Weekend Quickies

Death By Perfection - Maia Sharp is a singer / songwriter and a friend of mine. On her new CD she includes a song called "Death By Perfection", which contains these lines...

Oh, they took something beautiful
straightened the curves and they filled in the cracks
'til it was unrecognizable
they shined it, refined it
until they could see their own reflection
it could only be death by perfection

(Click here to find Maia's webpage and a clip of this song.)

Maia could have been singing about car collectors with those lines. I've been to so many shows recently where the cars are over-restored.

Brandy Elitch is a car collector, Just A Car Geek reader, and someone I've exchanged a few e-mails with. He also writes some great articles for Veloce Today. (A "must read" online magazine.)

His most recent article, "Restoring Perspective" is perfect. It sums up my thoughts exactly. You can find it here.

1963 Sabra Sport - A few weeks ago I wrote about a Sabra Sport. It needed complete restoration. It was not a pretty car.

This is a fully restored (maybe original - the seller doesn't say) Sabra Sport. This one is in mint condition and it's still not a pretty car. But it is rare and you'll most certainly be the only one in your neighborhood to have one.

Click here to see the eBay listing.

1947 Citroen Traction Avant - I don't usually post 60 year old cars, but this caught my attention. The Citroen Traction Avant is a historically significant car.

It was one of the earliest FWD cars and the first one to sell in significant numbers. (Traction Avant means "forward traction" in French.) It was also one of the earliest unibody constructed cars. The suspension was advanced for the time. The front wheels were independently sprung, using a torsion bar and wishbone suspension arrangement. The rear suspension included torsion bars along with a Panhard Rod.

This car is interesting for a number of reasons, all relating to the eBay listing...
First of all, the seller calls it a Traction "Avante", putting an "e" at the end. I've never seen it spelled that way, making me wonder if the seller actually knows what it is he has. Secondly, and most significantly, this appears to be a fairly original car. There are not many original 1947 Citroens around. Someone apparently started to do a 12 volt conversion on this car, which is alarming, but the seller seems to say that it would be easy to bring it back to its original 6 volt form.

Located in Torrington, CT, click here to see the eBay listing for this car.

An amusing aside... Traction Avant Nederland appears to be a very good Traction Avant site. Not surprisingly, it's written in Dutch. However, in the bottom left corner are little flags, including a British flag. On most websites if you click on a British flag you get an English translation of the site. Click on the one on this site however, and it takes you to a page with this message... "This is the website of Traction Avant Nederland, the Dutch Traction Avant Owners' Club. All of these pages are written in Dutch, so please take a language course or ask a Dutch speaking relative to translate for you."
Uh, thanks.

1959 Troy Roadster - Have you ever thought about building your own car? This guy not only thought about it, he did it. This is a one-off built by Wally Troy, a Jaguar dealer from Illinois. (The first Jaguar dealer in Illinois)

The car is now being offered on Jameslist. The price is not listed but, as it's on Jameslist, I suspect it's not cheap. Click here to see the listing.

1934 Rolls Royce "Star of India" Have you ever wondered what a $13,000,000.00 car looks like? It looks like the one above. Find it here on Jameslist. (For that kind of money you could buy a brand new BMW 3 Series every day for the next year and still have enough money leftover for a nicely restored Triumph TR6.)

A big thanks to Sarah for bringing these last two cars to my attention. (She's also the person who introduced me to Jameslist.)