Carburated Beauty

A car guy has an ancient Chevy in his garage, which he fixes up on the weekends. A car guy has a subscription to automotive magazines and can compare and contrast the 2010 Mustang to the 1967 Mustang. A car guy can diagnose engine troubles by ear and changes his own oil.

I am not a car guy. But I kind of am a car guy. It's a conundrum.

In college, I took a class that started off as Kinematics and somehow became Automotive Engineering. We learned the principles of four-stroke internal combustion engines and how to design cam profiles for different performance parameters. The term project was to develop a customizable gearbox. I didn't know how to drive stick, but I could design a manual transmission from camshaft to differential. Which, in the grand scheme of things, seems pretty backwards.

Having an old car to rebuild, like in that Autozone commercial, seems wonderful... but I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to begin. And so on.

Recently, I came across an article about the 1912 Bugatti Type 18, a Grand Prix car that raced in Le Mans, the Indy 500, and up Mont Ventoux. The description of its pros and cons and of its engineering development by Ettore Bugatti himself were a good read. The pictures, though.

I mean, the modern Bugatti is a stunning machine, but its ancestor was, well...



It's like listening to a love song in another language and knowing that it would be beautiful, if only you could understand the words.