I’m doing a little house cleaning lately and have decided that I do not need a 30th Anniversary 1983 Corvette in my garage.  I never drive it–ever. I don’t think it even has any miles on it.

I’m willing to let it go very, very cheap. For a song maybe. Or less.

In fact, if anyone has an authentic Mickey Mantle baseball card, in exchange for it, I will relinquish to that person all right and title I have to this undriven 30th Anniversary Corvette.

All I ask is that before you agree, you take a quick look on the internet to make sure you like the way the 1983 model year looks. :^)

The hard copy paper today has some stats on electric cars, particularly the Zenn, which we discussed here several months ago. They reveal operating costs, for anyone considering options to pump gas.

The piece mentions a St. Paul resident who drives a Zenn 700 miles a month, which costs him $20 in electricity. The article, by Neal St. Anthony, also puts the Zenn’s cost at $17,500, plus $1500 worth of new batteries every three years.

So, ignoring consumables like tires, brake pads and wiper blades, the Zenn costs the described owner about $740 per year to run for 8,400 miles (12 x $20 + $500/year in battery use).** A gas vehicle averaging 20 miles per gallon would need $1680 in gas at $4/gallon, to cover the same mileage.

The Zenn is cheaper to insure than a typical car, but has a range, according to the article, of about 35 miles. It is thus not a full substitute for a regular vehicle, but a partial one.

**The article indicates that the owner of the Zenn vehicle delivering these figures “tops off” his battery while he’s parked at work. The piece does not clarify whether that electricity figures into the $20/month. If it does not, drivers whose employers don’t have a free electrical hookup will have to pay more. Note too that these vehicles are for use on roads with a speed limit of 35 or less, according to the piece.

As you synch your Palm Pilots and set calendric modulation on your iPhones :^) , don’t forget to slot the Car Craft Summer Nationals into your plans for next (not this) weekend.

That great come-and-play venue, the state fairgrounds, will host the event next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (Good thing it’s not this weekend, since everyone will be caught up in the Dark Night Batman opening. We’ll just have two things then, the Car Craft show and the new X-Files movie, for next weekend.)

There will be 4,000 muscle cars and street rods on the grounds and enough horsepower to revive the Old West. I’ll be there one of those days–probably being tailed by security if it’s like going to a department store.

As usual, I’ll post a few pics, but you’ll have a lot more fun going in person. Along with the cars will be the Miss Car Craft Summer Nationals contest. Since this is Minnesota and we like to treat folks fair, I’m sure if any of you guys have a nice bathing suit and tan, they’d be happy to expand the contestant pool.  Think of the bragging rights for the guy who takes honors with his street rod and makes the Car Craft calendar.

Car Craft Summer Nationals, Fairgrounds in St. Paul:

Fri July 25th    10-6

Sat. July 26th    9-6

Sun. July 27th    9-4:30

Tix: $8 advance (see website above); $12 at the gate.

During the vintage car display last Wednesday, I had time to pop in to the Velocity car-art exhibit at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Nice stuff.

The exhibit is not huge, but the variety is nice. There’s sculpture, photography, painting and drawing, both realistic and impressionistic.

Rather than try to explain the work, here’s 5,000 words worth of pictures.

Oh, and the price of the exhibit is lower than gas in 1910: it’s free.

Friday a few motorcycle fans got together at Koppelin’s Coffee Shop on Hamline Avenue to drink (really, really, really good) coffee and talk bikes. Afterward, I hung out with a freelancing buddy and we mostly worked on book projects.

Somehow he happened to mention that his late ’80s Honda Civic got 50 miles per gallon. I know Lee knows cars. Still, I didn’t believe it. Fifty mpgs. Gas engine. Twenty years ago.

He had the car many years. He’s a car writing and editing and photography professional. He was sure. And he looked it up. He got 50 on the highway and low 40s around town.

Twenty years ago. (Wikipedia agrees for the 1500 cc ‘84-’87 car.) Wow.

Today’s Prius and Civic hybrids are rated between 40 and 48 mpg. Altima and Camry hybrids get 33-35 mpg. Gas Corolla is about 28/37; gas Civic today around 25/36. The tiny Honda fit only makes 28/34.

Cars have to be one of the few technologies (are there any others?) that have not only failed to advance but in some cases receded in efficiency over the last 30 years.

Imagine if computers got slower every year and held less data. Maybe I can get a deal on a TRS-80.

If cities want to improve their streets, here’s the best way: line ‘em with race cars. The show in Hopkins Wednesday night was fantastic, featuring a wide variety of very attractive cars and a lot of nice people around to talk about them.

The weather was perfect, the selection impressive. Many of them lit off to drive back to their trailers, adding hearing to the many senses pleased on this fine evening. (The above Vette’s ferocious roar could probably be heard in Minneapolis.) When the sun finally set, a corner bar with outside seating offered the ideal way to wind down and . . . talk about cars!

Here’s a sampling of the machinery the lucky crowd got to oggle.

An unrestored 1957 Ferrari 250 GT was among my favorites of the show. The patina, old-car smell, and all of Time’s little knicks and pits let you feel the history. The owner fired up the car, whose 12-cylinder engine purred quietly despite having only small diameter exhaust pipes with no mufflers.

The smile on this child’s face is no different from what any adult at the show would have flashed sitting in the same seat looking over the hood of that 50-year-old Italian “barn-find.”

The same man owns this Porsche-powered Elva, which looks like a rocket standing still.

The pipes on the Elva hug the car and the ground.

British cars featured prominently, perhaps because they’re not too expensive and parts are widely available.

