In the 20’s Harry Miller built the most beautiful and fast racing cars of the era… won Indy at least 9 times, and Miller’s spiritual offshoot, Offenhauser went on to do more of the same, dominating American open wheeled racing, until the 60’s.

One of these cars is being restored down the road from our shop at Zakira’s. It’s really hard to say if this car is restored or new, as they have all Millers plans and jigs for the car. When it’s done, it will be just as entered at Indy in 1922, but what a work of art. It’s hard to believe you drive this thing, it should be on a wall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pic above is the engine sitting in the Machine Tool room getting done up.

It’s no wonder Harry Miller went out of business in the 30’s. He spent way too much time making this thing look good.

greg

A hot engine in the winter is your friend,
In the summer, it?s your deadly enemy?..

Cars won?t go away till they?re fixed?

What breaks on cars these days is on the molecular level,
And I can?t see down that far?

It takes 10 years to get some idea of what you are doing..
And 20 years to get good at it?

You have to find out for yourself what the customer screwed up on his car?
He won?t tell you?

10,000 miles or more is too long to go on an oil change?
No matter what the manufacturers insist on?
(Your engine won?t blow up till it?s out of warranty?)

The cars engine compartment never gives back a dropped tool?

If you drop a small part on the floor that parts doesn?t have?
You won?t find it for 3 days

You can?t teach a guy not to break plastic parts (such as dash trim)
It?s a learned skill?

You?re gonna get cut and bloody?
But you do get good at getting blood out of upholstery..

Rust never sleeps?

greg

In my last blog on this subject, 2009 VW ROUTAN.. Sheep in Wolfsburg clothing?, this whole rebadging thing has been bugging me. I work in a European car (Saab) dealership and here is how I see what this means to them.

The mechanics that work there have probably been doing VW’s for most of their working lives. There are some gypsy mechanics , but for the most part, you make the best money when you know the product well, and that usually takes years. These guys are immersed in VW culture, including how their manuals are written and how their tools work.

Now, here comes the Chrysler minivan…. along with it comes a huge pile of tools (none of which work on their normal cars) and computer manuals (none of which translates to how they have learned to do things) and scan tools (none of which will also work on their normal cars, or even work the same).

So now these guys are the guys that are going to service your new minivan. They obviously have mechanical skills or they wouldn’t be working there. So they will get rushed training to quickly get up to speed, and here comes the new minivan on friday at 4:50 pm with a check engine light on, and a customer who wants it taken care of quickly and be on his way. Good Luck!

So, in the end, this minivan thing will go on for a few years, it will never really generate enough sales to keep it going, and VW and Chrysler will eventually drop it. The few cars that they made will drift back to Chrysler dealers or independents to be fixed. If there is a market for a VW minivan, and they engineered their own, it could have been a contender…

greg