A Master's craft

Sadly, the age of master craftsmen and women are coming to an end.

Trades like blacksmithing and glassblowing are being reduced to artist avenues rather than practical application; as automation replaces human hands, it removes the finer beauty of a craft that made it intrinsically...human.

I know I’m sounding a little too ‘boo-hoo’ about systems that make our lives and the means of producing materials easier. I should remember that I’m writing this from a laptop and not an early 18th-century printing press (which is also a cool craft that has been lost in time!!) and thanks to automation we have sweet movies like Terminator 2.

But, while modernization means thousands of cars can be built every day, it also muscles out a century-old profession: coachbuilding.

Back in ‘ye olde days’ a buyer would take a rolling chassis (which could be purchased directly from some manufacturers) to a coachbuilding company. Working with the coachbuilders, customers would customize their new car as far as their budget and imagination could take them. The resulting incredible machines meant that the mid-1930’s onward were awash with unique designs and handbuilt ingenuity.

As automobile regulations and standards evolved, coachbuilding became more and more difficult. Cars that had their bodies built into the chassis provided smoother rides and were safer than their older counterparts, but made customization much more difficult. Having the money to have a car built, having the time to build one, and finding a proper coachbuilding shop was for the wealthy. As coachbuilding for the masses dwindled into history, so did the masters.

Of course, the art of customizing cars never died. Human imagination and creativity made sure of that. And, as long as those two aspects of humanity survive, so will the market for masters who can turn imagination into reality.

Jim Simpson is such a modern day master, and his craft is very close to my heart. His Whidbey Island company converts Mazda Miatas into beautiful Italian-influenced machines built to thrill in old-fashioned brilliance. Can you tell I’m a little bias?

Since 1978 Jim has been customizing, building, and designing cars from all over the world. His experience as a Ferrari mechanic and designer at Mazda provides him with an eye for design very few other people have. In fact, it was just one line on the body of his wife’s Miata that inspired him to the build his first Daytona Spyder prototype.  

His fiberglass creations do not flaunt the typical ‘kit car’ flavor that many are familiar with. Rather, the conversion is much deeper and the results hardly resemble the car that it started out as. The process starts with discussing the desires of the customer. The Miata is, according to myself and Jim, one of the greatest sports cars because of how it makes you feel; the sensations that transfer from the car to between your ears reveals itself via smiles. Many, many smiles. Jim’s goal is to provide customers with an even more enhanced sense of driveability and passion, which is clearly shown in the extreme level of detail in his cars.

After drawings have been completed and a design is agreed upon, Jim builds replica models of the car-to-be. Miatas are tiny, but these will fit in your hand. They provide a physical representation of what the car will look like when completed, rather than trying to visualize through 2-D drawings.  

Next, Jim takes the ‘donor’ car (any model Miata except the newest ND car) and strips it of almost everything other than the motor, transmission, and chassis. Body panels? Gone. Interior? Not here. Quite unlike the plug-and-play of kit cars, his modifications replace the original body panels and factory interior.

He then shapes steel into the forms that the new fiberglass body will take. Building the ‘plug’ as it’s called, is the most time consuming part of the four-to-six-week build. However, when the fiberglass panels are completed, the assembly of the new car goes quickly. The interior, trim, and paint are then all done to the customer’s wishes.

What would your dream interior look like? Courtesy of Simpson Design.

At the end of the build, a strong, taunt, well-built Miata that now looks like a bedroom-wall poster has replaced the Japanese convertible. The process took days, a trained hand, patience, and creativity - it is truly a piece of art. His cars have been sold all over the world, including as far as Asia and the Middle East.

The smell of leather, the gorgeous lines of the body, the stainless steel exhaust pipes barking and the feel of a classic wood steering wheel; masters of the craft like Jim create art that electrifies all of the senses, minus taste. Don’t lick your car. But these creations may be for an earlier generation. Jim used to offer kits, but the market has almost completely died. Perhaps most people no longer have the dedication or patience to undergo such a large project.