This Javelin was particularly attractive. Hadn’t gone to the show hoping to spy something nice from American Motors, but the lines and paint on this car really drew the eye.

Owner Denny Popp keeps his clutch and brake master cylinders inside the car, where he can see them. Nice to know blowing down the straight into some unforgiving turn that you’ll likely get some response when you press the middle peddle.

The ‘57 Chevy stock car also had a nice look. Is it possible to see cool cars and not want one?

Is that a bug in your eye? Or an air intake in your Bugeye?

Tonight, Weds 7/9, from 6 to 10 pm, there will be vintage race cars and their drivers and owners in downtown Hopkins. If you like classic cars, classic race cars or have any inkling of getting out onto a racetrack, this is a good chance to see and learn.

Word is out on this event and there are going to be lots of other cool cars around Hopkins. If the TV lineup isn’t what you hoped for and you want to take in some fresh air and sweet machines, should be a great opportunity. I’ll post some photos of the event tomorrow morning.

An article on zeppelins in the New York Times (remember zeppelins? Neither do I, but I’ve heard of them) spoke of a new look at aviation caused by high fuel prices. If it floats on its own, it uses less gas, so zeppelins are back–on sketch pads mostly. Not very practical for high-volume passenger service because they’re slow (like 100 miles per hour) but they’re cool!

With all the things presaged that we now have–space ships and televideo communications and bluetooth headsets like Lieutenant Uhura wore on the Enterprise–it’s interesting we haven’t done more with flying cars. Was the Jetsons bogus, or just too far ahead of its time?

Seriously (sort of). Think of how superior to the Amphicar (the road/lake German drop top) the Gibbs Aquada is. You’d think somebody would have built a flying car of roughly the same competence. Maybe the response to that is that Moller has but his designs seem more like small Harriers or spaceship replicas than flying cars.  Why can’t someone develop something that drives and flies as well as the Gibbs Aquada drivers and boats?

Stumbled across this writeup of the Waterman Aerobile, which Wikipedia credits with 56 mph road and 112 air. Not too bad. Another article called the craft a deathwish, not so inaccurate a description, perhaps, if Waterman found no buyers. The one he built is in the Smithsonian.

There have been other efforts–I had a book with a car that towed its own wings and turned into a sort of inconvenient car-plane thing. Anybody know another development in this area with serious potential. Apparently some people use the Gibbs Aquada in England to go down the Thames instead of sitting in street traffic.

It’s summer again and those of us who spin pedals when we’re not pushing them to the driver’s side floor are out in force on our bicycles. Each spring this activity separates those motorists who know how to pass a bicycle from those who do not.

A technique that poses danger to both of us is to overreact to the cyclist’s presence and swerve all the way into the oncoming lane. That is overkill and creates a danger to three people–the initial driver, the cyclist and any oncoming motorist sure to appear.

Here’s how I overtake bicycles, which is the same way I like to be passed by cars:

1) slow down to about the cyclist’s speed.
2) watch for a large opening in oncoming traffic.
3) as the opening starts to draw near, begin to pull up alongside the cyclist. If the cyclist is not hearing impaired he or she will hear you. If there is impairment, hopefully the rider has a mirror to see you. (Some people bicycle while listening to music. Not safe, IMHO–that’s for the stationary bike. Use more caution if you see that the cyclist is wearing earphones.)
4) the law, last time I checked, requires a clearance of three feet between you and the rider. If you approach slowly and make your presence known, the cyclist will not make directional changes.
5) when your opportunity comes to pass, start from a place just behind the cyclist (within hearing distance), swing wide by at least 3 feet but not significantly more so that you can minimize encroachment upon the oncoming lane, and get by quickly, pulling fully into your own lane as soon as you’re safely past. I usually come back over after about two car lengths.

This approach puts the cyclist on notice that you are there and allows you to get by with minimum risk to everyone on the road. Other bicyclists who find this post, please feel free to offer your thoughts. Thanks.

There may be people who visit this site interested in the cars and talk but not quite up to speed on some of the jargon that gets thrown around. An exhaustive dictionary would be exhaust-ing, so let’s start small . . . with a few common terms.

This is a reference we can add to as we go along and maybe, if it gains some momentum, even put a link to it somewhere on the page for new visitors.

As always, I invite readers to throw out any terms you don’t see here that you think are core to the hobby and worth noting. Or, since this is an open discussion, terms you find unusual, improbable or that confused you for a while until you got the gist:

carburetor: hunk of metal that bolts to the intake manifold and within which fuel and air are mixed. Cars don’t burn straight gasoline; they burn gas mixed with a lot of air (oxygen).

choke: device that, as the name suggests, reduces the amount of air drawn into the carburetor and mixed with gas when the engine is cold. Cold air is more oxygen rich than warm air so less is required for an optimum air/fuel mix.

distributor: takes high-voltage current from the coil and distributes it to each spark plug at appropriate time so that fuel/air charge ignited by spark plug pushes the piston down (rather than resists its rise, which damages the engine).

exhaust manifold:  part that takes exhaust (gases left after combustion) after it exits the exhaust valves and routes it to exhaust system.

head or cylinder head: part that bolts over a bank of cylinders and seals the combustion chamber. Inline engines have one head; vee engines have two. Flathead designs are just that–flat pieces of metal–while overhead valve and overhead cam engines have thicker heads to accommodate those parts. (A flathead’s valves are in the block.)

intake manifold: part to which the carburetor bolts (or carburetors bolt) that contains passages routing air/fuel mix to the intake valves.

valve (intake or exhaust): opens and closes to let air/fuel mix in (intake valve) and exhaust out (exhaust valve).

There are hundreds of additional relevant terms. . . . This just gets the crank turning.