THE ROADSTER LEGEND by David E. Davis, Jr.
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,675
Likes: 0
From: Fairfield County
David E. Davis, Jr., is one of the most influential automotive journalists of our time.
Here is a wonderful article David E. wrote on the subject of roadsters which appeared in Automobile Magazine some years ago:
THE ROADSTER LEGEND
by David E. Davis, Jr.
"My first car was a 1935 Mercedes-Benz roadster, purchased for one thousand dollars in 1951. An American colonel had brought it back from Germany, only to be defeated by its service needs. That car was my friend and constant companion for more than a year, until I decided to become a racing driver and sold it to raise money for a competitive entry-level sports car. I was living in a very small town, a hundred miles from my parents and my childhood. I worked at a variety of jobs during the days, and drove to see friends and farmland and forests (and life) in the nights. The car ran like a train. It had a six-cylinder engine and an overdrive transmission. We were a team, that car and I. I accelerated through its gears, pushed the lever to the overdrive fourth gear, waited a moment for it to engage, then droned across high-crowned two-lane country roads in the gathering dark. The top was stowed behind the seats. The warm wind wrapped the back of my neck like a scarf and the moon lit the backs of my hands on the steering wheel. The instruments glowed softly, barely legible in their faint yellow light. Sometimes I drove miles without lights, just following the road by its contour and by the march of the utility poles stretching away toward the ends of the earth in the moonlight.
Going where? Going to see women who were sleepy and tousled and warm when I parked beneath their windows and walked quietly across the grass to their doors. Going to see old friends, who wanted to drink and talk about women whom they used to visit in the night. Going to a Gypsy restaurant where the owner played the violin and his wife accompanied him on the accordion and the hatcheck girl loved me. Going to the right, because that road led to a secluded lake. Going to the left, because the road seemed to promise more curves. Going to the end of the road, because I'd never been there before. Going to...I don't know where. Perhaps going to the future, to the rest of my life.
Then there was the MG. White, with black-edged yellow stripes over the louvered hood and front fenders. The grille painted checker-board. The engine was tuned to its limit. The exhaust pipe was a copper tube, one and a half inches in diameter. The sound was much greater than the performance, but to drive it fast was pure unbridled joy. The headlights were the best Marchals available at the time. On the badge bar stood a pair of Lucas flamethrowers that made the scenery of the night all flat white foreground, two-dimensional, pierced by the reflected light of the deer's eyes in the forest that lined the road. My windscreen was folded down and bugs stung my cheeks and forehead as I tore across the agricultural heartland.
We drive cars because they make us free. With cars, we need not wait in airline terminals, or travel only where the railway tracks go. Governments detest our cars: They give us too much freedom. How do you control people who can climb into a car at any hour of the day or night and drive to who knows where? An open car gives us another dimension of freedom. In an open car we enjoy the heightened freedom of the coursing hound, racing across the land with only the wind for clothing. It is the freedom of wild ducks, shining in their colorful plumage, flying at impossible speeds through the treetops to impress the duck-women they love. In a closed car, the world is a horizontal place, seen through windows that are too much like television screens. In an open car, the world becomes properly round above us, a vast dome of pure possibility, limited only by what we know of the universe. In an open car on an open road, we can feel what that man felt eons ago, when he first managed to grab a horse's mane, throw himself on its back, and feel himself transported at unthinkable speed into mankind's next stage of development.
In the beginning, all cars were sports cars. Only the most venturesome travelers chose the automobile over the more reliable trains and horses of that era. When the internal combustion engine at last became useful, it was simply bolted into the front ends of wagons and carriages, where the horses used to be. Those wagons and carriages suddenly found themselves being propelled at greater rates of speed than those for which they were designed, and it was all pretty exciting for their drivers and passengers. Over the years, as speeds increased, the vehicles became more comfortable and secure, offering better weather protection to their occupants, but the real sports, the true believers, still wanted to feel the wind and sun on their faces, and the cars that made it possible for them to do this were called roadsters, spyders, cabriolets, phaetons, touring cars, and--sometimes--sports cars.
