Red Underwear, Cheap Fiats and Other Moto Stuff

[Bill Brown]

1 minute ago, PYP said:

That took me back, way back    My older brother always had homework (he did, he just didn't do it).   Think this is why I never got interested in cars.  But there was an upside:  my Dad also assembled/built his own stereo and it was my introduction to great sound.

 

It was amazing how many men related to that one!  As an OCD overachiever I tried so hard to be perfect!

 

[Bill Brown]

Built the case from scratch.  At least some of the "underwear" (wires and resistors) are red!

 

[Bill Brown]

I'll stop now

 

Sorry again for the thread-clutter.

 

Bill

[bluesman]

28 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Note the Duane Allman memorial chops

A fine choice for a mentor, even posthumously!  Duane used to wander into the studios and play on whatever was being recorded, entirely without credit.  He could play any style and was far more of a musician than most realize.  I recommend finding anything on which you can identify him as a sideman.  His sound was unique, and most early Allman Brothers albums are excellent “electric” music for evaluating and enjoying good audio systems.  Duane had a smoothness to his sound well beyond the even order harmonic distortion of intentionally pushed output tubes.
 

We didn’t know much about cascaded gain stages back then, and few used the reference standard Mesa Boogie (which started the upstream move of output tube distortion to the preamp stages).  The Bassman had low enough power to let us crank it to clipping the two 6L6s, which is how most early blues and rock guitarists got their distortion.  If you wanted clean headroom for jazz, country, or pop, you used a Twin or other high powered amp with 4 6L6s. 

 

A working musician has a hard row to hoe.  Nothing beats the feeling of being part of a band and making great music.  But working from 10 to 2 even a few nights a week takes its toll. Including dressing, equipment checks & maintenance, transportation, setting up, breaking down etc, a “4 hour gig” is really a 6 to 8+ hour workday.  And if you teach, do studio work, play commercial gigs etc on top, life can be very tough on you.  

 

Here’s my 7 string Les Paul.  I’m using a blackface Vibrolux as my stage amp these days for blues and rock.   I’m too old to schlep a Bassman or a Boogie around, so I sold them.

 

 

 

[PYP]

40 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Built the case from scratch.  At least some of the "underwear" (wires and resistors) are red!

 

 

 

 

Looks familiar.  Some of my Dad's stuff was a bit funky (like his cars when he moved beyond US autos) -- his tuner required two hands to operate, one for the tuner selector knob and the other to insert an extended paper clip (can't remember what that did).  I never touched the gear,  just listened.  My parent's bedroom was the listening room.  His Bozak mid, with tweeter suspended in the middle, was in a cutout in their close closet.  A thin wire descended across the room (with the crossover, all of one component, suspended in air) to a very large cabinet with a woofer (the open baffle and sound dampening material made it multipurpose - our cat deposited her kittens there).  Simple stuff, but the sound was amazing and LOUD (a neighbor had a mishap when sitting on his throne and he heard what seemed to be a train coming through the bathroom door -- one of my Dad's test records).  My poor Mother     Oops, sorry, car thread.  The flashlight thing got me nostalgic...

[bluesman]

14 minutes ago, PYP said:

our cat deposited her kittens there).

She could have deposited worse....

[Bill Brown]

Wow @PYP, you are blessed with great memories.  Great sharing!

 

@bluesman, he worships at the altar of all things Duane Allman (second would be Coltrane- you can hear the chord changes of his "My Favorite Things" on lots of his stuff).  Has read the books, all the stories, and with his great memory is a font of knowledge.  He was such musician, such a virtuoso.  I have all the boxed sets (Fillmore, SUNY, Atlanta Pop, the "Skydog" boxed set with all of his work as a sideman, etc.).  The stories from the Muscle Shoals session guys of when he was there are great.

 

He has gone deep into the discography, but for years listened to this track at least daily.  Wonderful:

 

 

I have never seem a 7 string Les Paul.  Cool.  He is of course Gibson through and through.  Les Paul, with an SG for slide work.

 

Building the Bassman as a head was cool.  He had a 5 watt Gries combo, single 12", just plugs the head into the speaker, so pretty compact and plenty for the venues he plays, though can mic it for larger.

 

Your description of making music as a unit is so good.  Even playing trumpet in the HS band gives a glimpse of it.  It is heaven for him.

 

@PYP, think we are all feeling nostalgic in good ways.

 

@sphinxsix kick us out or censor us if you want!

 

Bill

 

[PYP]

The only car I enjoyed helping to fix because I got to ride in it.  With the top off, I could sit sideways on the back "seat," which was actually a padded shelf.  Even as I kid, I thought:  any sudden stops and I'm going to fly through the air.  The double Abarth exhaust could be heard for miles.  We always knew when Dad would be home soon.  The kids in my neighborhood not only put baseball cards on their bike wheels, they also added their own vocals to imitate the sound.  My Dad LOVED that car!

 

[botrytis]

 

 

I love these commercials....

[sphinxsix]

39 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

@sphinxsix kick us out or censor us if you want!

 

It doesn't come so easy.. you'd have to work much harder to deserve it.

