Trent said:I genuinely don't come in contact with many modern cars so the car that raises my ire the most is.......
Jaguar E-Types.
I honestly never gave them a second thought for most of my life. I just didn't care about them. Then I got into the restoration game and we always have 2-3 in progress at any time.
I hate them. There is no nice way to put it. Doing anything to them is a fight. The bonnet doesn't open far enough to access anything so you are constantly wedging yourself between the tire and the wheel opening. Just removing the carbs takes custom bent and ground wrenches and an hour of your life. Bleeding the rear inboard calipers? Boy I hope you have extra long, incredibly thin alien arms. Adjusting the timing? well, get a buddy to lay on the ground pointing the light up at the crank pulley to shout at you which direction you need to go with the distributor, it is a two person job.
And then you drive them...... The coupes are damn near impossible to get in and out of, The convertibles are better when the top is down but as soon as you are seated you realize you are looking directly at the chrome on the top of the windshield and what else you can see is distorted by the bends in the glass. At least there is no place for your left foot while driving though. I mean, they really leaned into the whole unpleasant from every angle thing. The driving position sitting so far back from the front end that slopes off out of your sight is like driving a boat with an outboard motor.I don't even see them as attractive anymore. The person who coined the phrase "a car is a penis extension" was clearly thinking about this rolling phallus shaped object.
Whew......Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
Chuck, who I have spoken of in the past, became an Italian and English exotics mechanic in Tallahassee in his later years. Taught me to be smarter than the tools I was using.
Anyways, I often visited his shop and would hear him muttering while under a vehicle, or wedged halfway into it (sometimes an E-Type, although a Ferrari or Maserati were more likely.) I once asked him what he was saying, and he said it's his mantra for reaching maintenance items in these cars.
"Hands of a child, arms of a woman, strength of a gorilla."
Never made my hands smaller or got my arms to shrink, but it helps when you are barely there.
That reminds me, I have a rounded nut I need to replace on the truck.