A sports car is one which offers more sport than utility. One in which fun is a more important design goal than practicality. In the early days, sports cars were simply racing cars that had been modified sufficiently to make them legal, or appropriate, for use on the public roads. Today's sports car is more apt to be a fully tamed production model offering all the amenities, but still spiced with the zesty flavor of those great bellowing crudenesses that smoked across the country roads of our grandfathers. To quote a dear friend and mentor of mine, Barney Clark: The modern sports car is a 'child of the magnificent ghosts.' One puts down the top, sets off down a country road, and relives years and miles of automotive legends.
Once, years ago, I was involved in an imported car dealership in a university town. Our service manager was something of a loner, a man who kept to himself and told us little of his life beyond the hydraulic lifts and Craftsman tools. From what I knew of this guy, he loved four things: Three were tattered BMW 328 sports cars and the fourth was any woman who would go home with him. 'Home' was a tiny rented house full of BMW 328 parts. One speculates as to why any woman would have gone home with him in the first place, but the mind boggles at what she must have felt when he unlocked the door and she saw that they would be sharing the single bed with a cylinder head and a bouquet of pushrods. Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for the 328 communicated itself to me, and I grew particularly fond of its lovely two-liter engine. I drove Arnolt-Bristols powered by that engine, and to this day I long to own a 328-powered LeMans Replica Frazer-Nash, surely one of the most delicious sports cars of the automotive century.
I still drive open cars with great enthusiasm. I recently fulfilled two of my automotive dreams: One, by actually owning a beautiful Kougar-Jaguar, a modern replicar that looks a bit like my beloved Frazer-Nash; and, two, by finally getting rid of it. I had begun to believe that I was the last man in North America to want a Kougar-Jaguar. It was a car without a top, without doors, without windshield wipers, and it taught me a great deal about the proper clothing for open car motoring. Sheepskin coats and trousers like those worn by air crews in World War II are very nice, and very popular, but they're bulky and restrictive and they are not waterproof. I prefer the Barbour line of outdoor clothing, made in Great Britain. It is absolutely waterproof--being constructed of oiled cotton--and when worn in combination with wool, silk, cashmere, polyfleece, or quilted down, it will protect one from anything the weather gods have to offer. For headgear, nothing beats the old leather or cloth flying helmet that buckles under the chin. This is absolutely secure, will not blow off, and keeps the ears warm. It is hard on the coiffure, but it works. A full coverage racing helmet is also warm and relatively comfortable, but it does make you look ridiculous backing out of your suburban driveway. English flat caps look wonderful, especially on women, but they tend to blow off at high speeds. Never, ever, wear the sort of baseball caps with advertising messages so favored by the more feckless Americans.
Is an open car the answer to all of your transportation needs? Probably not, at least not entirely. But, will a fast drive on an open road lift your heart and light your dreams? Of course it will, unless you have no heart and no dreams. Open cars transport us, not just in the sense of getting from home to work, but by showing us a side to life we might otherwise have missed. They put the fun back into driving, and they remind us of a time when automobiles represented the sum of human progress, and the people who designed, built, and drove them were heroes."
Here is a wonderful article David E. wrote on the subject of roadsters which appeared in Automobile Magazine some years ago:
THE ROADSTER LEGEND
by David E. Davis, Jr.
"My first car was a 1935 Mercedes-Benz roadster, purchased for one thousand dollars in 1951. An American colonel had brought it back from Germany, only to be defeated by its service needs. That car was my friend and constant companion for more than a year, until I decided to become a racing driver and sold it to raise money for a competitive entry-level sports car. I was living in a very small town, a hundred miles from my parents and my childhood. I worked at a variety of jobs during the days, and drove to see friends and farmland and forests (and life) in the nights. The car ran like a train. It had a six-cylinder engine and an overdrive transmission. We were a team, that car and I. I accelerated through its gears, pushed the lever to the overdrive fourth gear, waited a moment for it to engage, then droned across high-crowned two-lane country roads in the gathering dark. The top was stowed behind the seats. The warm wind wrapped the back of my neck like a scarf and the moon lit the backs of my hands on the steering wheel. The instruments glowed softly, barely legible in their faint yellow light. Sometimes I drove miles without lights, just following the road by its contour and by the march of the utility poles stretching away toward the ends of the earth in the moonlight.
