Check out this persons home garage

[Uncle Al]

Check out this persons home garage.
Not to many garages like this in my area

Uncle Al

[Sinned]

Not really impressed! All it takes is lots of money in the bank. I stopped watching Top Gear because of the emphasis on driving cars that all but the top 0.001% of the population would ever see never mind drive. The more there is the display of opulence the more it turns me off. I'm not poor but then I ain't rich either.

Sinned

[Tor]

I hung on until I figured out that it was a car collection and not a workshop that took over the garage - which, especially with the engine thread, was my first thought. Once it was just a bunch of expensive cars it became a great deal less interesting.

Tor

[Kirbstone]

It's always interesting to see how the other Point 00001% live and better still to actually see them talk about it. The house design holds a lot more interest for me than the cars, frankly. I'd secretly like to be able to enjoy that hot dry climate for at least some part of each year.

T.

[Sinned]

Yes, the house is interesting but it doesn't really seem "liveable in" to me. I'd feel much to nervous of spilling something and spoiling the effect. Definitely architect designed but much too ostentatious and spacious for me. I know that land is probably only 5 cents per acre there but even so .... Even the workshop seems too pristine. A workshop without at least some disorder just doesn't seem right. Not even a work-in-progress on the bench. Also the way the cars are arranged I bet they never see tarmac!

And exactly my point, Tor, they are just a collection just the same as you might have a collection of Dinky toys only they cost a hell of a lot more. It's just boys toys for the really rich.

Sinned

[Jack Williams]

A bit over the top for me too, but it's good to see someone with the resourses to collect such great examples of mankind's capabilities.
Yes, a garage, not a workshop. I can't see that bloke up to his elbows inside an engine!
But then, being a car enthusiast, maybe he built that hotrod. There'll be a story behind that. And it's no use having an amazing million dollar Bugatti unless you get some use out of it.
He obviously had a lot of those cars before he had the garage, because it is designed around them. I think he has really good taste.

My friend Glen Barrett rebuilt this car, I just rebuilt the record player. That is a Plymouth Fury. Chrysler's top model at the time, and the only one known factory perfect down to original paint colour. As rare as any of of the ones above.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44894889@N ... hotostream

[straightfairy]

There's some very nice (and obviously expensive) cars in there, but considering the money spent on it, I'm not impressed by the garage.
There's nothing really special about the looks inside or outside, or the size of it.

[Sarongman]

I've so far kept out of this, but now I'll put my two bobs worth in. (1) Unimpressed with the car collection, possibly because of their recent origins to my memory and their (okay, this really is controversial and only my personal opinion) ostentatious ugliness, however this does not constitute a defence of the bland sameness of the modern product, be it from Europe, Japan, Korea or anywhere. In this case there is a complete lack of anything, to my mind desirable however efficient they may be. Road wise something like the Plymouth Fury was a wallowing barge and the hot rodders made great improvements to the handling that the manufacturers should have done if the engineers had more say than the bean counters and the "stylists" (2) The room housing the cars is more a display area than a garage. As an aside to this, I would like a car from that general era but my first choice would be either the Daimler Majestic Major I learnt to drive in back in the mid60s or a Mk. 10 Jag with the rare manual gearbox. Sports cars? Triumph TR6 or a Stag! Still love a Series 1 or 2 Land Rover station wagon in my imaginary collection, all however driveable and not static display items.

Jack, is the old red Falcon ute your personal wheels?

[Jack Williams]

My friend Glen would be intrigued by your comment about his beautiful Fury, better looking than anything in "The Garage". He's had it at 120MPH. It is in factory showroom condition.
No, the red Falcon ute just resides around about here somewhere. It was parked at my rear neigbour's one day, so it must belong to a friend of his.
I did like the turntable that bloke has in his "garage". It would certainly make getting in and out a lot easier.
It would be hard to find fault with that Bugatti.

[Sarongman]

Yes Jack, The big block iron pushrod V8s Probably fed by a 4 barrel Rochester carb could propel cars to 120 and more. Though, apart from more efficient carburation, the technology hadn't advanced from the 20s V8s. I well remember taking my ex brother in law's Holden Monaro 350, in Bathurst homologation, for a drive and it was definitely a toey beast, good for over 140 mph- vintage tech leaf springs and all. However handling was still far behind the British/European cars and that Fury was built to cruise smooth boulevardes, not twisty alpine roads or the Bathurst 500. Give me an S type Jag 3.8 with it's irs and a good overdrive for real performance and also handling. However I stand behind my previous mentioned cars as favourites, oh,! and the 1928 Essex Super Six I rebuilt to registerable from a pile of scrap and also the 1952 Hillman Minx station wagon that, bald tyres and all, I thrashed around fire trails as a teenager.

Monaro.jpg

[Sarongman]

I append the Holden's deadly rival at Bathurst and other sedan race tracks. The Ford Falcon GT-HO had a 351 cubic inch Cleveland engine and, the cars being so closely matched, the skill of the drivers and pit crews were the ingredient that counted. These beasts go well above $100,000 at auction these days!

GT-HO Phase 2.png

[phathack]

An I thought my 4 car detached garage was excessive.

[crfriend]

The Ford Falcon GT-HO had a 351 cubic inch Cleveland engine and, the cars being so closely matched, the skill of the drivers and pit crews were the ingredient that counted.

Oh, for a car like that and the visibility it provides! None of these damned "modern" engineered-in blind-spots on that beastie!

Of course it's always down to the driver; the machine only plays part of the role. I still fondly recall the time I beat a Chevrolet Corvette off the line at a traffic-light with me driving a 1984 Plymouth Voyager minivan -- with a positively horrified father riding shotgun and an equally horrified aunt in the mid-rear seat. Know and love your machine -- whatever it may be -- because with that love and knowledge you can do truly remarkable things.

In the above scenario, the 'Vette driver was joking; I wasn't. I was in third gear before we cleared the intersection and the other guy hadn't a clue until the game was already over -- and no amount of V8 acceleration could save his bacon. He tried, too, the silly sod, just too late.

[Jack Williams]

When I had my 1925 Buick (Six cylinders, overhead valves, four bearing shaft, fully pressure fed, even to the rockers) a friend had a 1928 Essex Super Six and that was a real dog! The Buick would cruse at 70 mph. The Essex would have blown up!

[Sarongman]

True Jack, size does count there plus the fact that the Essex oil pump was/is. woefully inefficient, pumping an eggspoonfull for each revolution. (The fix there is the retrofitting of a period GM oil pump) The pistons couldnt handle too much engine braking either. I will concede that the Essex was, in some ways, a dog but, when it turned into the Hudson Terraplane in the 30s, it was a performance (for it's day) machine. G.M. cars were always pushrod ohv and Ford stayed sidevalve for aeons--but caught up quickly in the late 50s. For a proper engine, any of the Jaguar dohc engines were a couple of decades ahead of the pack.