Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: alembic76407 on September 15, 2005, 09:55:25 AM
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What kind of cars do Alembic owners drive?
here's mine
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/20996.jpg)
87 Porsche 944, it's my daily driver with 200,000 miles, and still run's great
David T
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'03 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad-cab 4x4, bass stuff fits..
'01 Toyota Camry, some of the bass stuff fits..
'04 Kawasaki KLR 650, none of the bass stuff fits..
John
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1971 Volvo 1800E
2001 Mazda B3000 Pickup truck
2001 Ford Explorer
Never tried to put much more than a couple overnight bags in the Volvo as the spare tire takes up to much room in the trunk/boot.
Can carry everything I have in the other two.
Keith
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1991 Nissan 300ZX 2+2 - fast approaching 218,000 miles. Wondeful car and, with the tiny back seat folded down, can hold a LOT of gear.
1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee. (Wife's car) It's holds what the 300ZX can't.
1959 Mercedes 220S Cabriolet with Hydrak tranny. Fun only. It's like driving down the road on your living room couch!
Bill, tgo
(Message edited by lbpesq on September 15, 2005)
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2006 lexus 400h hybrid
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2001 Toyota MR2 Spyder
2000 Lexus RX300 (Senior Management's car)
Sam
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2004 Opel Corsa 1.0 Enjoy, an economical yet gritty 3 cylinder, in Titian Red (discontinued colour) - but to be honest I've been driving it only since the last two weeks, as I've only gained my license that recently. And we live in a country that's basically flat, so no worries about the small engine.
I guess it will hold my two Alembics and the SWR WM12, with the 2/3 splitable backseat still accommodating two passengers.
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(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21007.jpg)
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21008.jpg)
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21009.jpg)
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93 Subaru wagon (yawn)
99 Dodge Grand Caravan (yawn)
73 GMC pickup (old farm truck, driven only when a truck is needed, single digits per gallon, owwww).
Rich
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Yawn? Try yuck:
1996 Ford Taurus, red, with a 3.0 V6 and a rebuilt tranny; probably the worst car I've ever owned, but I appear to be stuck with it.
Guess where I cut corners to be able to play Alembic?
I'm considering taking on a silver '76 Jag XJ-6 as a project car and dropping in a Chevy block, so stay tuned.
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here's my current vehicle - takes my trace 4x10 combo,1x15 cab, 2 12inch pA speakers, a wedge monitor and two Alembics. Plus one passenger. Up till now I've had 4 Land Rover Defenders but Mrs J decided we needed more sophistication this time round ;-)
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21026.jpg)
I also have an MG Midget awaiting restoration - it's not much use for transporting gear though.
Graeme
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I don't drive at all. If you guys want to experience what I do, get into your car and put on a blindfold, then try to go for a spin and see how far you get!!!!
I do own a 2002 Nissan Primera Estate (station Wagon for all of you living on the West Bank!) It is a 2.2 Diesel and can hold all gear quite comfortably.
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Lol! If we want to experience what you do Mike we need to marry a saint, then sit in the passenger seat while she drives us around ;-)
With the seats down, Mikes Primera probably has more length than my Discovery !
Graeme
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1997 Ford F-150, 150 K miles. Before that it was a Honda CRX, which I got rid of after 345,000 miles (original clutch, struts, & timing belt).
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2004 Dakota club cab 4x4
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Hey! I can even drive a lawn tractor!!!
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Ehm, since my money is invested in Alembics: 1996 Peugeot 306 with about 170,000 km on the clock. It's a really nice car BTW, my next one will probably be another 306...
Wilfred
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Lawn tractors, ATV's and bikes count, lets see some pictures.
if you can, have your Alembic in the photo
David T
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Usually I drive a 1995 Subaru Legacy, which is perfect for mountain gigs here in Colorado. While on the road, it's a 1999 Ford E-450 airporter. Fits lots of gear and with bunks, it's much better than a van.
Edwin(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21035.jpg)
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Nice gig truck Edwin!!
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Ditto Edwin !
Does it have a big screen tv and a wet bar ?
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Nice. Diesel I assume?
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No TV. Just 3 sweaty musicians. Actually not so sweaty since we got the AC fixed but that tour through the southeast over the 4th of July was brutal with no AC. Georgia was ridiculous! It is diesel and we have thought about doing the veggie oil conversion, but have had other things on our plate.
