Featuring: Jack B. and Bark M.
Subscribers to the newest issue of Hagerty Magazine will see my byline with a piece entitled “SCCA And The Struggle To Endure”. Shortly after its publication, I received an absolutely irate email from noted club racer and bon vivant Toly Arutunoff. He called it “purple prose” and “bull puckey”. See what all the fuss is about — and read it today!
I had the pleasure of reviewing the new skeleton watches from Jacquet Jaquet Droz in this month’s Watch Journal. They’re not exactly my personal style (I’ve been dividing time between a Tudor Black Bay Bronze and a hilarious, but super-useful, gold-ion-plated Seiko Casio “All Metal” G-Shock) but if you like the idea of wearing something completely unique and easily recognizable, you’ll want to, uh, borrow twenty grand and buy one!
Oh, this is bittersweet. As I’ve noted previously, Road&Track changed leadership (and office location) in January, just after I accepted a gig working for Hagerty but before I started the job. The R&T change wasn’t entirely for the good — David Zenlea, Matthew dePaula, and Nate Petroelje were all genuine assets to the magazine in my opinion, and they’ve all found places where their talents will be valued — but the past few years had been rough from a leadership and vision standpoint. Now that Travis Okulski is in charge I think the outlook for the magazine is brighter than it’s been in a few years.
When Travis called me with the news I asked — no, scratch that, I begged for a couple of slots in what would be his first issue of R&T as well as my last one. He was kind enough to oblige.
Guessing the future is a tricky business; just ask any of the major media collectives that predicted a President Hillary with certainty ranging from ninety-four to ninety-nine percent. As the man once said, the future’s uncertain and the end is always near. Another example: Back in August of 2015 I ruled out the possibility of a Wrangler pickup with such certainty that I blush in retrospect at the contemplation of it. About this time last year, I admitted defeat and tried to figure out who would buy the Gladiator. Having seen the specs, I’ve revised my ideas about the potential customers just a little.
This month’s issue of R&T serves as a perfect illustration of why I wanted to work for a car magazine when I was a teenager. Two tests, one West Coast and one East Coast, featuring two transcendent sporting automobiles and one pretty good one.
I could take or leave the whole Singer Por-sha phenomenon, but Preston Lerner does some great work tracking the development of their newest take on the air-cooled engine. What’s depressing about the article is that Porsche themselves should be able to do anything that Williams F1 can do. We were told 20 years ago that EU noise regulations were the reason that the air-cooled engine could not continue. The real reason was, most likely, cost. The M96 engine costs half as much as its predecessor, and the current mill is probably cheaper still. Can you imagine a modern GT3RS with the Singer/Williams engine? It’s enough to make me a Por-sha fan again.
This is the ADVENTURE issue of R&T so naturally it features an ADVENTURE BIKE doing ADVENTUROUS things. If you’re not ready for that level of adventure, however, may I show you something from our Milder Adventure Department?
The ever-perceptive Mr. Klockau found this Fleetwood Talisman for sale in Amarillo. Those of you us listen to George Strait — that did not include your humble author until he met a country girl from New Mexico — will no doubt be reminded of the relevant song.
If you’re bored today, here are some links to my last Fleetwood Talisman adventure:
For various inside-baseball reasons which do not merit discussion in these pages, I have been working hard over the past year at diversifying the outlets to which I contribute. The first fruit of this was my inclusion in the rebooted Issue One of Cycle World. Here’s another example.
This month’s issue has all sorts of supercar and superstar stuff in it, most notably another sentimental and fascinating piece on Alois Ruf and his work by Sam Smith, but the dedicated reader will eventually work his way back to page 56 where you can read my investigation of a thoroughly diverse luxury trio. Each of them is impressive in its own right but it was the Navigator Black Label that made the strongest argument for a space in my driveway. It could replace the Silverado and a luxury car to be named later. Of course, for the $100,315 sticker price, you could get my Silverado plus a gently used Lexus LS460 or Mercedes S550.
Life is full of tough choices when you’re rich! Since I’m not rich, I’m going to keep the fleet just the way it is. My days of running a pair of brand-new full-sized Germans at any given time are long gone. On the other hand, one of my readers just alerted me to a couple of leftover 2017 Accord V6 6MT coupes in California. Surely there’s no harm in having three of those, right?