The Swift. In Jim’s words, the two-seater lacks a roof and complicated interior; it is truly a classic racer for the road. Courtesy of Simpson Design.

Thankfully, there is no sign of Jim slowing down. His message to drivers everywhere: “Enjoy the experience. Enjoy the car.” The utilitarian attitude is fine, but Jim’s cars like the Swift can be so much more than a means of getting from A to B; they can evoke emotion. Jim and coachbuilders like him are proof that cars can be just as beautiful and unique as the imagination that dreamt up the design in the first place.

Blue Bolts of Brilliant Beastliness

    It doesn’t take a crystal ball or Dr. Strange’s time-jumping to see that the future of the automobile will be saturated in all-electric models in the not-so-distant future. Big car manufacturers like Nissan, BMW, Honda and others are beginning to churn out electric vehicles (EV’s) in greater numbers and a handful of countries are set to ban the sales of gas and diesel powered cars by as early as 2020.

    For the motoring enthusiast, this can seem like a dismal future indeed. If you search ‘sporty’ in a thesaurus, EV’s like the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt are nowhere in sight. In fact, even Tesla’s Roadster was met with mediocre reviews when it was introduced in 2008; I remember watching Jeremy Clarkson dismantle the poor thing as a Lotus Elise drove circles around it. Even Elon Musk himself admitted the Roadster was far from a success.

    The issues most people found with the Roadster was that the technology just wasn’t there yet. The range, the power, the sheer weight of the car, all pushed consumers back towards their dinosaur-guzzling cousins. Gasoline-blooded drivers sighed in relief, grateful that their louder and faster cars would live to see another day.

    However, that ‘other day’ is here. The Roadster is coming back, EV ranges continue to expand with each new model and the new wave of hypercars are found with hybrid engines that produce less carbon dioxide than the Toyota Prius. Formula E, an all-electric racing series based loosely on Formula 1, is growing too. It may be less than 30 years before we start to see electric cars outnumber and even out range the petrol cars we’ve grown up with.  

    But wait, you say. What if I want burnouts? Wheelies? Gut-twisting torque? These are hardly synonymic with penguins and emissions! Won’t the fun become quiet?

    Unlike Dan McLean, we won’t have to sing about the day the music (or in our case, the sports car) died. Enter Jeff Lane of Hancock and Lane Racing. He, with the help of his team and Patrick McCue, have built an electric Camaro that goes in a straight line very quickly.

It’s called the eCOPO Camaro and it’s very blue. ‘COPO’ stands for Central Office Production Order, and unlike the Dodge Demon, which is a dragstrip beast for the road, the COPO isn’t allowed to see civilized life. GM built 69 drag-ready Camaros in 1969 with massive ZL-1 V-8 hearts and they dominated their racing divisions. 1969 was the only year the COPO lived, but GM resurrected the COPO name in 2012 when they took a 5th-generation Camaro and turn it into a dragstrip monster. Since then GM has made 69 Camaro COPO’s every year that are eligible to compete in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Super Eliminator classes.

The eCOPO idea was pitched by Lane and McCue at the 2017 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) to GM who was all for it. McCue has built a number of electric drag cars with the help of his high school students (like the ‘Shock and Awe’ which goes down in history as the coolest name for a race car ever) and wanted someone with the experience and build expertise Lane has. So, they teamed up with GM to create an all-electric drag racer. The only hiccup was that GM wanted to use their own electric motor so that they could eventually offer the eCOPO as another option in their three car COPO lineup. That’s a key aspect of the eCOPO; it shares the same chassis, transmission and suspension of its COPO brothers and sisters. GM hopes to offer the eCOPO motor as a crate option for someone wanting to try the silent-but-deadly powertrain.