Going where? Going to see women who were sleepy and tousled and warm when I parked beneath their windows and walked quietly across the grass to their doors. Going to see old friends, who wanted to drink and talk about women whom they used to visit in the night. Going to a Gypsy restaurant where the owner played the violin and his wife accompanied him on the accordion and the hatcheck girl loved me. Going to the right, because that road led to a secluded lake. Going to the left, because the road seemed to promise more curves. Going to the end of the road, because I'd never been there before. Going to...I don't know where. Perhaps going to the future, to the rest of my life.
Then there was the MG. White, with black-edged yellow stripes over the louvered hood and front fenders. The grille painted checker-board. The engine was tuned to its limit. The exhaust pipe was a copper tube, one and a half inches in diameter. The sound was much greater than the performance, but to drive it fast was pure unbridled joy. The headlights were the best Marchals available at the time. On the badge bar stood a pair of Lucas flamethrowers that made the scenery of the night all flat white foreground, two-dimensional, pierced by the reflected light of the deer's eyes in the forest that lined the road. My windscreen was folded down and bugs stung my cheeks and forehead as I tore across the agricultural heartland.
We drive cars because they make us free. With cars, we need not wait in airline terminals, or travel only where the railway tracks go. Governments detest our cars: They give us too much freedom. How do you control people who can climb into a car at any hour of the day or night and drive to who knows where? An open car gives us another dimension of freedom. In an open car we enjoy the heightened freedom of the coursing hound, racing across the land with only the wind for clothing. It is the freedom of wild ducks, shining in their colorful plumage, flying at impossible speeds through the treetops to impress the duck-women they love. In a closed car, the world is a horizontal place, seen through windows that are too much like television screens. In an open car, the world becomes properly round above us, a vast dome of pure possibility, limited only by what we know of the universe. In an open car on an open road, we can feel what that man felt eons ago, when he first managed to grab a horse's mane, throw himself on its back, and feel himself transported at unthinkable speed into mankind's next stage of development.
In the beginning, all cars were sports cars. Only the most venturesome travelers chose the automobile over the more reliable trains and horses of that era. When the internal combustion engine at last became useful, it was simply bolted into the front ends of wagons and carriages, where the horses used to be. Those wagons and carriages suddenly found themselves being propelled at greater rates of speed than those for which they were designed, and it was all pretty exciting for their drivers and passengers. Over the years, as speeds increased, the vehicles became more comfortable and secure, offering better weather protection to their occupants, but the real sports, the true believers, still wanted to feel the wind and sun on their faces, and the cars that made it possible for them to do this were called roadsters, spyders, cabriolets, phaetons, touring cars, and--sometimes--sports cars.
A sports car is one which offers more sport than utility. One in which fun is a more important design goal than practicality. In the early days, sports cars were simply racing cars that had been modified sufficiently to make them legal, or appropriate, for use on the public roads. Today's sports car is more apt to be a fully tamed production model offering all the amenities, but still spiced with the zesty flavor of those great bellowing crudenesses that smoked across the country roads of our grandfathers. To quote a dear friend and mentor of mine, Barney Clark: The modern sports car is a 'child of the magnificent ghosts.' One puts down the top, sets off down a country road, and relives years and miles of automotive legends.
Once, years ago, I was involved in an imported car dealership in a university town. Our service manager was something of a loner, a man who kept to himself and told us little of his life beyond the hydraulic lifts and Craftsman tools. From what I knew of this guy, he loved four things: Three were tattered BMW 328 sports cars and the fourth was any woman who would go home with him. 'Home' was a tiny rented house full of BMW 328 parts. One speculates as to why any woman would have gone home with him in the first place, but the mind boggles at what she must have felt when he unlocked the door and she saw that they would be sharing the single bed with a cylinder head and a bouquet of pushrods. Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for the 328 communicated itself to me, and I grew particularly fond of its lovely two-liter engine. I drove Arnolt-Bristols powered by that engine, and to this day I long to own a 328-powered LeMans Replica Frazer-Nash, surely one of the most delicious sports cars of the automotive century.
