Great writing! I corresponded with him many, many years ago. He is my all
time favorite automotive writer, I used to get Mechanix Illustrated (now sadly
gone) just because of him.
He was probably being generous about Rootes' column shifter-you push or pull
the lever and pray. Maybe you get the right gear, maybe you get no gear at
all or maybe you get terrible noises. You also learn to let up the clutch
SLOWLY in case you hit second when you were aiming at fourth. If the car slows
down and the engine revs up, you missed fourth and must try again. There was
a beautiful accessory floor shift for the early Alpines, it vastly improved
the shifting!
Jan Eyerman
RootesRooter@aol.com wrote:
Referring to the '54 Alpine:
"The column-mounted, reverse-pattern shifter is still as balky as when
McCahill called it b as easy... as driving a Navy blimp through the Lincoln
tunnel without touching the walls.b "
Now that is great writing...
In a message dated 12/10/02 3:25:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
rmaddock@petrie.hotkey.net.au writes:
<< Hope this link works. If not, go to www.autoweek.com and you should see a
Sunbeam Alpine link under the heading Recent Stories.
http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?port_code=autoweek&cat_code=thecar&loc_
code=index&content_code=03318193
|