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| View of the airplanes' approach to LAX, from the 7th floor of the LA County Courthouse next to the airport. The freeway in front is the 105 & the 405 is just visible on the middle-right... |
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| Manhattan Beach pier, looking down from the hill just above the pier... Cloudy but nice (not too hot). |
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| So many little detail pieces in the corner of the 2002. Even the fuel cap is a polished alloy piece with the BMW logo stamped into it... Love the round multi-function tail light units. Looks good on such a "square" looking car. |
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| Never really liked the 4-spoke 911 steering wheel. This early one with the simple horn button (leather covered with the Porsche logo) is one of the nicer versions of this wheel. This same wheel was used on all the 914s, with a different horn button. |
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| Looks like a customer steel flare job on a 914. Looks to be really well done. Doesn't have the "square" look of the factory flares. |
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| This is a modern Volvo 6-cyl engine swap into an old 240 series Volvo. A really nice swap. It seems to "just fit." |
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| This 356 late B/early C steering wheel may be my favorite Porsche wheel of all time... |
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| Similar to the 2002 rear, in that there's a lot of detail going on... |
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| This 914-6 (with European spec. tail lamp lenses - amber turn signal lights versus the US spec. which were red) is nicer than new... |
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| A lot of the tastefully modified early 911s seem to have period aftermarket 3-spoke steering wheels. |
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| I think this is correct for a late 356 cabriolet. Note the red paint around the inside of the windshield framing on a car with a blue exterior. |
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| Super neat looking engine and installation in this Cobra kit car. |
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| This MGA Series II car didn't have it's hood open but the trunk lid has an added on modern engine badge (1.8L?) that hints at a modern drivetrain swap. This car is a perfect candidate for such a swap (body on frame car with a live solid axle & the whole car is very simply designed and constructed under the skin -- the front floor "pans" under the feet are pieces of plywood). |
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| This car has the same wheels as my car in the driveway (they're optional alloy wheels made by Mahle -- famous for making pistons...). |
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| Note the mesh on both the front and rear of the engine lid. My 914 is body color sheetmetal in the front portion. I don't recall ever seeing a factory car with this feature... |
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| This is a closeup of a part of the engine compartment on an original NSX. I was surprised to see the crappy looking weld above the fuse box. This car was made completely out of aluminum (mostly stampings) & aluminum is harder to weld than steel but still the quality of this weld is pretty crude... Many parts of this car is completely the opposite (like the aluminum cast and formed suspension pieces). |
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| Late '80s BMW Z1. One of the most unique door designs of all time (maybe the MOST unique?) on a production vehicle (the Kaiser Darrin's doors come to mind as another candidate...). When I started my first job working in the design center at Fords in Dearborn, they had one of these. I did a project doing a survey of design center employees comparing the design features of the Z1 versus other products. |
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| This late '60s Karman Ghia's engine bay is nicer than most cars exteriors... |
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| Wheels made by Campagnolo (famous bicycle components manufacturer) -- This diversification for Campagnolo did not work out too well (They were good alloy wheels but I don't think they were able to make money doing the business; they stopped making wheels after a short time...). Campagnolo is still around and still famous for their bicycle racing drivetrains (deraileurs, brakes, etc. -- i.e. group sets, and also wheels). Interesting to see them on a BMW 2002... |
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| Early XKE engine bay. WAY nicer than it ever was new... Earlier this year, I bought a pair of valve covers for this engine. They do look very nice polished. |
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| Highly modified 914 interior. This car has a 911 engine swap... |
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| Supposedly, this wrench has the nickname of the "peanut butter wrench" |
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| This is a very small tool with a built in file... |
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| Had not heard of Galion before. Looked it up & it's a very old name (late 1800s) and is a truck body company. |
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| VAR is a French bicycle tool company. This is a headset plier used to turn the "knurled" portion of a threaded headset. |
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| This is a very small push-to-release quick release pin. Looks kinda like an aerospace/airplane type of tool... |
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| Made in Bellflower; Motorcycle/Bicycle spoke wrench... |
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| This is a large bore gauge made by Mitutoyo (it's maked USA though...). Maybe about a 3.5 to 6.5 inch range? (haven't measured it) |
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| I've heard good things about this drill bit sharpening tool. At the very low used purchase price, it's worth trying out... |
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| Took these to a wire wheel. Cleaned up pretty good... |
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| Lancia Flaminia |
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| I have the dash from this car with the same gauges (I don't have all the trim and switches though...). I bought it for the gauges. They're some of the best looking gauges ever... |
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| A guy was selling a 1990 ZR-1 & was asking $16,500. This generation of Corvette is one of the worst for quality/durability (I drove one sometimes when I worked at GM to do work related errands; it was a "pool" car. I hated driving the one we had. What a piece of junk... Fast but still a piece of junk to drive in almost every way...). This twin-double overhead cam, 4-valves per cylinder V8 was designed by Lotus (which was owned by GM around that time) and was built by Mercury Marine (who had the production capacity). This is a pretty cool engine, although it didn't have huge output, compared to what's common today, but it's supposed to rev like a twin cam 4-valve engine... It's huge though. The drivetrain from this car would be cool to put under a sleeper sedan (like my 1964 Mercedes. Just pipe-dreams...). |