I still drive open cars with great enthusiasm. I recently fulfilled two of my automotive dreams: One, by actually owning a beautiful Kougar-Jaguar, a modern replicar that looks a bit like my beloved Frazer-Nash; and, two, by finally getting rid of it. I had begun to believe that I was the last man in North America to want a Kougar-Jaguar. It was a car without a top, without doors, without windshield wipers, and it taught me a great deal about the proper clothing for open car motoring. Sheepskin coats and trousers like those worn by air crews in World War II are very nice, and very popular, but they're bulky and restrictive and they are not waterproof. I prefer the Barbour line of outdoor clothing, made in Great Britain. It is absolutely waterproof--being constructed of oiled cotton--and when worn in combination with wool, silk, cashmere, polyfleece, or quilted down, it will protect one from anything the weather gods have to offer. For headgear, nothing beats the old leather or cloth flying helmet that buckles under the chin. This is absolutely secure, will not blow off, and keeps the ears warm. It is hard on the coiffure, but it works. A full coverage racing helmet is also warm and relatively comfortable, but it does make you look ridiculous backing out of your suburban driveway. English flat caps look wonderful, especially on women, but they tend to blow off at high speeds. Never, ever, wear the sort of baseball caps with advertising messages so favored by the more feckless Americans.
Is an open car the answer to all of your transportation needs? Probably not, at least not entirely. But, will a fast drive on an open road lift your heart and light your dreams? Of course it will, unless you have no heart and no dreams. Open cars transport us, not just in the sense of getting from home to work, but by showing us a side to life we might otherwise have missed. They put the fun back into driving, and they remind us of a time when automobiles represented the sum of human progress, and the people who designed, built, and drove them were heroes."
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 616
Likes: 0
From: The wilds of
Originally posted by S2000 Driver
...An open car gives us another dimension of freedom. In an open car we enjoy the heightened freedom of the coursing hound, racing across the land with only the wind for clothing. It is the freedom of wild ducks, shining in their colorful plumage, flying at impossible speeds through the treetops to impress the duck-women they love. In a closed car, the world is a horizontal place, seen through windows that are too much like television screens. In an open car, the world becomes properly round above us, a vast dome of pure possibility, limited only by what we know of the universe. In an open car on an open road, we can feel what that man felt eons ago, when he first managed to grab a horse's mane, throw himself on its back, and feel himself transported at unthinkable speed into mankind's next stage of development...
...will a fast drive on an open road lift your heart and light your dreams? Of course it will, unless you have no heart and no dreams. Open cars transport us, not just in the sense of getting from home to work, but by showing us a side to life we might otherwise have missed. They put the fun back into driving, and they remind us of a time when automobiles represented the sum of human progress, and the people who designed, built, and drove them were heroes...
...An open car gives us another dimension of freedom. In an open car we enjoy the heightened freedom of the coursing hound, racing across the land with only the wind for clothing. It is the freedom of wild ducks, shining in their colorful plumage, flying at impossible speeds through the treetops to impress the duck-women they love. In a closed car, the world is a horizontal place, seen through windows that are too much like television screens. In an open car, the world becomes properly round above us, a vast dome of pure possibility, limited only by what we know of the universe. In an open car on an open road, we can feel what that man felt eons ago, when he first managed to grab a horse's mane, throw himself on its back, and feel himself transported at unthinkable speed into mankind's next stage of development...
...will a fast drive on an open road lift your heart and light your dreams? Of course it will, unless you have no heart and no dreams. Open cars transport us, not just in the sense of getting from home to work, but by showing us a side to life we might otherwise have missed. They put the fun back into driving, and they remind us of a time when automobiles represented the sum of human progress, and the people who designed, built, and drove them were heroes...
What he said.
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,073
Likes: 0
From: Silver Spring, MD
Last Saturday, my wife and I dropped the top on our S and took the back roads up to Gettysburg, PA. The combination of the wonderful late winter weather and the now-peaceful battlefield where so many died made me contemplate what it means to live in a free society where "people can climb into a car at any time of the day or night and drive to who knows where."
Thanks for posting this wonderful article, and thanks, Honda, for making this wonderful car.
Thanks for posting this wonderful article, and thanks, Honda, for making this wonderful car.
Trending Topics
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 3,086
Likes: 0
From: St. Pete, Florida
Ditto from me.
Originally posted by Tox
I've always considered Davis to be overly impressed with his own eloquence, but this time he's described exactly why I own an S2000.
What he said.
I've always considered Davis to be overly impressed with his own eloquence, but this time he's described exactly why I own an S2000.
What he said.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post