Exciting times in the month of May

On May 1^st our Alfetta finished 10^th out of 39 in the first vintage race of the season at Gingerman Raceway in South Haven. First would have been better, but all in good time.

Our second daughter, Stella, was born on May 14^th at 1:46 am. She came along so quickly I almost had to deliver her myself in the front seat of our old Mercedes. We made it to the hospital just in time, thanks to a bit of adrenaline fueled, spirited driving.

Cars keep piling up around the shop… we certainly have our work cut out for us this spring. I just finished installing a clutch in a lovely original owner Fiat Spider. A great looking 560 SL from Florida with a sunbaked interior awaits interior restoration. A late Alfa spider is hiding some elusive Motronic issues. The INKA BMW is being prepared for the season. The 52’ Mercedes Adenauer is under going extensive mechanical restoration, what a beast! Then there’s the Mercedes Sprinter in need of a replacement piston (#2). An S class needs a head gasket, and an old W108 chassis showed up last week on a flat bed. That poor car has the saddest look on her face, but I told her “don’t worry old girl, you’re amongst friends here”. The Fiat 128 just came off the rotisserie, and the 61’ Benz is a day away from mounting up. Sprinkled in the mix are a super low mileage BMW Z3, an 82’ Mercedes diesel wagon, a Rover county that just arrived here from NYC and a 67’ Mercedes SL hiding in the body shop somewhere. My god, Stella will be in high school before I clear up all these projects.

The Parrot

Folks, we have Glasurit!

Early this spring we had a complete Glasurit 90 line installed in our body shop. This is the next step towards having complete artistic control over the work that comes through here. Now we make all of our paint right here. We make the primers, sealers, bases and clears that adorn these rolling works of art.

Gone are the days of chasing down an obscure paint code for a car few remember. Gone are the days of convincing a paint supply store to give a damn about perfectly matching the color that was on a car. Gone are the days of using paint that, quite frankly, is second best.

Glasurit was formed in Hamburg, Germany by Max Winklemann in 1888, marking this year as their 123^rd anniversary.  They are and have always been known for making the best tints in the world. Glasurit is the absolute best automotive paint on the market and is almost exclusively used on most of the European brands that we work on.

Your BMW came from the factory with Glasurit.

Your Ferrari came out of the factory with Glasurit.

Your Mercedes emerged from Stuttgart with Glasurit paint.

Your Porsche, your Fiat, your Alfa, your Saab, your Volvo, your Bently, your Volkswagen…

Glasurit’s new 90 line is also the most eco friendly automotive paint currently on the market. Basically, the 90 line sandwiches urethane with water based color pigments, greatly reducing the heavy metals that were once standard in all automotive paint.

We love using only the best ingredients, and we spray Glasurit.

Carlo's Pipe Organ

I am building a pipe organ. A collection of tubes, created with a specific length and diameter. Pipes designed to direct sound pulses from one place to another in a most pleasant way. The sound pulses must move quickly from the cylinder head of our race engine to the exit on the left side of the car.

If done properly we will be deliciously rewarded with increased power and a sound that only a purebred can produce. If done improperly I will be thoroughly depressed and probably never return to this terrible place. I wouldn’t be able to stomach the smell of oil burning off mild steel as the TIG welder migrates in a zig zag pattern across the seams. Too many hours spent reading boring engineering journals. Too many hours drawing full scale sketches. To many hours cutting and welding, cutting and welding again.

But, on paper this should work. It should be great. In theory these pipes should be a great improvement over what once was, a pipe organ that sounded like an out-of-tune bat. And that tone def bat was robbing horsepower from our small Italian heart.

Austrian born Carlo Abarth got his start hand building race headers for tiny Fiats decades ago. He sensitively manipulated steel pipes until they were able to sing a song so beautiful that everyone had to have one of his headers. It seems that he had a talent for romancing exhaust gasses away from the minature race engines that he tuned. I feel as though there may be a little bit of Carlo at work right here in Fennville. We’ll find out in May.

Number sixty four

I love the winter time. It slows down here a bit. It allows us the time to stop, look around and repair our tools, tend to the neglected areas in the shop and make improvements to systems.

It is also time for our shop race car to come inside for dismantle, inspection and improvement. We campaign this car for a number of reasons, probably the most important being an opportunity for us to improve our craft. We test lubricants, materials and ideas on our vintage racer. We test our skills in graphics and appearance. We test the limits to structural integrity as we modify this nearly 40 year old car. What a wonderful way to break things. It is also a wonderful time to be creative as hell. Why did this break? What is strong what is weak? I have to admit here that this part is probably more fun than driving this raspy old police car.

Alfa Romeo began to develop the Alfetta as a race car shortly after it debuted in 1972. They raced a half season with very good results but unfortunately Alfa Romeo pulled the plug on their racing program due to the company's pending bankruptcy. This winter we have been busy studying photographs, like the two above, from this aborted racing effort to glean some sense of what plans and improvements Alfa may have had for this car.