Of course, the eCOPO holds many more batteries than the gas-powered contemporaries. Four battery modules live in the car, with two behind the driver and passenger seats and two in the trunk. Each module holds 48 batteries for a grand total of 192 batteries capable of producing 800 volts. To translate into driver-talk, the eCOPO produces a quietly teeth-chattering 700 horsepower and 600 lb/ft of torque. To translate that into normal people talk, this electric car will pull wheelies.

Lane and company’s biggest tuning challenge is keeping all of that power from spinning the wheels for eternity. The eCOPO must have 9-inch tires according to the race class rules, which can make it especially tricky. Even worse is how electric motors physically work. Time for a very brief science lesson.

In gasoline cars, torque and horsepower increase as the engine revs higher. Many cars, like my Miata, have the most torque available around 3,500 and 4,200 RPM. This means that the tires started experiencing power for a few hundredths of a second before the maximum amount of torque was being applied - as the engine revs from from idle to 3,500 RPM.

Electric motors can use all 100% of their torque the instant your foot touches the ‘zoom’ pedal because there is no ‘revving’ their motors.  For Tesla drivers and the occasional free-spirited Leaf owner, this makes traffic lights more enjoyable because you can jump off the line really quickly. For the eCOPO’s crazy torque, it means Lane and the team have to fine-tune how much torque is being sent to the wheels - sort of replicating the bell-curve that is created by gasoline engines - in roughly 6 milliseconds.  

Clearly, my career will not be in graph making.

The tuning is done through programming, unlike other dragsters which have spark plugs to clean and intakes to manage. GM is soon to send the eCOPO team a management system that will be able to help the car run more efficiently and report more information to help with tuning.

All of this results in sub-10 second quarter mile runs at around 130 miles per hour...at less than 90 percent power. The process is a delicate balance of physics and efficiency; suspension, tires, motor power and aerodynamics must come together to keep as much power on the road as possible. In my juvenile mind I imagined a big dial somewhere on the dashboard that the driver cranks to ‘100’ and a bunch of red flashing lights come on and instead of engine noise ‘Kickstart My Heart’ erupts from the sound system. I digress.

As with everything battery powered, there is a limit to how many times the eCOPO can tear up a dragstrip. At full charge, the blue beast can do about three runs at max potential before needing a charge. Luckily for the eCOPO, there are a lot of long breaks between races which gives the car plenty of time to top off the batteries. Plug it in after a race and it’ll be ready in 15 to 20 minutes.

The eCOPO is going to be exciting to watch for all gear-heads and electrical fans alike. Like the Porsche 918 and BMW i8, it takes Polar Bear-friendly technologies and couples it with performance. Over the next number of months I bet we will see more and more of this Camaro, and perhaps some competitors who also see the electric wave coming. Who knows how long it’ll be before we have more electric racing divisions? Thanks to Jeff Lane and cars like the eCOPO, I’m actually looking forward to it.

Long Live Pop-up Headlights!

Long Live Pop-Up Headlights!

I have watched too many hours of Top Gear (Hammond, May, Clarkson) to sit in a car and not mentally review my experience in it. To a fault, I get lost in the details and my television voice starts yapping about horsepower, the heritage or whatever else I know about the vehicle. It’s pretty embarrassing. Maybe I can swindle some poor folks to pay me do just that in the future, but unfortunately Porsche and Ferrari have declined letting a young kid like myself sit behind the wheel of their newest models.

That being said, I have a very kind neighbor who owns his own Porsche that he let me drive (*gasp*). While I would love to give it the ol’ nitty-gritty and detail each part of his car, I think that’s a little unfair. After all, it’s a 200,000-mile red Porsche 944 that was daily driven, though loved and handled with care. He refers to it with a shrug and toss over the shoulder attitude, but 944’s are a little guilty pleasure of mine. Their unique development history and raw ingredients for driver feel make them dark horse smiles-per-mile thrills.

