I found this tonight while I was writing an article for TTAC. I’m keeping it for myself, and to share with all of you. Just look at it. Easily the coolest photo of the Eighties that doesn’t feature Philip Michael Thomas. Can any of you identify the racetrack? I cannot. Which means it’s either a track that I don’t know well, or one where they’ve really upped the safety-barrier game since 1981.
The Turismo 2.2 was a cool little car. We could use more cars like that on the roads today. Light, agile, fast, and economical without being self-righteous or self-pitying about it. You know what occupies the Turismo’s market segment today? The fucking Honda HR-V.
I don’t recognize the track either, but the background looks a little like the Mont Tremblant area of Quebec, maybe?
My aunt bought one of those new, ‘cept in gold. A later one (a 1987 “Duster”) was my first car in high school. Bought it for $150, and a $150 used cylinder head later and I was on the road. it was towed into the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer (yes, Plymouth still existed back then) with an apparently seized engine. Owner didn’t want to put any money into the car, so after asking me if I wanted it she took my dad’s $150 offer. Hey, even if the engine was seized, a running used carb 2.2 was still peanuts. Turned out that even though the 2.2 was a non-interference engine, this was one of those bad luck times where a broken timing belt did result in an unhappy meeting of the minds between piston and valve, and the valve head broke off. junkyard cylinder head and new timing belt, and it was good to go. needed some more work here and there; the engine was leaking oil from pretty much every gasket and the spool valve was worn out in the steering rack (hard to turn the wheel right) but at the time I was in auto shop in high school so I was able to do all the work myself.
believe me, when you were 16 back then, that 84 horsepower felt like 500. It wasn’t a great car, but it was my first.
Love your $$300 car story .
.
-Nate
Isn’t that Laguna Seca, during an unusually wet season (because of the greenery)? The long winding road in the background looks like the road over the mountain from Carmel Valley Road, Laureles Grade.
These cars were utter shite, with pillowy mousefur seats to match the pillowy suspension. But they sure as hell weren’t anodyne and forgettable and soporific like most things on the road today.
Pretty sure it’s Laguna, looking back down from the entrance to the corkscrew.
I never considered Laguna Seca because it looks far too green, but maybe you’re right. Did California really get that much rain in ’81-’82?
You’ve got to remember they retouched photos even then, though they didn’t have photoshop.
Not a bad choice for “cool duding” in the Eighties. But my vote goes to David Byrne cruising in a convertible Chrysler LeBaron, as seen in his movie True Stories.
Complete with a Texas ten-gallon hat.
That look slays the new look of a skinny dude in chick jeans, wearing a PBR baseball cap.
BTW, this relates to a different recent post of yours, but kudos to Danger Girl for figuring out the starter spring on one of your myriad vehicles…definitely up there in the realm of the fictional expert witness in the movie My Cousin Vinnie.
You ought to consider making you her crew chief for your racing endeavors. For a variety of reasons, all of them good ones.
Glad to hear your life is full of a lot of good and fun things recently.
As a postscript, after recalling Danger Girl’s bold move at the auto rental checkout a few months back, maybe you should consider anointing her as one of your team’s drivers, too.
Hope I haven’t opened up a can of worms, or touched on a sore spot.
But as you have doubtless already concluded, you are onto something good there, with her.
All the best to both of you. As well as to the rest of your family, both close and extended.
“You ought to consider making you her crew chief for your racing endeavors. For a variety of reasons, all of them good ones…”
I second this motion, can we put it to a vote?
I typo’d my recommendation, but the meaning was clear.
But I must say that I am flattered to have had my idea seconded by the great Christian “Mental” Ward, another writer and human being for whom I have the greatest respect.
Christian, your article about your ride that went against all your rules caused me a great deal of introspection and review of past choices, as well as of who I still am sometimes in spite of my best efforts.
I just wasn’t into trying to put that process into words the way I sometimes do when triggered by some of Jack’s introspection, but rest assured that your piece definitely was fodder for some careful analysis of who I am, who I want to be, and what I must do to continue to move in that direction.
As Dylan famously said “he not busy being born is busy dying.”
And because I have been blessed with a special wife, a great son, and many good friends of varying degrees of closeness, I choose to be busy being born, til the day I die.
Hope your crank out more writing, Christian, now that you are so-called retired.
I had that exact car. My first new car purchase. Fun little car.
When I was in college, I had a friend with a late ’80’s Daytona Shelby. That was a quick little car for the time, and she drove the hell out of it.
I was surprised to see it only had about 170 hp.
My first car was an ’85 Charger hatchback, 2.2 automatic, it’s proud red flanks faded into a fleshy pink by the angry upstate NY sun. It ran on three cylinders (a new cam and valvetrain fixed that), cranked by pushing a duct-taped button snaking out of the dash, and cost $375.
Her name was Hazel and I loved her, even after she caught fire on the Thruway. Even when she was replaced by both a turbo Daytona and a turbo New Yorker. Even today.
I rode in a few of these back in the day, plus my brother had one or two that he wrecked. Not bad, but all the cool kids were driving 15 year old iron ass muscle cars with monster V-8’s. I had many a child pull up wanting to drag race their new turbo against my 440 Magnum. Didn’t go so well for them.
Of course, being South Texas rednecks, we didn’t care about cornering, comfort, or gas mileage. Big engines and/or 4×4 was the only things we cared about back then.
The game remains the same.
Just today, had a small rice rocket with full-on resonator exhaust weave in and out of lanes to roll past my still agile Panther (97 Grand Marquis).
As the street racing gods would have it, we ended up side by side at the next red light.
Him revving and flexing, me with a full load of equipment in the trunk, and passengers in the cabin. Just before the light changed, I wound up the torque converter just enough to be noticeable.
Light changes…game on.
I wasn’t going to run him full out to way over the speed limit, just a little hole shot fun.
From the moment the light changed, I was close to a full length (of my 20 ft boat, not his 12 ft rollerskate) ahead of him, and slowly pulling away.
As we rounded a curve, instead of him pulling alongside me at the next light, he suddenly decided he needed to turn right without signalling.
It was clear that he had been confident that his approximately ton and a half skate with that tightly wound rubber band motor was going to thrash the old dude in his geezer car, weighing in over two tons, plus an additional quarter ton of passengers.
As the old time newspaper articles used to conclude: “a good time was had by all.”
Well, almost all.
Not being mean-spirited, I just hope he didn’t spend a lot of money tricking out his ride, other than that window-rattler exhaust system.
Panthers with 2.73 rear ends aren’t the fastest thing in the world off the line. But they do have a very broad power band/torque curve, and they don’t have to shift until they are somewhere in the fifties. The ricer had used up three gears by the time he hit fifty or sixty, with me clearly ahead of him.
You have to love a rolling sofa with enough grunt to avoid being embarrassed by cars with coffee can exhausts.
I only wish I had the time and/or the money to really hop up my Panther. But for a car that was basically just acquired from an original owner, the car does nicely anyway.
And I am willing to bet the beast can outcorner most of the stanced marvels of this decade, too boot.
This brings back memories. First car was a 79 horizon TC3 with the 1.7 L rabbit motor in Cadet blue. Total piece of crap but I loved it. Swiss cheese floors, not watertight in the rain, and chewed through transaxles for which gaskets were no longer made. Beat a new corvette (91) on the freeway one night because I was willing to act in a totally irresponsible manner in heavy traffic.