus will be a non-poser opportunity to wear leather goggles; how often can you do that? And I get to wear logo shirts again!  There was no way I'd wear a BMW shirt, but I'm totally cool with a classic green and yellow Lotus logo.  Wait.. mine isn't a Lotus.  So that DOES make me a poser again.

I really dig the Lotus 7/Nothing.  From the nothing-but-sportscar concept to the cigar body/motorcycle fender look I think it's a strange sort of awesome.  And if I ever get to drive it on a trackday (even if its years from now), I'll be a very happy camper.  Being able to watch your tire as you try to hit the apex has got to be just awesome.  

Signed, 

Isaiah the Peter Egan Lotus Seven Poser