I say ‘dark horse’ but the truth is, until the Boxster and 997 Carrera took the spotlight, the 944 was Porsche’s most popular model. More than 160,000 were sold during their lifespan between 1982 and 1991. The front-engined, rear-wheel drive layout certainly made some Porsche purists snuff their snouts, but Porsche’s goal was to bridge the gap between the more modest 924 (from which the 944 is based off of) and the sporty 911 SC. To make those noses extra snuffy, the 944 hit the nail on the head; the modern design and Porsche-built 2.5 liter four-cylinder caught the eye of drivers everywhere and many (like this one) can still be found zipping up and down highways today.

It doesn’t take much to notice that the general shape of Porsche’s since the 356 in the late 1940’s hasn’t changed very much. To many, this a good thing; the 911’s of yesteryear are just as striking and gawk-able as the newest GT race cars for the road. To others, the repetitive shapes lazily hail back to Porsche’s not-so-distant cousin: the Volkswagen Beetle.  

The 944’s design is anything but lazy. For me, pop-up headlights are the cheapest way into my heart and the 944 has a whole two of them. The leather seats hug you and the acres of trunk space in the back make for good visibility and hint at fastback styling. For a luxury sports car, it’s easy to split it 70 luxury, 30 sporty. Unless there is a fresh blanket of snow and you’ve got studded winter tires. Then it’s about a billion out of 10 on the sporty scale.

Porsche’s focus is revealed through the motor. The 944’s first road test was actually during the 24 Hours of LeMans and was named the 924 GTP LeMans after Porsche failed to meet homologation standards for the 924’s platform. The 924 GTP had ditched the 2-liter Audi motor for Porsche’s own power plant, which was much more fuel efficient and produced a brutal 410 horsepower (out of four [4!] cylinders). The 924 GTP placed an impressive 7th overall, tackling opponents with twice the cylinders.

The GTP was retired to a museum, but proved that Porsche’s front engine sports car theory could actually work. Most importantly, the 2.5 inline four could play with the big boys. They may not be the most expensive or exotic Porsches (or even most exotic front-engine Porsches) but to me the 944 is an excellent bargain for German fun. A sporty look, throaty four-banger and (be still, my heart) pop-up headlights is the perfect melting pot for old-school fun. Maybe I can car-sit this red rocket some other time, eh?

4C or not 4C

When people ask me what my dream car is, I have a very hard time answering. Normally I start playing 20 Questions with whoever asked me to figure out the details of this hypothetical vehicle. “Do I have to pay for gas? How are the roads where I live? Can I garage it? Do I have kids?” Once I’ve whittled down the situation I can make an educated guess. Even still, the question tends to produce smoke from my eyes accompanied by a mechanical grinding noise.

However, last week at Jake’s Pickup a member of the Cars and Coffee group brought an Alfa Romeo 4C. Like a flock of bewildered geese we wandered out into the rain-soaked parking lot to -ooh and -aah at the deep-red, deeply Italian two-seater. For almost an hour we gawked, beads of water covering the Alfa and dripping down it’s curvy sides in some weirdly seductive dance.

I am unashamed to declare that on that very wet Thursday morning I discovered a new favorite car. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. A BMW M2 and Porsche 911 shared the same lot but went largely unnoticed by me (not to say they aren’t pretty as well!!). I loved the wheels and the red brake calipers that had ‘Alfa Romeo’ painted on them. The extra-wide booty housed the extra-big exhausts and taillights. The small, ‘Alfa’-style nose and grill caught my heart, as well as the semi-circle steering wheel. I might be the only person ever to fall for a car and have the steering wheel be a reason why.

I am entirely aware that there may be better choices of car for the price you are paying with an Alfa 4C. There may be prettier cars out there as well, but that’s entirely subjective (although I will not let anyone tell me a Hummer H3 is a pretty car. It just isn’t.). As I drove home in a foggy, Alfa-filled daze I realized why I fell so hard for the 4C. And it starts with what you can’t see on the outside.

