Pilots and Fast Cars

[Floatsflyer]

Now I drive an older Miata which is really a British style sports car with a level of reliability that the Brits only dreamed of. But I still lust after a Lotus Seven...

Airplane stuff or not, I want to add to this thread. In 1974, I had a Mercury Capri, the German made version. A great looking sports car.

My summer only car is now a 2017 Miata GT, meteor grey mica with a tan interior, a go cart on steroids that rides and handles like it's on rails. Top down, socks off baby! It's also the biggest selling sports car in history, over one million sold world-wide.

Dana you're half right. The Miata styling is a cross between a Lotus AND an Austin Healy with a bullitt proof engine and perfectly balanced chassis/body.

[Bill Greenwood]

I may have already written about this, but it is a car story about very fast and very rare car and airplane related. I have a friend who is a warbird owner, historian and whose normal job was with a branch owned by Jaguar which was then owned by Ford. Ford was even building cars at the large Castle Bromwich site where so many Spitfires and Lancasters were built during the war.
One morning, on his birthday he got a phone call to come out to the test track. He arrived to find a full race factory D Jaguar, and not just any race one but the actual car that had won Le Mans in 1955. They told him he could drive it a few laps, but please not to bend it as it was worth more than a Spitfire at that time. Pretty good birthday present.

[BusyLittleShop]

The way my Honda RC45 homologated race bike leans into the bendy bits it feels like I'm flying... it sports a tall first gear good for 90 mph... so by the time I reach 6th gear it's go straight to jail velocity...



My true story published in MCN...

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[Tench745]

When I was in the Air Force, a buddy was an Academy graduate. When their senior year came around, the local car dealers offered to take group orders for cars for the soon-to-be-graduating cadets. So you could always tell when an officer was commissioned by the year of their Corvette, Porsche, 280Z, etc.....

Never had the muscle-car urge, myself. Comes from being a hard-headed engineer, methinks. Even when I did buy a Camaro 40 years ago, it had the smaller engine for better economy.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron, would "the smaller engine" be the V6, the inline 6, the 5.0L V8, or the 5.7L V8?

[rwanttaja]

Ron, would "the smaller engine" be the V6, the inline 6, the 5.0L V8, or the 5.7L V8?

The 5.0L V8. I ordered the car with the Z28 manual transmission, too. That was a mistake, I think... the transmission was expecting the bigger V8, and the clutch work had to be done carefully to keep from lugging the motor too much. Otherwise, I ordered the car plain... no radio (added my own), no fancy paint, no fancy wheels or hubcaps (just the basic pie-tins).

The car was totaled when another driver ran a red light as I was driving to the Arlington Fly-In about 30 years ago. We were driving up to pick up the Fly Baby, which we'd had parked at the show all week. Wasn't hurt, grabbed another car to take me up North for the ~80 mile flight home. Probably not a good idea; I think a bit of delayed shock hit me as I was flying home.

This is rapidly moving to NOT airplane stuff....except I will talk about my SAAB 9-3, which was at least made by an airplane company!

Thinking about this, MANY of us can claim to own cars made by airplane companies...or least, companies that used to make airplanes. Ford built B-24s, General Motors made Wildcats, Goodyear made Corsairs, Allison the P-75, etc. Not to mention companies like Mitsubishi or BMW (aircraft engines).

If we widen the scope to tanks, we'd have to include Chrysler and Porsche, but this ain't the Experimental Armor Association.....

Ron "Tankety Tank Tank" Wanttaja

[rwanttaja]

I may have already written about this, but it is a car story about very fast and very rare car and airplane related. I have a friend who is a warbird owner, historian and whose normal job was with a branch owned by Jaguar which was then owned by Ford. Ford was even building cars at the large Castle Bromwich site where so many Spitfires and Lancasters were built during the war.
One morning, on his birthday he got a phone call to come out to the test track. He arrived to find a full race factory D Jaguar, and not just any race one but the actual car that had won Le Mans in 1955. They told him he could drive it a few laps, but please not to bend it as it was worth more than a Spitfire at that time. Pretty good birthday present.

My dad had a subscription to Motor Trend magazine when I was a kid, and I remember reading an article about a sports car that someone had added a Merlin engine too.

This being the Internet age, I looked for the article online. Didn't see it, but this one (about another Merlin-engined car) was pretty good.

https://www.classicdriver.com/en/art...ed-rolls-royce

Ron "It might be cars, not airplanes, but it beats arguing about smoking" Wanttaja

[DaleB]

This is rapidly moving to NOT airplane stuff....except I will talk about my SAAB 9-3, which was at least made by an airplane company!

I was told SAAB stands for, "Swedes Ain't Airplane Builders".

[Mayhemxpc]

Thinking about this, MANY of us can claim to own cars made by airplane companies...or least, companies that used to make airplanes. Ford built B-24s, General Motors made Wildcats, Goodyear made Corsairs, Allison the P-75, etc. Not to mention companies like Mitsubishi or BMW (aircraft engines).

If we widen the scope to tanks, we'd have to include Chrysler and Porsche, but this ain't the Experimental Armor Association.....

Ron "Tankety Tank Tank" Wanttaja

Experimental Armor Association...now THAT would be fun -- having done quite a bit of that. Also remember that North American Aviation was the Aviation Division of General Motors! SAAB always emphasized their airplane association (Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolag). And for Dale, they do make good airplanes...sometimes, when their engineers don't get in the way. And they always cost way too much money. I think the F-35 design team must have studied at SAAB.

Christopher Mayer
Colonel, Armored Cavalry, U.S. Army Retired

[Anymouse]

Guilty!!

This is my Saturn Sky. Not necessarily considered a muscle car, but it's peppy enough to get me in trouble if I want.



A few years later I got a Jeep. Not quite as zippy as the Sky, but still a fun vehicle. BTW... That empty lot over the spinner now has Anymouse Manor on it.




EDIT: Never realized attachments are shown full size. Can't figure out how to caption them individually though.