The vision

The vision, the future, what is the goal?

I've had the question growing for years. What is the goal, what do you want from all these words? What do I expect from all the busted knuckles and empty check books.

It's easy to ramble on about something, spitting worthless words in the attempt to convince the reader of my conviction. And conviction is what drives oneself. That belief that what I'm doing is important, that keeping the flame lit is important to the history of the craft. That it means something,  if to no one other than myself.

That when all the dust has settled and I am gone back to the earth, that all my passion and the passion of those that came before me will be available to share. That family, friends, children and children's children will be able to look back on the level dedication I have for a craft, for life and the ones around me.

Broad as the word is, craft, craftsmanship, creativity, quality. Taking that thing you like or are good at and following it as far as you can. " Form follows function" that phrase has lingered in and out of my life personally and professionally since before I could drive, and the little engineering firm that has  spent fifty years perfecting what they started with that philosophy.

It's the philosophy behind it that drives this little corner of the written world.

My vision of what this four thousand pounds can be. I have not the money to buy a dream, there will be no roller chassis arriving via delivery truck. No brakes bigger then the wheels that came on it. No high dollar polished floor shop will milk away my children's college fund.

I have not the talent to make magic in metals, creating mastery from empty air. Pounding and forming flat lifeless cold steel into organic creation, I do have the determination to learn, to read and practice until it is right, and the patience to wait.

I have not the time to spend day in and day out slaving away in a tiny garage. I have hours and minutes at a time, thought of and calculated to maximize there effectiveness.

I do however have the ability to see the vision, to see past the rust and positive camber, to see the other end, to see the potential. It will never be the sistine chapel but I have the vision to see what it will be in the end and the patience to share that vision.

The Daily mail

The daily mail, bringing it every day, rain, snow, sleet or shine.

I read an article this morning over on petrolicious.com that reminded me of a conversation I had about a vehicle.

The daily driver, I love the hotrods, classics, restored,  modified, vintage, really everything thing that looks fun and cool. The old ones that we labor on to keep going and get going.

However it's the one that we spend our day in traffic getting to the store and work  that gets more of our time. The new car as some may refer to it as.

For me the new car is twenty years newer than the old car, and at that it's still forty years old. I think it's in better shape then me for kicking around the upper hemisphere for four decades. It's loud, heavy and strangly dependable. It has issues and leaks, but hey, it's middle aged. It's only left me stranded a few times and every other time it's got me where I needed to be.

It lacks the refined interior of a newer vehicle, but nothing a trip to the local wrecking yard and a little creativity can't overcome.

What got me thinking about all this was having to get new tabs and the taxes that go along with that.

My heavy metal box pays a weight charge while an electric nightmare of bad driving gets a tax break. And in that thought I had another thought, this is usually how things get out of hand for me.

I know no one is saying it, but I'm pretty sure someone is getting a kickback on the whole lithium ion battery thing. With that poses the question, are these things like the rechargeable batteries I had in every toy growing up in the eighties?

Will they eventually where out and need to be recycled? How long will they last? What if one of these batteries leaks while your taking your children to school?

The real question is what will happen with these cars in forty or fifty years? Engineered obsolescence, nothing is built to last, they built to sell.

They tell me that the environment suffers because my truck has been driving for forty years. I think that more people should update old cars and restore them, in essence recycling them instead of throwing them aside to get the next new thing.

I've kept forty cars from polluting the roads and counting.

These are the brakes....

These are the brakes...brake it up, brake it up, brake down, or however it goes.

These are the brakes though, the first major purchase, a serious step in the right direction.

I think people take their brakes for granted, I don't know of many people today that give much consideration when they lift their foot from the accelerator and begin the process of stopping. The art of when, how much and how long is lost. Even more apparent in the morning commute.

The quest for speed makes the simple action of moving one appendage left four inches very pivotal. To soon and your scrambling to make it up, to late and your prayers go to keeping it out of the ditch. Not enough to soon and get the whole package, late exit and behind.

To add to this equation, sixty years of stopping technology has made the Black Pearl's original binders whoa fully inadequate. They stopped it, if there was time and nothing of urgency taking place, but I'm a risk taker, a pirate of the open road and I'm gonna be taking some chances.

So I began with the beginning, front brakes, four piston Willwoods and power assistance, nothing is to good for the Pearl. There are some bugs still to work out. Seating the pads and the proportioning valve bias. It's rather difficult to look  cool sliding sideways through an intersection after locking up the rear drum brakes, like is said I started at the front.

Time will only tell if each little step will help make the leap, but like my loved little aircooled sports cars from Stuttgart, I've set myself in motion so I'll stick to my decisions and perfect my craft, my masterpiece,my piece of precision.