My favorite cars I have ever driven are the ones that allow me to be apart of the car. Maybe I’m just young and my back hasn’t given out and I don’t have wonky knees, but what I love about cars like Miatas (bias warning) is how much you can feel while you are driving them. You can feel the car’s momentum over hills, the steering is such that you know exactly where the tires are pointing, the engine is small enough to be pushed on public roads. Normally, this translates into uncomfortable cruising when you are not driving like Steve McQueen; my car is too loud on the road, not too comfy over long stretches, and can only seat one other (medium-sized) human being. But to me, that’s what sells a car to my heart. When car makers strip out everything to focus on the pure exhilaration of driving, that’s what raises my eyebrows. And it seems like that’s what Alfa has done with the 4C.

When they were building the 4C, Alfa’s attention to saving weight was a little bit…extreme. Most of the car is carbon fiber which is very light and very strong. There is no unnecessary weight and Alfa wants it to stay that way - the front hood doesn’t open. Normally, rear-engine cars like Porsches use the front as the trunk. Not in the Alfa. It’s like someone took Terry Crews and squished him down into a car; there’s just no extra fat anywhere. Terry Crews likely produces more power than the 4C (I don’t believe this is factually supported) which introduces the next reason why I love this car. It looks like an Italian supercar, built to slaughter tracks like Spa or the Nürburgring. But, open the rear hatch and you have to squint to see the teeny-weeny 1.7 liter 4-cylinder turbocharged engine. Alfa has managed to squeeze 237 horsepower out of the little gem, which will also get you up to the mid-30s in miles per gallon. Alfa’s dedication to weight didn’t stop there. They removed power steering completely which, like Jalopnik’s Patrick George, I am thrilled about.

If there was ever a modern sports car made specifically for driver experience, the Alfa Romeo 4C is it. It’s lightness, barking 4-pot, carbon-fiber body and lack of power steering may produce some question marks to V-8 enthusiasts, but it is perfect for folks like me. As oil prices continue to climb and cylinders are swapped for turbochargers (BMW M-series are a great example) I hope to see more cars with this same formula. Light weight, lighter on the power, heavy on the smiles. Order up!

A Journalist, an Inventor, and an Unemployed Kid Walk Into a Bar...

Technically, Jake’s Pickup isn’t a bar. In fact, if we ignore the lack of alcohol, the only thing that resembles a watering hole is the bar counter facing the 350 square-foot kitchen. However, it IS the perfect place to grab a delicious, completely homemade breakfast and talk cars. It’s even located in a gas station.

The title ‘Cars and Coffee’ leaves little to imagine what could go on at these weekly Thursday morning gatherings. At its core, it’s just a group of car enthusiasts chatting over warm drinks and munching on items from Jake’s menu. The two wood tables in the dining area are routinely encircled by eight to ten folks, sporting either Porsche magazines or matchbox cars depending on the day.

To most, it might seem a little…dare I say…boring?

First, I’d agree with you; it might seem a little monotonous. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘Cars and Coffee’ and not ‘Cars and Warm Milk’. However, I’d argue that there is something sociologically important going on at Jake’s.

The ‘car culture’ isn’t necessarily dying, but it is changing dramatically and is fueled by technologies. I argue that this evolution is good for the most part, but we can’t toss out lessons from the analog world as we move into a more digital one. Modern cars are more technologically advanced than ever before and require more specialized maintenance. Tesla can even run a software test from anywhere in the world to see every detail, every issue in your car as it sits in your driveway. Gone are the days when you could substitute an oil filter for a full roll of toilet paper. (Note: don’t do this.)

From what I’ve learned from talking to people my age, technologies make cars too scary to turn into a hobby. I got lucky; my grandfather built hotrods and restored classics, so I was around the ‘just fix the dang car’ attitude. Impala not starting? Some WD-40 and slap on the taillight should get it working. Whenever something breaks on my stuff, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty unless it’s some highly specialized piece of electronic equipment. So, I understand why young people don’t have the time or effort to work on and invest in their cars, especially as cars get more complicated. I totally get it.

