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..... If you watch closely, you'll see me squirm every time this subject comes up. See, I've never actually owned a British sports car. (It even sounds like, "No I've never actually had sex.") There are those who would argue that there really isn't any other kind of sports car. Of course, you'll get a similar line from the Porsche and Ferrari guys regarding their marques, but who listens to them? Then why is it that the Anglophiles can't be dismissed as "those retrograde warm-beer drinking Tories?" How do these guys with the green antiques maintain that aura of credibility? How do they somehow manage to give the impression that what they speak just may be truth? If you listen long enough to one of these guys, you'll start believing that the timer is wrong and that you can't possibly be beating them by three seconds. .....My own insecurity can be traced almost psychoanalytically: It was a college buddy's just-purchased TR4A that first infected me with the sports car bug. While dutifully trudging to a lecture on the Sociology of Deviance or some such nonsense, we felt the sun and sniffed the air of the first perfect spring day to hit Chicago that year. Before we knew it we were ripping up and down the western shore of Lake Michigan, a delectable Japanese nurse tucked between (behind?) us, awash in an intoxicating bouquet of hot grease, burning engine oil, mildew, and cheap perfume. To a guy with a '63 Chevy with peace decals on the window and reeking of resins, this was heady stuff. The fact that he knew which wires to splice when it burped to a halt in traffic erased the last bit of doubt that sports cars were indeed the practical aphrodisiac. .....("Doctor, are you saying that all this autocrossing, all those hours in the garage, all those full throttle blasts down the interstate are attempts to re-live and re-create that spring ride in that old TR4?" |
"Well, Rusty, what do you think?") .....I spent the next month or so on research - sports car buyers guides,classifieds, used car lots, people with grease on their hands, people with Tarot cards. Budget considerations eliminated the Porsches, the Loti, and Healeys. And Ferraris. I looked at the TRs, the MGBs, and Fiats . . . and in the end I opted for the Fiat 124's silky smooth 5-speed over the silly O.D. switch, the throw-back top over the erector set, the Weber over the S.U.-s, the DOHC aluminum head over the tractor engine, and the 7,000 rpm redline over the low-end torque. The Italian relays and the Lucas electrics were a wash. I also figured the marques would break and rust at similar frequencies and rates. The Fait even smelled like the TR, and even at that innocent age, I knew women would choose an open red door over an open green one 3 to 1. .....The unhappy truth of the matter is that in the early '70s, roadgoing British sports cars weren't doing anything at all that well. Lotus was the exception, but then it always was - the only thing it shared with its British brethren was unreliability. There's no need to dig up your SCCA Nationals results to remind me that British Leyland products were winning everything that Porsches weren't; I'm talking about off-the-floor drive-it-every-day cars here. The TRs, MGBs, Midgets, and Spits - these cars were old before they crossed the Atlantic. In fact, there was much discussion about the death of the sports car - Datsun 510s, Opel Manta 1900s, and Capri V6's were everywhere with little silhouettes of ragtops painted on their drivers' doors. Not that the Fiat performed any better, but it had all the traditional sports car virtues and fewer vices. ..... .... |
.....And I don't regret my decision. The Spider taught me all the sports car lessons a British one could have (double-clutching, showing off, car repair - temporary and permanent, first aid, profanity, patience) and one that it couldn't: driving in the rain. .....Still . . . when the chap on the barstool or in the pit next to me starts rhapsodizing about his old TR or MG, why do I keep my Fiat stories to myself and resort to cheap shots about Lucas, Lord of Darkness? Why would my tale of rewiring the Spider's ignition switch ten miles out of Madison, Wisconsin in zero degree weather earn only the "Fiat sneer" while the story about his MGB's hydrophobia elicits euphoric sighs of nostalgia? Is Road and Track's propaganda that effective? Perhaps its like not having fought in the war - you certainly don't wish you had faced enemy fire, but, not having done it, you wonder what the experience would have taught you, how it might have tempered your soul. .....We are all plagued by demons of what might have been, and they never go away for long. Face it, you still wonder what the blonde that at behind you in home room is doing today and what your life would have been like if you'd had the guts to open your heart to her. Let me flatteringly call it maturity that allows me to peacefully content myself with my own sweet memories of the 124's redline scream without chewing on blankets or forking over good autocross money to a therapist. .....Still not convinced? Well, to be honest, I still have my doubts, too. If nothing else, at least I have some experience driving in the rain. ..... ..... Written by Tony Silva for Auto-X Magazine |