Rally Round the Jag, Boys

As those of you who were caught in a freak blizzard for four days with nothing to read but the last issue of SCI already know, I got me a hankering for a rally car. Not a "Hi, I'm Loöøërk-Nils Høkkinnen" kind of rally car, mind you, but a "Hi, I'm Jay Lamm, and don't eat all the damn brownies before I get to the picnic lunch" rally car. You know, something I can drive on all those vintage crawls where halfway through the third stage your navigator says "Well, Jiminey Crickets! Guess I left my watch back at the Radisson!"

For the time being I've been cadging other people's wheels for these events, a time-honored tradition in the automotive press business. Eventually, though, you get to a point where you really want a rally car of your ownone you can unload of your belongings, remove the license plates from and abandon with impunity. In other words, a heap. Securing said heap should also be fairly entertaining. I've always loved the process of running around and checking out used cars, mostly because it lets me enter somebody else's garage and think "Man, what a dump," exactly as they'd do in mine. Anyway, as it's really the search I enjoy, much more than the purchase, my options seem pretty varied:

• 1955 MGTF

• Pros: Cute. Has decent weather equipment. Can be fixed at roadside with large rocks and tree bark.

• Cons: Expensive. Top speed equal to many dump trucks'.

• 1963 Cadillac Sedan de Ville

• Pros: Eliminates need for costly hotel rooms. Can lose four cylinders and still outrun most competitors.

• Cons: Frequent stops to remove MGs and Alfas wedged in steering gear.

• 1955 Maserati A6G2000 Spider Frua

• Pros: Exceedingly boss.

• Cons: No, just kidding. Really.

• 1970 AMC Gremlin

• Pros: Mint examples available for the price of a Happy Meal. Eligible for most vintage rallies, to the great dismay of
  organizers.

  Cons: Snide comments from owners of racier Gremlin X.

  1974 Alfa Romeo Spider

  Pro Bono Inflagrante

  Pros: Already own.

  Cons: Already own.

I actually went out last weekend with pretty high hopes. Some guy in Woodside was advertising a '65 E-Type coupe at a price that would have made Sam Walton weep with jealousy, and when he sheepishly told me over the phone it had been retrofit with a 289 Ford V8 I couldn't have been happier. The only thing I like more than a modification that makes a car easier to fix in the Grand Auto parking lot is one that simultaneously lowers its resale value to boot.

My first hints that something might be amiss were the wooden blocks behind the Jaguar's rear tires. These admittedly kept it from rolling away down the driveway, but keeping the car in the garage would have accomplished the same thing. Of course, then where would the owner have kept his old newspapers?

It went downhill from there, of course, specifically to the lowest point in this guy's housing development and no farther. And yet hope springs eternal: I could already see myself cutting out those nasty rusted chassis tubes. "It's just an afternoon job, really." Then I'd just pull the Ford engine out one weekend, "a little steam-cleaning, a new rear-main oil seal, good as new." Some paint, some Bondo, four tires.... I'm sure all those homemade cooling fans and radiator ducts were just for looks.

In no time at all, I'd have a seriously happenin' rally car, and it would only have cost me as much as going out and buying a proper E-type roadster in the first place. You know, one that could actually finish a 1000-mile rally.

On second thought, maybe I'll just keep cadging rides after all. Who am I to go against precedent?