I’m not condemning modern technology in cars. I’m certainly on board for more eco-friendly motors and using recyclable materials, touch-screens and safety features. Heck, being from the Pacific Northwest I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t cold; seat warmers are a gift from Heaven above. I do think that, as cars become more complicated, they lose their anthropomorphic character. When I pop the hood of my dad’s new F-150 it’s like looking into the heart of Skynet. ‘Is that the block?’ ‘No, son, that’s the flux capacitor.’ Instead of a welcoming engine bay, there’s plastics, motherboards and a nightmare. I typically squeak and shuffle back inside the house, too scared that if I loosen a single bolt I’ll deploy the passenger eject feature (only a $500 dollar option).

The folks who come to Jake’s are from a much more hands-on car world. Problems were fixed with oily fingers and weekends were spent trying to get a buddie’s Ford running again. I don’t mean to sound nostalgic, considering I never lived during those years in the first place. But I think there is some human element, something almost anthropomorphic, that isn’t as prevalent today. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog, to record the stories of past gearheads who experienced different worlds than I do today.

As time continues and new generations of car nuts take the wheels, they become their own time capsules. What happens each Thursday at Jake’s Pickup isn’t just some friends showing off their newest toys. It’s a capsule of stories from a different generation of car enthusiasts that will soon be replaced by a new generation. At this incredibly unique junction of old and new, I am grateful to see both what was, and what is to come.

Cars and Coffee and Leaky Miatas

I love classic rock. Led, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, The Who (who?), Dire Straits the list goes on and on. But to be a millennial and love that genre is a little…weird. People think I’m ‘above’ modern music (no, seriously) or that I’d rather live in the past than experience the present. They’re only sort of wrong. While I can’t listen to anyone named ‘Lil fill-in-the-blank’ for more than about 20 seconds, I can groove to some Audioslave (what?? that’s modern to me) or Macklemore. So when somebody places me on music duty, I freeze up. Where do I belong?

It’s the same when it comes to cars.

I love what cars do to people. I love why people love cars. They can be a challenge or a joy, but almost always it’s both. My first fun sports car was a ‘95 Miata that should have killed me at least 300 times over. It was too low, too loud, too obnoxious and too much stinkin’ fun. It had character… Unfortunately, it also had a leaky headgasket, crappy radiator, coilovers made from cement, and drank enough oil to catch the eye of the U.S. government. As I fixed, poked, prodded and worked on that car, I learned new expletives and new passions. I learned the frustrating and rewarding aspects of dirty, oily, grimy fingertips, and I loved it.

Having ‘cars’ as a passion seems to be considered old-school. There’s a whole multi-volume dissertation to be written about how the role of automobiles have changed in society. To me, they seem less and less like LEGOs and more and more like the newest iPhone; and to some degree, I’m right. Ask a 14-year-old what a carburetor is and they’ll confidently answer it’s what powered the Millennium Falcon. Ask the same kid to change an oil filter and he’ll scream ‘YEET!’ before scurrying away to play Clash of Clans. It’s just not what folks are curious about as much nowadays.

I love Star Wars, I love modern car gizmos, but I also love the tinker-ability of classics. I’m caught between modern and old school. Where do I belong?

Bainbridge Island doesn’t sound like the most interesting place in the world, car-speaking. The 10-mile-long island’s top speed limit is 50, which is probably the average age of the people living there. However, as I discovered at an appropriately rainy cars and coffee, Bainbridge’s car scene is a gold mine of interesting people, fascinating stories, and jaw-dropping automobiles. By far the youngest on the Bainbridge Cars and Coffee Facebook group, it sometimes feels like I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone; I might be one of the few in the group that never got to see the show air live. However, as a youngster with wide eyes and an easily-satisfied appetite for beautiful cars, Bainbridge Island’s car story is worth telling. In the most interesting time of the automobile, I find myself right smack in the middle of the old(er) and the new. It’s fun, exciting, and a bit confusing.

It’s where I belong.