January 2010
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Duetto in Paint Shop

04/01/10 19:37 Filed in: Duetto | Restoration
Our Duetto is finally in the body shop for its final paint coats. The arrival was delayed while the shop was otherwise engaged making our Audi Avant whole again.


Not quite a fair exchange, but the Audi is a bit more pratical during the winter :)



Both doors on this side of the Audi were replaced, and this side was nicely repainted for a great match. The damage was wrought by a Jeep SUV whose driver felt invincible on Interstate 84 during an ice storm. She was passing me in great hast when she slid into the median gardrail and bounced off directly into the Audi's center pillar. Ouch! Luckily we maintained control and no further damage was generated. Hats off to the driver, as she admittd fault and her company picked up the repairs.

All She Really Needs Is a Sports Car

01/01/10 22:17

All She Really Needs Is a Sports Car
Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car - SEPTEMBER 1, 2007 - BY SATCH CARLSON

A friend was asking for advice the other day--you'd think they'd learn better, wouldn't you?--about cars. More specifically, he was asking about sports cars. But even more specifically--and most importantly--he was talking about a car for his girlfriend.

Oh, Jesus. Here we go.

Apparently I have some sort of reputation in regard to the scorched earth of human relationships, or at least I have a certain history when it comes to women and cars and the tangled connections arising therefrom. Yes, some thirty years ago I was the one who convinced a perfectly respectable woman that she really ought to change her life, casting off the persona that had her driving an International Travelall--I am not making this up--for some sort of sports car. But I take no responsibility for the fact that she promptly went out and bought a Corvette. It is also true that in another lifetime long, long ago I surprised my seasonal fiancée with a Bugeye Sprite. I do not believe that was the direct cause of the subsequent break-up, but it may well be true that presenting someone with the keys to a British sports car constitutes domestic abuse in most of the northern states.

I have had no better luck when selling cars to girlfriends or former girlfriends, which they are bound to be eventually. In fact, I do not like selling cars to friends, period, and not just because I almost never sell cars, period. But dealing with a Formerly Significant Other is especially hazardous, especially when they still know your phone number and have no qualms about using it. Late at night. In hysterical tears.

That particular episode revolved around a passionate love affair. That's the only way to describe my relationship with my BMW 3.0CS coupe in Malaga maroon. What a glorious car! And I was not the only one smitten, so one day I acceded to the wishes of a woman who craved that car, and sold it to her. Yes, I knew better, but I thought I could break the never-sell-to-a-friend rule just this once, because she seemed as crazy about the car as I was.

Mistake.

I had the crazy part right, but that was about it. A short while after she bought the car, it developed cooling problems or blew a head gasket or something, the sort of meltdown that should properly be reserved to those car junkies who can take it in stride. Had this Vesuvian eruption occurred on my watch, of course, it would have provided the perfect excuse for a new head with big valves and a lumpy cam and three sidedraft Webers. But to my erstwhile friend it was a disaster of epic proportions, an economic dark hole with which she was unfamiliar, having owned only sensible cars in the past. And she has never quite forgiven me for handing her what she now perceives as a ticking time bomb and running off down the lane, cackling with glee as I counted my ill-got gains.

I've had better luck with Alfas.

That may be due to the fact that I am always the third party in an Alfa transaction; I have never sold one, nor have I ever bought one for myself or deluded myself that an Alfa would be just the bauble to win the heart of some innocent maiden, assuming there are such remaining in the wild. But I have found myself advising players of both sexes that, should they fall victim to that strange middle-age malady that absolutely demands a motorcycle or at least a two-seat roadster, you could do a lot worse than to scour the want ads for an Alfa. I sing the Duetto! I sing the Spider! I sing the Alfa Graduate!

In fact, it was The Graduate that made so many of my generation into hard-core Alfisti. For genuine loons like me, the car guys who can justify anything when it comes to cars, an Alfa roadster is a screaming bargain. If I had any kids, which I don't--alas, Anna Nicole was otherwise occupied--I would buy them an Alfa Spider and have them take it apart and put it back together, learning Primitive Sports Cars 101 and bonding with the old man. Any kid learning double-clutch downshifting is far too busy to get in trouble down at the pool hall, and any kid putting together a complete collection of Weber jets will not have any money left over for decent drugs.

And when it comes to women--well, I don't know any woman who regrets having fallen for an Alfa and taking the plunge. I know of one acrimonious union from which the plaintiff went away happy because among the spoils she took was an Alfa Giulietta Spider. And I spent a number of years tinkering with and traveling in a genuine Duetto 1600 whose purchase I encouraged.

No, an Alfa is not an Amana, and like any car, it may suffer an interesting variety of maladies. This one went through one differential, two starter motors, and one head gasket over those years. It had one vexing intermittent starting problem that I finally traced to the ignition switch itself, and solved by running a wire from the starter solenoid to a hidden push-button. The owner took these occasional incidents in stride and good humor.

Because top down and the sun a glorious beacon, she could dash about in her Alfa Duetto con gusto, con brio, and all was right with the world. That's what sports cars are all about.

Which is what I told her when she bought it--and I was right. No wonder people ask me for advice.