 

[AudioDoctor]

3 hours ago, bluesman said:

I fully support that.
 

I was able to get one of the few Z3 coupes that came to the US.  A close friend had a ‘98 M Coupe, and I thought the body was gorgeous.  But I didn’t want the intensive maintenance the M required (like adjusting solid lifters and a host of other old school issues now long gone from Ms), and he had a few failures (brakes and electrical) in year 1.   So I set my sights on a Z3C.  

 

I happened to be passing a BMW dealer in ‘99 and spotted her parked against the wall. I made an immediate U turn across a 4 lane road, pulled up to confirm her identity, called my wife, and told her I’d be a few hours late because I was buying a new car.
 

I truly loved that car even though we came from different cultures.  I’m a 42 long and Gretel was a 40 regular at best.  She was rather high maintenance when we met, with 13 warranty visits in the 1st 18 months for serious stuff like a failed transmission, a rear sway bar mount that fell off rather loudly at speed in a turn, and 3 episodes in which every warning light on the dash came on at once.  I hate unreliability in my street cars.  But she was the sexiest car I ever had and true love won out for us both.  She softened her attitude and behaved perfectly for the rest of our years together.

 

Our relationships with cars could also support an objective vs subjective forum.  My main objective metric for how much I love a car is how many failures I’ll tolerate before replacing it.  Curiously enough, that seems dependent on the purely subjective and unmeasurable thrill I get when it’s running fine and whether I still love to see it in my garage when it’s not.  I still have a few pieces of audio gear that I never use but love having.

 

I have driven both the Z3M and Z4M coupes and loved them both. If I had the space I would probably own a Z4M coupe.

[AudioDoctor]

Regarding Bring A Trailer...

 

While some people use private mode browsing to browse porn, I use it to Browse Bring A Trailer so my wife doesn't catch me lusting after more cars...

 

😉

[sphinxsix]

Is the problem with BMWs which Jeremy Clarkson described by simply saying (while testing the '6' which he liked) - 'you want everybody on the road to hate you - get a Beemer!' - a typically European one, guys.?

 

[Confused]

50 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Is the problem with BMWs which Jeremy Clarkson described by simply saying (while testing the '6' which he liked) - 'you want everybody on the road to hate you - get a Beemer!' - a typically European one, guys.?

 

Not anymore......

 

 

 

[sphinxsix]

35 minutes ago, Confused said:

Not anymore......

 

 

 

 

This clearly proves that I haven't been following the moto world recently..

So it's Audi now.. 

I wonder which brands will be definitely safe in the future.. probably Fiats.. 

 

[bluesman]

3 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

I wonder which brands will be definitely safe in the future.. probably Fiats.. 

...which have to be red.

[sphinxsix]

10 minutes ago, bluesman said:

...which have to be red.

To remain c..kproof.? 

 

[bluesman]

1 hour ago, sphinxsix said:

To remain c..kproof.? 

To be easily seen by traffic moving around them when they stop running.

 

[just a riff on an old motoring joke about legendary Fiat reliability - the new ones are apparently almost as robust as real cars 🤪]

[sphinxsix]

5 minutes ago, bluesman said:

To be easily seen by traffic moving around them when they stop running.

 

[just a riff on an old motoring joke about legendary Fiat reliability - the new ones are apparently almost as robust as real cars 🤪]

 

With an accent on 'almost' I believe, just like in case e.g. Alphas.

BTW mine was blue and I had chosen the right moment to sell it, didn't cost me a lot, I was probably lucky..

 

[bluesman]

21 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

I was probably lucky.

Stranger things have happened than finding a reliable Fiat.  Here’s my first one, bought new in 1971. It dragged me, my guitars and a fairly large amplifier to many gigs without a problem of any kind.  I loved that car!

 

[sphinxsix]

The next owner of mine added a nitro, bigger turbo and some top gas (that was a crime for me back then!) installation. I had a chance to drive it after this tuning, IMO it simply had too much power.. He began to go to a race track, I've also heard he posted on Youtube a video on which the Fiat's speedometer reaches maximum and the car is still accelerating..  I think it's quite possible that in this version this was the fastest Fiat ever  (before the tuning the max speed was 250km/h). 

He had fun for 1 year before the engine spectacularly died.. (somehow not surprising, I think) 

[accwai]

21 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I have driven both the Z3M and Z4M coupes and loved them both. If I had the space I would probably own a Z4M coupe.

 

If one must have that one more car, this would be a rather cost effective option:

 

[sphinxsix]

As for cheap  red Fiats.

Silverstone Classic, July 2011.

 

 

HISTORY OF THE CAR  Bought my car in 1985, a 1974 air cooled model for the grand sum of £50...

 

One more, red of course 126  

 

 

 

[sphinxsix]

Strange things happen not only on Russian roads.

 

 

[Bill Brown]

The Russians are awesome.  And a bit crazy! 

 

I am amazed with the videos from their dash cams in winter driving (though sometimes the results are tragic).

 

I wonder if there is still a steering linkage to the (original) front wheels.  Based on the handling I am suspecting not.  Would be interested to see how the front tires are wearing.

 

Bill