Part 1: Other fun cars...
1964 E-Type. Roadster, convertible, Open Two Seater... no matter what
you call it, mine is a basket case. Or, as it happens, a cigar-box
case. The previous owner disassembled it into mostly cigar-box sized
pieces, and then stopped. It's more a jigsaw puzzle than a car, at
this point.
1988 Yugo. Lightweight front-driver that avoids torque steer...by
having no torque. 1100 cc doesn't exactly melt the tires. Makes
decent enough noises, though, from the Italian-derived 4 cylinder and
weber carb.
Part 2: the Wish List.
It would start with a Fiat 500 (or an Autobianchi version thereof, the
Bianchina). We were actually looking for a 500 when we found the Yugo.
Definitely the next fun-car purchase (well, unless something else
drops into our laps...). I'll skip the list of other Etceterini --
small Italian manufacturers, some of whom rebodied Fiats, some of whom
made their own cars, some of whom did both. Though I will say that the
right Moretti 750 could cause a serious panic in my home and bank.
Two little Italian cars I remember my parents driving, that I wouldn't
mind having back. A '75 Fiat station wagon -- same basic floorpan,
motor, and transmission as the Spyder, but with 4 doors and a trunk.
And a '71 Alfa Spyder.
Any lotus older than I am. In practical terms, that probably means a
seven, an Elan, or a Europa... all lovely little cars. A Jensen-Healey
would get partial credit.
Dream-car-wise, I'm partial to the Ferrari 246 Dino and 250 Lusso, the
original Lamborghini Countach (the LP400; before they put scoops and
wings all over it -- just a simple wedge shape; as radical a design
statement as Figoni Falaschi were half a century earlier), Lotus 11, or
(moving higher up the scale of rarity) the Jaguar XK-SS. I won't
digress into hyper-exotic things like sports-racers, formula cars,
coachbuilt or one-offs. (I only include something as rare as the XK-SS
because 1. it's the bridge between the D-Type and the E-type, and 2.
there are replicas available, making it somewhat approachable.)
Looking over my list, a few things pop out. There are no v-8s, the
largest motor mentioned is 4 liters (the lambo v-12), all but the Fiat
500 are (or in the case of some of the loti, could possibly be) ohc.
Which is not to say that I would turn down a 289 Mustang (like my mom
drove), but that it seems as though displacement and the much-vaunted
v-8 sound don't do much for me.
-Matt
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