Hey! I love Haggis!
Well written!
Daniel58612
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Fisher [SMTP:sefisher@cisco.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 2:31 PM
> To: Richard D Arnold
> Cc: spridgets@autox.team.net; kfisher@living-history.org
> Subject: Re: Value of CB Midget
>
> Richard D Arnold wrote:
>
> > Also, what the heck is it with LBCs that causes one to want to
> > acquire so many?
>
> Several things have occurred to me throughout my years of LBC ownership:
>
> 1. The Car Wardrobe factor. Depending on how complex one's life is, it
> may become desirable to have separate cars, each optimized for different
> activities. For example, a Spridget is the perfect car for driving on
> sunny days through winding forest roads, the shadows through the
> sycamore leaves rippling and blending off the graceful curves of the
> fenders, the mixed exhaust note and gear whine echoing off the boles of
> ancient redwoods. Add some rain and cold into the equation, and an
> MGB-GT might reasonably be considered a better choice. Add snow and ice
> and, well, a Jensen FF gives you all wheel drive to keep the tyres
> planted in unplowed roads. Then there's the vintage race car, and while
> many vehicles could satisfy the itch, I'm partial (at least in my
> imagination) to the Lotus Seven in any of its variants. And you have to
> get that to the track (and to the machine shop and to the garage of your
> friend with the welding equipment and etc. etc.etc.), so you buy a
> sensible tow car like an XJ-S. No one of these cars could do all the
> things that the entire collection could do, and, well, you *have* to do
> all these things, don't you?
>
> 2. The I'll-drive-this-while-I-restore-that factor. We all know how
> THAT goes... It starts when the throwout bearing fails on your beloved
> Spridget, and seeing as the entire car must basically be dismantled to
> get to the bearing, we realize we'll need ANOTHER car to drive while the
> first one gets taken apart and put back together. So we go out and buy
> a slightly ratty chrome-bumper MGB or something (can't be too nice or we
> won't be motivated to keep working on the Spridget), start disconnecting
> the flywheel bolts in the Spridget, and then the weather turns and it
> starts raining and we try to put the top up on the B, only to find out
> that it's basically more holes than top. So while the reasonable thing
> to do would be to go spend $250 on a new Robbins top, we go out and find
> a GT6 to drive while the weather's bad, figuring we'll do the B's top
> after we get the Spridget's clutch replaced (because you KNOW that as
> long as you've got the motor out to do the throwout bearing, you might
> as well replace the pressure plate and friction disc too, and as long as
> THAT'S out, you might as well rebuild the slave cylinder, and in the
> meanwhile the only actual WORK you've performed on the car is to
> disconnect the earth strap on the battery and loosen the starter
> bolts.) Then spring finally rolls around and it's just too damn *nice*
> to keep driving the GT6 any more, and you get an email from somebody on
> the Spridgets list who is selling a clean Mk. III ("needs paint and
> carpets") for real cheap, and you figure that if you had another
> Spridget to drive in the nice weather, it'd make you hurry up on the
> clutch rebuild of your *first* Spridget (which already *has* nice paint
> and carpets), on which you've now done the added bonus work of pulling
> the wire from the coil to the distributor to make it easier to pull the
> engine any time now (and you figure you can bring home the engine hoist
> from the rental agent's in the back of the GT6, after all, when you get
> a free weekend). At one point, this line of reasoning led to my owning
> a '74 Midget, a '67 Morris Mini Traveler, a '67 Lotus Cortina, a '59
> Bugeye Sprite, the transaxle out of a '69 Austin America, and, of all
> things, a then-new Ford Mustang SVO -- which was the least sensible
> American sporty-muscle-oid car that it was then possible to acquire.
> Made cool whoop-de-whoop noises when you shifted, though.
>
> 3. The fact that we're all bloody lunatics. Ever see "Braveheart"?
> You know the scene where Stephen, the Irish mercenary, introduces
> himself to William Wallace, says "Besides, I'm crazy," and Wallace,
> Hamish, and his other lieutenants give each other sidelong glances, and
> then little by little everyone in the circle of men starts laughing this
> weird laugh of brotherhood?
>
> Yep, that's us.
>
> BTW -- today, May 6, 1999, is the day of Scotland's first free elections
> since the Battle of Stirling, or something. Alba go bragh!
>
> --Scott "I draw the line at having haggis for dinner, though" Fisher
> Sunnyvale, CA
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