Beautiful.
The old Healeys were magnificant. The first Cobra was a healey with a small-block Ford V8 jammed in, as I recall. I knew a guy who had one; the original tires lasted one week.
British cars had soul. The Mini, then the Austin America, were the first "modern" cars... transverse engine, transaxle, front-wheel drive. Jags were high art. Somehow the brit cars had soul *and* technology and they blew it anyhow.
John
California can be as bad. A friend went up the Altamont pass in a German car. Very hot summer day. Just before the peak a plume of white vapor. Several freeze plugs had popped out, all at once.
Most of the complaints I heard were about reliability. It got as bad as someone (who owned a Triumph motorcycle and loved it!) saying "Anything from there that has oil in it or rotates is prone to fail or will eventually leak". No idea about how much water that statement holds. Seems like that old Austin at Costco hadn't given the owner much grief and 45 years is a long time.
At least in Europe they were called Toyota 1000, maybe because they had a one liter engine. Quite reliable but basic. I remember that closing the door produced a not so noble "kloink" sound like a Tonka toy. Well, long story short these things were so reliable that we bought one of their great-great-grandkids. Never failed in 10 years. Quality pays off in the form of reputation, followed by sales Dollars. Some companies don't seem to understand that concept, Toyota sure does.
There is a Cobra GT running around with the license plate "UDLOSE".
Blew it? Well that happens when your customers spend more time repairing cars than driving them. If your "thing" is tinkering with a car, a BL car is for you. If you want to actually go somewhere, buy elsewhere.
No problems with the voltage regulator? Joseph Lucas is famed as the inventor of darkness.
Cheers,
Phil
I thought it was an AC Ace?
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
All the Brit motorcycles that I know of had vertically-split crank-cases, guaranteed to leak oil. Honda had the wonderful idea of splitting the case horizontally, lifting the seam and the gaskets out of the oil. Brilliant!
In my MG's, you didn't really change the oil, you just kept adding it. And you didn't park on your own property.
John
True, but my MG club members know him as the God of Darkness. Lucas also made (makes?) refrigerators which is why the Brits like warm beer.
Phil Hobbs wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net:
"Prince of Darkness" is the term generally used.
Yes, looks like that's right. I could have sworn there was a Healey V8, but they did sort of look alike. They did tend to go by fast.
John
Lucas motto: "Home before dark..."
-- DaveC snipped-for-privacy@bogusdomain.net This is an invalid return address Please reply in the news group
Maybe she lived next door to her mechanic and parked it there.
Like my old girlfriend used to say: "Jaguars aren't such bad cars to own. I owned two of them. I'd leave one at the mechanic's and just rotate them weekly."
"If at all"?
-- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85.
Michael A. Terrell Central Florida
A friend who had one told me about a shop visit. All that was needed was a regular valve adjustment job. $1200 later he had it back.
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