driverchris: July 2009

LP PhwoarHundred

How amazing is the Countach? It's got a shape that still takes your breath away when you encounter one, can you imagine what the reaction was when it was shown as a design study at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show?

As the model progressed it was adorned with spoilers, wings and bodykit aero pieces to try and keep things under some modicum of control but they did inevitably take away from the suprising purity of Gandini's original.

The simple beauty of the early cars means that they're starting to command primo prices. Check out this (follow the link for plenty more pics) concours winning '77 LP400. $395,000 is a pretty spicy meatball for a car that, lets face it, is probably damn near undrivable in any realistic modern sense...

...but just look at the fucker!

Loving the vertically stacked odometer.

A small nugget that I wasn't aware of; The word countach is an exclamation of astonishment in the Piedmontese language — generally used by men on seeing an extremely beautiful woman. While the term is often considered untranslatable into English, it is essentially equivalent to the British verbalization "Phwoar". Or, it can also be considered the verbal equivalent of a wolf-whistle. Seems appropriate.

Accept no substitute

The Clive James Hunt

In the current sea of godawful F1 punditry this season roundup from 1982 stands out like an island of awesomeness.

Okay so today's pundits don't have the same excitement quota of fragile turbos battling on classic circuits (jeez how old do these pictures make me feel?) where every race held the distinct possibility of not finishing that might include throwing it into the crowd or at the very least grenading the bastard.

But the lugubrious sarcasm of Clive James' delivery hides a deep passion for the sport and amongst his sardonic one-liners there's an astute grasp of the season's key battles.

And we get Eddie Jordan?

MK09

This weekend at the BMX track in MK

Strip for Strat

Another guitar added to the collection - a Strat that was advertised on the intranet at work, and at a price that was too tempting for me to pass up. It's a Squier and like all modern budget guitars absolutely astonishingly good value, even at the RRP. Kids these days don't know they're born, not cutting their teeth on an expensive horror show with an action half an inch off the deck etc etc.

It's a fairly classic red with a rosewood board - not my cup of meat so I thought why not paint 'er up. First thoughts were to do a classic Strat repro - something like Rocky, or Stevie's perhaps even Rory's, but that seemed kinda obvious and although it's a good player I seriously doubt there's a single piece of nicely grained wood under there - so a 'beat up' flaked job wasn't going to cut it.

A petrolhead friend suggested basing it on a classic racing livery and it would be in keeping, when Leo Fender created the Strat he went to Du Pont for the beautiful paint colours that epitomised fifties car culture - the Gulf Oil blue is particularly fitting for a strat.

A small spotters badge if you can name inspiration behind them all, some are downright obvious - and no peeping at the filenames/metadata.