Posts Tagged ‘Driving’

Pre-Rusty – 4000km in a Fiat 500 Sport

September 17, 2011

Mostly modern cars are not interesting to this site, since they err too far on the trusty side of the rusty-to-trusty spectrum. But every so often, a new car is eye-catching or different enough that it catches my attention. The recently-introduced (to the US market) Fiat 500 is of those. Last month, on a trip to eastern Canada, I had a chance to rent a 500 Sport from Budget (mini sportster, class XF). Having test-driven a 500 Pop when the nearest Fiat dealer first opened, I already had some idea of what to expect, but spending so much time with one in all kinds of situations really gave a full perspective.

Fiat 500 sport on Nutting Rd., Montgomery Center, VT

(more…)

Ballin’ on 14s – 1977 Spider on the 2011 Snowball

May 14, 2011

In what hopefully becomes a tradition, the spider has successfully completed its second road rally. The first was the Mother Lode 400, which I ran with my father last year, and since then most of the spider’s driving has been local and constrained by winter weather. Not that a northern California winter is so tough, but it’s more pleasant to go out in a closed car when it’s cold out. Anyway, the plan was to run the 2011 Snowball in the same high style in which we did the 2010, but it was not to be, since the restoration of the Alfetta’s body was not complete in time.

1977 Alfa Spider and 1948 MG TC

Thanks to Ben Buja for this picture; he got a lot of great shots of the car doing its thing on this 700-mile journey.

(more…)

More like 600 – 2010 Motherlode 400

June 23, 2010

Rarely but rarely, I get the urge to torture myself by actually driving one of the old jalopies in the RustyButTrusty fleet. This time, it was the spider’s turn to do the dirty work (and it was actually quite dirty) and be the ride for my father and me on the 2010 Motherlode 400. Now, you’d think something called the Motherlode 400 would be 400 miles long… but it’s not. It was actually about 300 miles a day, Saturday and Sunday, plus another 300 to get to the start/finish in Jackson/Sonora, CA, respectively.

These weekend drives are actually surprisingly strenuous, on driver, passenger, and car. By the time we reached the top of the 9624-ft. Sonora pass (highly recommend it, it’s like if they put great driving roads in Yosemite – not that I’m suggesting that, but the roads are narrow and the views are tremendous) on the 108, the car was panting and we were doing mostly second gear to keep the power on tap.

motherlode 2010 5

(more…)