Edwin
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If/when you do the veggie conversion I'd love to hear about it.
John
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I drive this.....
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21043.jpg)
.....lol
Jazzyvee
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Jazzyvee,
I guess a 2x15 and a 4x10 can fit in the back, huh?
Rich
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I doubt it. lol It's very tight fit but I've got it sorted with my gear. It only goes in one way lol.
Very economical on fuel so It hardly costs me anything to get to gigs.
A great little car had it for almost 3 years and 40,000 miles now and ti's been 100% reliable. A couple of musician friends of mine have been considering buying one.
Jazzyvee
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There was talk of bringing the Smart Car to the States but I think it was shelfed. To bad it would be a great buy the way gas prices are going.
Sam
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I was in San DIego this summer and spoke to a real estate agent who told me that Smart cars were being given away free by a developer to clients who purchased one of their home in excess of $1million.
But I guess people think they are cute. and probably a good sales gimmic.
With the price of petrol in the UK hitting almost ?5.00 per gallon approx $9.00, the economy of the car is a blessing as round town it gives around 60mpg and about 70 on the motorway.
It's saved me a fortune. I was spending more in my old car ( 5 series BMW) per month in petrol than what the smart car monthy finance payments would have been.
Jazzyvee.
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I saw a red Smart car in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia, in August, with N.S. plates. I think maybe they're slowly making inroads. They are sharp looking little cars...
John
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I've got...
Seat Ibiza Cupra 20VT - not too thirsty but not much space in it either.
Subaru Impreza Turbo - thirsty-ish but useable space.
And this thing - runs on Shell Optimax at horrific cost, drinks at a horrific rate too and there's no space at all!
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21095.jpg)
Rog
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A Ferrari by any chance?
Bill, tgo
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Nope.
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Rog I was hoping you still had your TVR, WOW what a car!!!!
if you want to ship your TVR to me, Gas in Oklahoma is $2.33 a gallon, I think I can feed it and give it a nice warm place to call home
David T
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Yes, I've still got it, David. I don't use it much though, but that's always been the case.
Regardless of the cost of fuel, it still brings a massive smile to my face every single time I drive it :-) Even if the UK is completely littered with speed cameras...
Rog
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I used to have a 1976 chevy 3/4 ton dually pickup with a 454 cubic inch engine. It had twin 4 barrel carbs on it along with a few other mods, and on a good day with the sail up going down hill I could get about 6 miles to the gallon. I'm glad that I'm not feeding that thing now. We used to go to Mexico to fill up and get gas for $0.50 per gallon.
Rog, what kind of mileage are you getting on your TVR? It is a great car!
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I used to drive a citro?n C5. Great car with lots of space for bass gear. Here's why I don't drive it anymore...
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21104.jpg)
Btw, this was not my fault. I had the 'right of way'. Now I drive an Opel Astra as a replacement car. A new car will be on order soon. Company cars are great, no?
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oops, looks pretty bad Tom. As a regular cycle commuter into edinburgh, I know if I exercised my 'right of way, all the time I'd probably be dead by now.
(a statistic borne out by this mornings BBC scotland news)
Graeme
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Luckily, nobody was hurt. And I didn't really exercise my right of way. It was a crossroads with extremely bad view to the side, so I had to drive a bit on the crossroads to check for other cars. The other car was driving real fast, I didn't see it coming and I didn't have the time to react. Before I even knew what happened, everything was already over... It was pretty surrealistic. The police came by and the officer said that people shouldn't TAKE their right of way but they should RECEIVE their right of way. I told him that I thought that people should GIVE the right of way. That shut him up actually. Guess he couldn't argue with that, because it's in the law that way...
For me, this was the first caraccident I ever had. I really am a carefull driver...
(Message edited by GuineaPig on September 20, 2005)
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Mpisanek - Thanks for your kind comments on my TVR!
I get about 21mpg if I'm careful, but that can get down to (gulp) 8mpg if I'm trying really hard!
Rog
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Tom - as someone who recently passed the exams I should know ... You cannot basically take right of way, you must receive it. The fundamental traffic rule in Europe is something like everyone participating in traffic must act in such a way that other participants are not hindered. If you don't give right of way when you must, you are in the wrong, and if you take it when none is given then you could also be in the wrong.
