[TR] My worst car ever

[pethier at comcast.net]

From: DLylis at aol.com
> Oddly, the worst car I ever owned, I loved.  1968 SAAB 96.  It  started 
> poorly in the cold weather and eventually left me stranded in New  England on a 
> cold December evening with a seized engine.  I still  loved it.  It was rare for 
> those times and "intellectuals" drove  them.  OK so I'm not that bright.  
> I talked a friend of mine into buying one as I liked it so much.  As  you may 
> recall the car was a four on the column.  

I had several of these Ford-V4-powered cars.  The one that was the original of the bunch was a 1968.  Loved them.  Ran away from Jeeps in the snow.  Lowered and decambered the 1968 known as "Inga" and autocrossed it for years.  Finally rolled it at an icekhana in Wisconsin.  The next day we put studded tires on it and I let Flip Shockley run the whole three-hour race.  He was so much more talented than I that it would have been wrong for me to hold him back by driving my shift.  Stock engine, full street trim, he finished 4th overall and third in his class against actual race cars.  He awarded me the trophy.

The two years I raced, it was in two-stoke SAABs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/102447656/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/102701242/

My last one was the newest of the lot.  My brother had bought it new and had it delivered in Amsterdam when he was doing post-grad work in Paris.  It finally died when the ring & pinion failed when my wife was backing out of the driveway.  I sold it to legendary SAAB mechanic Dan Jones.  Thus ended my SAAB career until I bought a Sonett in 1987.