In 1962 I was in the Navy stationed at the Ordinance Test Station in China Lake, out in the Mojave desert. I was barely 20 years old and had eyes for a young lady that worked in the photo lab where I was, along with several hundred others. I was flirting with her one day, threatening to pull her pony tail. She whipped around so quick, shoved all 210 pounds of me against the wall, and simply said in a stern voice, "Don't!" I didn't, apologized, and sheepishly left the room in a hurry. Several hours later she quietly asked me to follow her outside. There she explained that the year prior, she had taken a 61 Corvair over a cliff and the rear scalp and skull cap of her head was lost somewhere in the canyon below where the car stopped, on top of her. She had had a blowout, and she readily admitted that she had overreacted and overcorrected, causing her to spinout and go over the side. She never did blame the car, but her parents did, and after many years in court was awarded a settlement. We became close friends after that, but we never talked about the accident again. I knew it was a very touchy subject with her. And, I never mentioned the pony tail again :-)
In the late 80's I had a chance to buy a later model Monza with the turbo charger, but was simply afraid to do so. Wish I had now. Walt On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: > > On Aug 30, 2012, at 2:04 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote: > >> Utter nonsense. It's one nincompoop's list. The 1961 Corvair, for example, >> is there only because an idiot wrote a book. And the 1995 Explorer is there >> by virtue of some bad tires. But since these cars are so awful, I'll take >> the Series III XKE V12 off someone's hands or that Biturbo Maserati. Hell, >> I'm even willing to shoulder the burden of a Ferrari Mondial. > > My understanding is that there were indeed some issues with the early > corvairs, though not nearly as bad as a particular egocentric attention whore > would have liked you to believe. As I said, some of the most interesting > cars were also on the list. The elite was designed to win races, and it has > been argued that if a racecar didn't fall apart on the cool down lap, then it > was too heavy making it more robust than it needed to be. Chapman was > absolutely brilliant in that way, and I'd love to see a modern version of the > Elite, made with modern materials and technology. Out of a motor the size > and weight of the Coventry Climax 1.3 (originally designed for water pumps > for fire fighting) you could probably get two or three times the horsepower > today, on street fuel, without forced induction. > > I'd much rather have a six cylinder e-type (Jag never made a car it called > the XKE) than a v-12. They were faster. I'd love to upgrade one with modern > engine management, and a few other tech upgrades as a track car. > > >> Paul >> >> On Aug 30, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Larry Colen wrote: >> >>> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1658545,00.html >>> >>> They also have some of the most interesting cars on this list too. >>> -- >>> Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> PDML@pdml.net >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > -- > Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
