Originally posted by gifthorse Do machines have a soul?
All of my machines do.
And I have many, most of them for a very long time. I recently parted with my Toyota pickup. Bought it used in the early 1980's, with just under 100,000 miles on it, and a slipping clutch. I put a new clutch in it (it was still in it when I sold it last year) and drove it daily for over 20 years. Freshened the engine (an inframe) at about 150,000 or so, then pulled the engine and rebuilt it completely around 200,000, and did a complete repaint too. It ran at least another couple hundred thousand after that, and finally parked it when the rear axle pinion seal started leaking. I kept putting off fixing it until a coworker expressed interest in it and I let it go.
When you spend that much time, and drive that many miles with a vehicle it becomes a part of who you are. A member of the family.
I have owned the race Z since 1989. Although it hasn't been out for a few years, it is still there, patiently waiting for a new engine.
This was a few months after I bought it. It had been a race car since 1979, and passed through many hands. Many layers of paint and some minor damage here and there told a story of hard use. I stripped it to the bare shell, cleaned off all the undercoating and sound deadening material, cut off every unneeded bracket, clip and protrusion (shed 250lbs), even skinned the structure from the hood to save weight. Built a full roll cage to replace the bolt in roll bar, and tied it into the strut towers and key frame points. Then I painted the bottom, interior and engine bay a Mercedes grey, and all the exterior a 1980's Corvette red. I built an engine, L28 with an early E31 head and bigger valves (ported and flowed), having machine work done and then blueprinted, assembled and dialed in everything myself. External oil cooler and Oberg oil screen. New struts and springs, better stabilizer bars and hard links, properly lowered, fully adjustable. Four piston calipers and vented rotors in front, solid discs and 2 piston calipers at the rear. 15 gallon fuel cell, with twin surge tank pickups and pumps, check valves and micro screen filters.
I ran a stock class for the first 10 years or so, finishing 2nd or 3rd in the season points each year, and won a regional championship in 1997.
I've collected the bodywork to run GT2, and just need to get funds together to take the next step. I'll need a few sets of wheels and tires bigger than I run now, some more suspension mods, and a new engine stroked to 3 liters, set up to run on individual port fuel injection and crank fired distributorless ignition, with a dry sump system.
When I'm done I'll have a car more like the ones Paul Newman, Bob Sharp and company ran in the late 70's.