This winter we began our improvements with a new hand made aluminum valance designed to improve the way air moves around the car body. During this modification we also decided to move the oil cooler to a more attractive position. The chassis was lowered to a point where the car was experiencing some wicked bump steer, so the front hubs were removed and reconfigured.

And then there's the trunk. The trunk was fine, I swear. But I had been dreaming of ripping it apart and making better sense of it. The trunk was a heavy, soft lump that was along for the ride. We shed 100 pounds back there at the same time made the suspension and body far more rigid. The fuel cell was also relocated to a more attractive spot.

At this point we have just enough time to freshen the cylinder head and design a racing header appropriate for our robust engine.

Needless to say this is no mail order race car considering our aspirations. We plan on setting aside many weeks each year to dream, invent, and build until the cloud of metal dust has cleared. Then we race, we break it, the snow falls and everything slows down. What a wonderful time indeed.

Giuseppina Matarazzo

Giuseppina Matarazzo was my god mother. I've known her since before I can remember. She and my godfather Paolo were from Sicily and they spoke only a few words of english. She used to take me fishing as a child. We would drive about an hour from home to their cottage in Clinton, CT. Paolo would stay home painting landscapes in oil while Giuseppina and I sat together silently for hours on the rocks fishing. After our afternoon of fishing we would gather up what we had caught and bring it back to the cottage where she would clean it and serve up some delicious Sicilian meal. Although we'd say very little to one another I knew she was fond of me, I could just tell. Those were magical summers spent largely in silence. When the week end ended, they'd drive me back home.

Giuseppina was an excellent seamstress and ran a small dress making shop in Hartford, CT. Recently, she passed away with cancer and Paolo followed soon after her. They were great people. A few weeks ago I received Giuseppina's industrial Singer sewing machine. Although it is over 100 years old it was her main gun, her preferred gun. Now that I've fired it up I can begin to understand why. What a sweet old machine. Fast, quiet, useful and powerful! It is one nasty machine. I'll bet this thing can sew sheet metal together. Who needs a MIG welder!

One of the things we have limited control over is the welding of leather and vinyl, sewing. We rely on other people to take care of this for us because we are not set up to handle the task...until now. Its all about control. Absolute control. Failure can always be chucked up to someone else's lack of standards. Someone who simply doesn't care. I want control over the final product not only because I love what I make but also because I have to face the person who is going to pay for and live with my work. I have to look them in the eye and tell them that this is as good as it gets.

Our antique Singer was Giuseppina's machine, and now its has arrived here so that we can continue to do great things with it. Giuseppina has helped me gain control over a once elusive part of my craft, which I feel is an important thing when you are trying to create something memorable. I hope she knows how grateful I am.

Pelle

Pelle, a red 1967 SAAB 96, recently spent a few months here at the shop. And I have to say, Pelle is one of the most memorable cars I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

I get to work with so many great cars, Alfas, Mercedes, BMWs, Fiats. I'm no stranger to exotic and lust worthy relics on four wheels. But Pelle really surprised me, this little car is a commoner, a blue collar worker, a simple car. But my god, it has more personality than all of the cars in Yokohama (or wherever it is that they build Subarus) combined.

Pelle is a rally champ. A car that snorts reliably at you. A car whose pedals are awkwardly off-center, but make perfect sense. It is the only car we've had through here that actually has a wider track up front than in the rear, meaning that Pelle has a fat nose and a skinny butt. Pelle was imported by its current owner from the arctic circle in Sweden and that car drives like a miniture Swedish tank. With a 4 speed on-the-column shift, quick jerky revs. and the smallest windshield you've ever looked out of Pelle is memorable.

Art, Steve, and I did a considerable amount of work to this old car. We lovingly put it back together, addressing all of the strange issues that so often turn up after years of being incomplete. It was a wonderful experience. When Pelle was finally ready to leave our shop we were all a bit sad, myself especially. I really enjoyed driving that car around and around. When the owner asked if Pelle was ready to come home yet I replied - she's ready, but I'm not.

Bella Berlina

I have a beautiful 1972 Alfa Romeo Berlina that is waiting for someone to fall in love with it. This car is currently and unfortunately painted gold, but her original color was eggplant, and to my eyes it is one of the sexiest colors that has ever been draped upon an automobile. 

This is the kind of car you'd see Elga Andersen driving recklessly down a bustling city street towards some unknown tragedy. Someone she loves, no doubt, is in peril. She speeds along, her big head wrapped in a flowing scarf, in an eggplant colored Alfa Romeo with a limited slip differential and a mahogany dash. My god!

I am patiently waiting for the day when I meet the right person, the one who wants to love and take care of my old girl. I am waiting for someone who wants to remove her putrid gold latex exterior and reveal her luscious eggplant as desperately as I do.