We took the GT6 out on an excursion this afternoon, running about 45
minutes to the west for an errand. The car ran well, though there
still are a few things I'd like to make better. Spent part of the
travel time listening to the Red Sox trying to beat the Blue Jays. I
should say trying to listen because the GT6 is a noisy beast and the
local AM station which carries the Sox isn't all that strong.
Anyway, as we returned home the little woman in the passenger seat
asked if we could stop so she could buy some groceries. Okay, I'll
sit in the car and wait...
The parking lot was nearly empty, so I figured we'd be safe. As
we're unbucking seatbelts, some guy unloaded a cart about 30 yards
uphill from us and then sent it rolling freely downhill. I saw it
coming but neither Sharon nor I could get out of the car fast enough
to stop it. It banged *HARD* into the front bumper of the old Volvo
next to us, then rebounded more slowly in our direction. Sharon
managed to reach out the window in time to stop it from damaging us,
and I ran over to have a few (ahem) words with the perpetrator. I
point out to him pointedly the he managed to hit two(!) cars with one
cart. In return he managed a few "sorry"'s but there wasn't much
else he could say. Fortunately neither car was hurt. Geez, there
was a "Place your empty carts here" fenced-in area about 10 feet from
the guy's car. Why couldn't he have (a) looked around and seen it,
(b) had the brains to figure out what it was for, and (c) rolled the
cart 10 ft over there and parked it safely? He was a fair amount
overweight but still capable of walking into the store and out of it
again and uphill with the loaded cart. Whew. After that little
distraction, Sharon insisted that I move the car further uphill while
she shopped, and *never* take the GT6 to a supermarket again. Well,
this really is the second time this has happened. The last time, a
month ago, was when an 80 year old gentleman bumped his pickup truck
into a cart and sent it flying into my bumper. Fortunately no harm
was done to sheetmetal, just a small paint chip in the cast metal
license plate illuminator. Okay, going to a supermarket is a mistake
I won't make again.
While sitting in the lot I observed that just about every car and
truck in sight had alloy wheels. No, not just clever wheel covers
that look like alloy wheels. It would seem that the old pressed
steel wheel is a thing of the past. About half the wheels I saw were
the pinwheel variety, i.e. with a spiral spoke pattern. All of those
spun in the same direction. On the right side of the car the spokes
on the top of the wheel veered forward, on the left side the top
spokes veered backwards. Now, this is an issue I've wondered about
ever since I first saw such wheels many years ago. Seems to me that
the supposed original justification for such wheels was that it
helped with brake cooling. You don't want to have to worry about
which side of the car you put a wheel on, so the left/right asymmetry
isn't surprising. But it means that both the air pattern around the
wheel and the styling will be different left to right. It's probably
a small matter, but dang it, the idea has always bothered me. One
side of the car looks swoopy forward and the other swoopy backwards.
Does it bother anyone else?
Finally, someone parked next to me in a biggish American convertible
with no name visible on the side. However it had a big emblem on the
convertible top's C-pillar which said "Presidential", and I think I
recognized the red/white/blue shields on the hubcaps as Buick. A
"Presidential" model? It sure didn't look presidential. It was a
bit ratty, but it had the sort of boring and cheap sheetmetal look
that would have made it seem quite unpresidential even when new.
Names don't mean much, I supposed. Probably never have when
Marketing is involved. Nevermind.
These are just a few experiences from today's GT6 excursion. The
drive was great though! Now back to your TR3/6 differential mount
discussion.
Jim Muller
muller@pop.rcn.com
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