Living in an area where people drive pretty wild (The Hague) the trick I learned was not to engage in eye contact when you have right of way, like when you're on a roundabout and people don't want to wait for you. Works like a charm. - But of course that wouldn't have helped in your situation.
I seem to remember Belgians drive way too fast all the time, and you have these 90 km roads with lots of local traffic crossing and no traffic lights ... Does Luik still have those fly-overs with crossings in mid-air?
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I don't know about Luik. But I can imagine they're still there. In Flanders, a lot has been done on traffic safety. Most 'intercity' roads now have a 70km/h limit and lots of traffic lights. Anywayz, I'm not a fast driver at all. And everything depends on where you're driving. Try Brussels, everybody takes right of way and if you don't take it yourself, well, you won't be moving.
In my case, rest assured that I was totally in my right. Belgian law, as far as I know, says you have to give right of way...
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My theory of driving is something like this:
I am an excellent driver. Everyone else on the road is a moron who should never have been allowed to get a license. If there is any possible mistake they can make, they will make it. Therefore I need to expect them to screw up, be ready for it, and have planned out what I am going to do when they screw up
So, even if the rule of the road says that you should take your right of way, I will assume the other driver is an inconsiderate twit who will ignore the rules. I then make sure the other car is actually yielding before I take my right of way.
The problem is that there are two things in this world that every man thinks he is good at. One of them is driving.
Roger:
rogertvr - the car is a tvr - just give me the Homer award and write Dohhh! across my forehead. I've don't recall seeing a TVR like yours, only one that has a kind of high, cut off rear end, maybe a little reminiscient of a Triumph GT6+ (and this was MANY years ago). Very nice looking auto. What does it have under the bonnet? I may be a yank, but I've worked on enough British cars to know why they drink warm beer in England. (For those who don't know, the answer is Lucas refrigerators, as in Lucas, the Prince of Darkness or how about Lucas, the anti-Alembic).
Bill, tgo
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I'm not sure of Belgian driving laws but here in NC the law is you have to yield to the vehicle already in the intersection. In this situation if you hit the vehicle you are at fault not the vehicle in the intersection. This is true even if you would have the right of way under normal circumstances. Whether the officer attending the accident writes a citation or not is a different subject.
Keith
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My Subaru is actually the latest in a line of Subarus. My first was an '83. I was leaving a gig in the mountains just west of here at 2:30AM on a Monday. I had just been telling all the other folks on the gig what great car I had and how they should all ditch their SUVs and get Subarus. Feeling very proud of myself and my car, I made my way down the canyon (up to 10% grade at points, very curvy and with a creek next to the road the whole way). About 3/4 of the way down, a truck comes around the corner coming up the canyon and all of a sudden all I see is green and the next thing I know, I am wearing the windshield. For a split second, I think I'll just stick my head out the window and drive the rest of the way home. Luckily, at the particular stretch, there is a strip of gravel to my right between me and the creek, so I can pull over without too much difficulty (instead of veering into the creek, which would have been instant death due to my gear being right behind me). It turns out that a porta potty flew off the trailer behind the truck, who was going probably 60mph and right into my grill and then into the windshield. I was going 30, so that's a combined impact of 90mph. A little faster on either of our parts, and I would have been killed by the windshield. As it was, it messed up my right wrist and arm and my car was completely totalled.
My next Subaru (a mint Outback purchased from retired couple from California tricked out with everything) was totalled after I owned it for 5 months. I was driving along and the Ray Brown trio came on the radio. As it came up to the bass solo, I approached a light that was turning yellow. I could have blazed through, but I wanted to hear the bass, so I stopped. As I was listening to Ray play, a car going through the intersection made an illegal left into oncoming traffic, totalling another car that veered off and hit me, just sitting grooving to Ray. Really pissed me off! Damn kid totalled 4 cars with a dumb move like that (the car that hit me continued on and totalled the SUV next me. I could see the two girls in it, completely helpless as they came at me with no ability to steer their car or stop it).
Anyway, it's all good now, but watch out. When they say the **** hits the fan, some of us mean it literally!
