RITES OF PASSAGE

In which Bob discovers that, in large part, it is both unsafe and illegal to drive old sports cars
- By David J. Bedard, from Automobile Magazine, February 1988.

I see it coming, but there isn't anything I can do to talk him out of it. It's a rite of passage every male endures, a kind of mechanical Bar Mitzvah, only it comes enough years past thirteen that the victim ought to know better. My friend Bob Wheeler is about to buy an old sports car, a 1972 Triumph Spitfire.

Bob's migration toward the financial cliff begins when he sees such a car, complete with a golden-haired goddess who is engaged in demonstrating her fondness for the driver. The Spitfire is sold to Bob by a man with an extraordinarily firm handshake, suede loafers, and a Jackie Stewart cap, who could sell Mr. Coffees to devout Mormons.

Four days after the purchase, Bob is exiting his driveway and toes the brake pedal, as is his custom before venturing into a busy street backward. The brake pedal slaps uselessly to the floorboard, but not before the piston in the master cylinder, which has ruptured, squirts eight ounces of hydraulic fluid through the firewall and onto his feet, causing the shoe polish on his Kinneys to curdle. Bob does not notice. He is busy pumping the pedal and eyeing a yellow Pontiac bearing down on him at an alarming rate. When the futility of this action strikes home, Bob grabs the emergency brake and yanks mightily toward his armpit. The ratchet in the lever makes a busy noise, the return spring offers comforting resistance, and the car slows not at all. Bob gives up and steers toward his mailbox. This stops the car.

When Bob attempts to drive the Spitfire to the brake shop, using the engine's compression for deceleration by turning the ignition key on and off, he learns two things: (1) When he turns the key off, it locks the steering column; and (2) switching the ignition on and off with the car in gear causes a backfire that can be heard for many blocks, which blows off the aft two-thirds of the exhaust system and attracts the police, who tell him, "It is both unsafe and illegal to drive a car without brakes and a muffler."

A few weeks and many phone calls later, Bob's car is rolling again, until there erupts a carrots-in-a-blender noise from between the seats. Bob spends the following Saturday at a junkyard, scrounging for a usable gearbox at a reasonable price. He is not able to find one anywhere. Ever. But within two weeks, he has collected two 95-percent complete gearboxes for a '71 Spitfire, one 80-percent transmission from a '69 model that obviously won't fit but which his shop swears is interchangeable, one 50-percent shift linkage, and two baskets of what he thinks may represent a '73 gearbox in poor repair but is in reality the overdrive unit from a bus.

Bob also discovers that the owner of transmission number three had sufferd a similar misfortune and had reamed out the cases and substituted a gear cluster from a '66 GMC pickup truck.

Weeks later, the car runs well enough that Bob unwittingly drives far from any possible source of help. As darkness falls, he is not annoyed that the headlights are blinking on and off, or that the dimmer switch sounds the horn. He is annoyed that the car is emitting an odor like burning track shoes. It is just as well that he cannot see the short in his electrical system that began beneath his oiled wooden dashboard and is now spreading down the wiring harness toward the headlights and is about to supernova beneath the hood.

He pulls to the shoulder and discovers a crackling fire running the length of the main wiring bundle. It looks like a glowing snake and smells like Akron. Wheeler removes his $200 suede jacket and tries to beat out the flames and then retreats to the safety of the middle of the road, where he discovers that part of the evil scent was his hair, which now looks like the outcome of a bizarre electrolysis mishap.

Furious, Wheeler kicks the car, and the vibration of his blows causes the now crispy harness to drop harmlessly to the ground. The fire goes out.

Although the Spitfire is still idling, Bob suspects the necessary wiring for the starter has melted. He is afraid to turn the car off so he can liberate the ignition key to open the trunk, where there is a flashlight. Instead, he uses a length of pipe from the gutter to jimmy the trunk handle.

Bob sets out toward home, hanging his head out the side of the car, aiming the flashlight's pitiful beam down the road. This operation goes well until Bob's foot slips off the clutch and he stalls in the middle of an intersection. Only then does he confirm his suspicion that the starter wiring has indeed burned up, and he is unable to restart the car. He sits patiently and awaits the arrival of the police. They tell him, "It is both unsafe and illegal to drive a car at night without any headlights at all."

Bob agrees, wholeheartedly, imploringly, ingenuously. The policeman softens and confesses, "I always dreamed of buying a Spitfire." Bob's brow unwrinkles as he introduces himself with an extraordinarily firm handshake.