There was a time I enjoyed working on cars so much that I even considered becoming a mechanic when I grew up. How times have changed! Now, the less time I spend under a propped-up hood (or worse, underneath the car), the better. This section documents some of the car projects I have undertaken.
Isn’t this the coolest mailbox ever? It is outside Western Engines & Transmissions on N. College Ave. in Fort Collins. If you look closely at the photo, the engine serves not only as a base for the conventional mailbox, but is a mailbox itself! It even has a flag attached to one of the exhaust manifold bolts that can be raised.
Here is another photo: Continue reading »
Recently I’ve been noticing cracks the size of the Hayward Fault in people’s windshields around Northern Colorado, and I wondered when my Audi TT’s would experience its first boo-boo. Well, it finally happened. On the way to Denver’s airport, a bunch of stones kicked up by a semi-trailer flew at my car including one the size of an orange. The last rock hit the windshield squarely in the center resulting in a dollar-coin-sized, half-moon-shaped bruise. Continue reading »
 back to the header rail and frame. "Riveting in the convertible top (now with replaced rear window) back to the header rail and frame.")
“Real sports car enthusiasts,” the first new Mini Cooper convertible advertisements seemed to imply, “have their tops down regardless of how much it is raining or how cold it is outside.”
Indeed, this seemed to be the attitude of the vintage British sports car owners on the Scions of Lucas email list I had subscribed to a dozen years ago, back in college. It is a philosophy I had adopted not only for my MGB but for the BMW Z3 and Alfa Romeo Spider I had subsequently as well. It helps that here in Fort Collins has 300 days of sunshine and hardly receives any rain, especially in winter. Continue reading »
It took me forever (well, four months), but I finally got Goldie the MG running again for the first time since the epic drive to Colorado from California in late July. This entailed obtaining and refreshing a new (used) smog-legal cylinder head, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. How much of an ordeal? Well, this is what happened: Continue reading »
In the past month or so, Chevrolet — one of General Motor’s several struggling marques — held a create-your-own-ad contest for one of their new products, the Chevy Tahoe. (See chevyapprentice.com.) Winners have yet to be picked, but if it were up to me, I’d pick some of these: Continue reading »
 "Volkswagen does not currently make any jet-engined hybrid cars. So, Ron Patrick created his own. (Photo by Ron Patrick's sidekick.)")
“Look at what Stanford mechanical engineering PhDs do in their spare time,” advised my friend Tom B.
Apparently, Ron Patrick likes to “smoke” other sports cars on the street. He also could “burn” high-performance vehicles on the drag strip.
How? With his jet-powered/4-cylinder hybrid VW Beetle. Continue reading »