Edwin
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The general, unofficial traffic law in Italy is that if you get to the intersection first, you win. ;)
Valentino
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Adriaan, driving around the Boston area for the last 20 years I came up with the same thing. If you don't make eye contact they don't get the idea that they can pull out in front of you and you'll mash the breaks to avoid hitting them. Of course you have to take enough of a glance to know that they see you.
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Bill,
I always heard it as Lucas, Satan's personal electrician.
Brad
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Bill, tgo:-
It's a TVR Chimaera.
It's got a Rover V8 engine in it. All of these engines started life as an ex-Buick unit http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?engineroverv8f.htm (http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?engineroverv8f.htm)
However, by the time TVR have finished with them, it's 4 litres, outputs 240bhp in the guise that my TVR has and it has 275 ft/lb torque.
The car weighs 1060Kg (just over an imperial ton), giving it a power to weight ratio of about 230bhp per ton without my chubby little carcass in the driving seat!
As for performance - fairly rapid really. 0-60mph in 4.7 seconds, 0-100mph in 12 seconds and a top speed the other side of 150mph. Apparently :-)
I hope this lot is of some interest and not just boring!
Cheers,
Rog
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Bill, I believe you're thinking of the Griffith..
http://www.gspovey.demon.co.uk/garage/tvr/models/griff400.htm (http://www.gspovey.demon.co.uk/garage/tvr/models/griff400.htm)
A guy on our street had one for a while, Jeez it was quick. I always admired Trevor Wilkinson for the way he tried to squeeze the biggest, nastiest engines he could find into roller-skates ;-)
Graeme
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In Rome they have a saying.
There are two types of pedestrians, the quick and the dead!!!!
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...and in America they have two types of music, Country AND Western ;-)
Graeme
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Yeah, the Griffith looks like what I remember, but this old noggin remembers it as a TVR. Did TVR make something with a siminlar rear end, maybe a little more triangular? Either that, or it's another case of cognitive dissonance. The other name that keeps creeping in is Bricklin - another cool low production British? car - by Marshall Bricklin maybe - that I remember drooling over before '70s Alembics replaced my lust for '60s Roadsters. Enjoy her Roger and, if she's anything like my old Bugeye Sprite, keep some locktite in the boot! LOL
Bill, tgo
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Bill, the Griffith is a TVR. However, looking through the rest of the website I linked to, alot of the earlier TVR models looked pretty much the same, just different names.
Graeme
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Graeme:
Thanks. At least some of my brain cells are still intact. I've had a weakness for British sports cars since I saw my first E-Type Jag in the early 60's at about 7 years of age. For many years I promised myself I would get myself either an E-Type or a Custom Alembic for my 50th B-day. The guitar won out. (As expensive as my Custom Further will wind up being, it is still A LOT less than a good condition Jag). But if anyone around here has an old Jag (XK-120, 130, 140 or E-Type, heck I'd even take a D-Type LOL) that needs a good home........
Bill, tgo
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My Alembic transport ...(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21120.jpg)
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Bill.
I've had an MG Midget since I was about 20. It's badly in need of restoration - been in the garage for 7 years. For the cost of my Rogue early this year, I could have bought a new bodyshell, had it sprayed and got the car back on the road. The things we give up for music eh;-)
Graeme
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Alan
Does your Ram have a Hemi in er ? If so, what kind of mileage are you getting/not getting ?
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(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/21152.jpg)
I love the car LANCIA RALLY.
It's often called production number 037.
My call name means the collection room of 037.
It was born 1982, then younger than my Dis-B and Fan head 5st.
BUT! I have never driven with my basses.
Hi Roger,
Did you drive your TVR with dragon ?
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Gare,
Yeah, it's got a Hemi.
Gas mileage in the city is horrid. I'm getting between 12-13 MPG, sometimes less. I'm going to have it tuned up to see if that helps. Failing that, I'm going to install dual exhausts since I'm told that helps with mileage.
Highway mileage is about 19-20 MPG, about average for American, V8, full-size trucks.
The milage sucks, but it goes like stink and can carry just about anything. When I moved back to NC from Northern VA, I had all 8 (at the time; I've got 18 now) of my basses on the floor in the back seat (it's got the fold flat floor under the rear seats; very handy), and my Ampeg stack and BA115 Combo in the bed.
Alan