Outlaw Coupe - Petrolicious

This Speedster I'm finding, after finally putting more seat time, is very similar to the Cobra...you have to drive it and pay a lot of attention while behind the wheel ... nothing at all like the daily drivers...Actually driving the car is a lot of fun and definitely not boring...

For many of us, nostalgia plays a part of the pride of ownership of our replicas.  I was born in 1945, so came of age during the late 1950's and early '60's, when the coolest of the cool cars were Speedsters, Jags, Healeys, etc.  I could never afford an old beater in those days, but it was an itch I can finally scratch in the "autumn" of my life.

I love the style and shape of the Speedsters, but, at this stage in my life, I want the convenience hot water heat, big power, with better handling and braking ability than Porsche could offer in those days.  I'm getting close with mine. Hope you're all having as much fun dialing yours in as I am.  I can think of no other car that delights such a wide spectrum of the public.  I get "thumbs up" from old hippies, gangbangers, lol's, bikers, and small kids, irrespective of ethnicity, gender, etc.  Pretty cool for us, eh?

Yup, the cars seem to have a unique ability to generate smiles.  Get a lot of that, and the thumbs-up of course.  And it works both ways, as my avatar can attest, this one being a shot by Cory Drake showing the SEG on Day 1 of ownership.

Dude's like "modern engine" (1965). "Modern gearbox" (1962).

I really love what some would call the 'crudeness' of our cars (or at least some of them).  When I was in the process of buying my Speedster my wife asked questions like "does it have heat" and "does it have windows".  I just chuckled at her. I might have said this before but right before my Speedster I owned a very nice BMW Z3.  It was what I would descrbe as a verty 'capable' car.  It did everything very nicely but once it was moving and in the right gear for the road it was just boring.  It did have heat and windows but that didn't do much for me.  I would mostly only drive it on nice days when neither of those things really mattered.  Oh, it had a longer season to it but the drive was not something I really looked forward to at the end of the day or on a sunny Sunday morning. I guess I just appreciate really feeling like I'm driving something thats not too civilzed.

Could we just say "simple"?  Don't like crude much at all, although I have seen some cars come around here that would fit into that category.  If applied to my car, I'd take offense. But mostly, the Speedies we see here are anything but crude.  How about "basic"?  They are surely that. I like "straight forward" also. "Rustic"?  that might work.  On the other hand, Frank, maybe your car is crude , although it does not look that way to me.

While some people may regard these cars as "crude", the word does have connotations attached (for me, anyway), and these cars are anything but; the amount of backyard engineering it takes I agree with you Kelly, simple is a much better description of what they are about- simpler technology, and simpler times. Basic works for me as well. I'm not so sure about "rustic" though....

Yeah, Ed, I caught that too!

My car is crude but not simple. 

I am both crude and simple.  Oh wait, we're talking cars again, aren't we?

Funny, Lane; people would probably use those 2 words together to describe me as well!

One thing about most replicas and vintage cars, unless heavily modified, there are no computers to fail or go out of synch, you can see the valve covers. You know where the plugs and points and carb or carbs are and you do not have to disassemble all kinds of crap just to get to the valve covers and you don't need a modern 'engine analyzer' just to figure out what module is bad. 

G.R.:  well, that is sorta what I meant.