interesting awd history.. [LAC]

[Mark J. Besso]

Wow, that sure didn't appear the way I'd hoped.  Let me try that again...

The following article is reprinted (with absolutely no permission
whatsoever) from the July '04 issue of Sports Car Illustrated.  It's written
by Jay Lamm, formerly the editor of that same magazine, but now simply a
columnist.

~Mark

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    I've already told you the tale of my '73 Godzilla Defense Force Mazda,
which I built for the Double 500 and sold on eBay later at a profit of
hundreds of dollars (not counting $10,000+ worth of labor, fairly little of
it mine).
    You may also remember --given a mind for useless trivia and little else
to occupy it-- that I had a Series 1 Jensen Interceptor rotting in the
driveway, which was a car I bought off of eBay with the goal of creating a
Jensen rat-rod for the California Melee.
    One lesson I learned from the Mazda was that an attention-getting eBay
ad can net you a lot of moola.  A lesson I learned from my last trip under
the Jensen with a magnet was that there wasn't enough steel left in it to
support a chili can, let alone a Wedge-motored vintage racer.  And the third
lesson applicable to this story is that honesty may not always be the best
policy.
    The eBay ad through which I bought the poor old Jensen had been honest
at least in a literal sense, but it pointedly hadn't mentioned the car's
bone-deep rust and all-encompassing crappiness.  Mind you, the ad didn't
lie, but neither did it go out of its way to tell the truth.
    Well, in my mind, a three-figure parts car is hardly worth going to Hell
over.  After briefly considering my backup plan --building a 7/5-scale
Caterham shell for the Jensen's tube frame and calling it a "Super-Duper
Seven"-- I decided to put the corpse back on eBay, only this time with a
painfully honest description.  My ad would not only describe the car's
condition, it would try to express some of the flavor of this fetid English
crustbucket.  It went up on December 30th.

'67 Jensen Interceptor Hooptie

    Vehicle Description:  Jensen built over 6,000 Interceptors, continually
developing and debugging the model for nearly ten years until it almost
wasn't horrible.  Alas, this is an extremely early example, so it's horrible
in every conceivable way.
    Granted, as the 180th Interceptor ever made, this right-hand-drive '67
Type 1 could be worse.  The first few dozen of these overheating,
pig-handling, self-immolating rust-buckets came with Vignale-built bodies of
such staggeringly poor quality that the ENGLISH wouldn't accept them, which
is saying quite a mouthful.  Even as it is, this British-built version was
apparently made from an alloy of salt, wet newspapers, and tuna cans.  The
front floors, both sills, most of the exterior front bodywork, and the left
doorpost are all shot; the inner front fenders and box sections have taken a
similar stroll across the periodic table, as have the lower parts of all
four outer fenders.  The hood, while fairly free of corrosion, appears to
have been run over by a monster truck.
    On the upside, the greenhouse and rear clip aren't too bad.  The rear
suspension points are nice and solid, and the twin-sewer-pipe tube frame
--miraculously escaping the usual rust ahead of the firewall that causes the
entire front half of these cars to break off and roll away on their own-- is
totally sound.  I can only chalk this up to a liberal coating of Limey
lubricants having leaked from the sump and gearbox.
    The engine (a Jensen-spec Chrysler 383), transmission (787
Torque-Flite), brakes, and radiator were all supposedly rebuilt by the car's
last owner.  I half-heartedly buy it regarding the brakes and radiator,
which look pretty new.  As to the engine, I think he's defined "rebuild" as
"a new can of Ford-blue engine paint."
    This fine example of how Britain lost its empire comes with good glass
all around, working window motors, good (rare Type 1) dash and console
metal, the pathetic remains of four original Armstrong Selectaride shocks
and a fairly cursory paper trail.
    Vehicle Condition:  Pretty sorry-ass.  But go ahead and e-mail me with
any questions, as I love to be reminded of that.
    Terms of Sale:  For starters, you can get it out of my driveway.

    The response, I have to admit, exceeded my wildest dreams.  By the end
of the ten-day auction I got:
	-52,982 hits.
	-262 individual e-mails, about 261 of which began with, "I
definitely don't want your car, but...."
	-28 bids (mostly in one-dollar increments) from exactly the kind of
Mopar-fan and/or stoner screen names you'd expect, like 6pack68, thewailer
and bb70duste.  I was pulling for ratfacegoon myself, but he gave up early
--$225 was too rich for his blood.
	-E-mails from nine current Interceptor owners, seven of whom liked
the ad, one who didn't understand it and one who (you can't make this stuff
up) said he was "scandalized and incensed and confused" by the
"irresponsible, irrational characterization of this motorcar of notable
achievement and importance."

    The ad even got reprinted in one of the British old-car mags --it was
either thoroughbred & Classic or Classic & Sportscar, I can't actually tell
them apart-- for which I'm considering sending them a bill.
    I got 425 buck in the end, which was 800 less than I had in it but 400
more than I would've taken.  I really just wanted to find somebody who'd
actually have a use for the thing, and to open up another space in my
driveway.  I'd found this engine-less Maserati 3500 on eBay, see, and from
the description, anyway, it sounded like a really good one.


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