It's Showtime!

It's that time of year again for cooling temperatures (Low 90's!), autumn leaves (I wish!), and best of all CAR SHOWS! Three in row this year, all in the space of a month: three different  points of emphasis, three different venues, three different kinds of cars, three different sets of really nice people.

I decided this year to show the MG TD replica at all three events. The Porsche is a far more sophisticated build and way more useful as a means of conveyance, but just not that interesting to the casual observer. The MG is a basic and rudimentary EV conversion, but attracts all kinds of attention with its vintage style and classic good looks.

The first show was the EV Expo hosted by Smart Charge America, capping off National Drive Electric Week September 14, 2019. 

Amidst a gaggle of Teslas, Leafs, and BMWs, a Jaguar and a Kia were these three EV conversions. Along side my MG were two customer cars from Moment Motor Company in Austin. Marc Davis is the owner and founder of Moment Motors and he brought an Austin Mini and a Porsche 911, both beautifully finished.

The event was covered by the Austin American-Statesman local newspaper and their photo essay is here. The photographer got some very interesting shots, so please have a look.

Next up was the 29th annual Texas All British Car Day at Centennial Plaza in Round Rock on September 29. Among blue-blood classic British vehicles, I was once again relegated to the "Special Interest" class. V8 powered MGB's and a very interesting Morris Minor pickup truck made up the rest of the class. It was a very beautiful Sunday and I had a great time visiting with all the British car enthusiasts. Sad to hear next year may be the last for this event - we're all getting older and so have our cars. Seems that younger folk don't have quite the interest and enthusiasm we have, and the registrations have been shrinking over the last several years. 

Too bad, I have participated in this event many times over the years going back to my Bugeye days. Sorry to see it go ...

Finally, the IBM Austin On Display car show at the IBM campus on October 10. This event is part of the annual Employee Charitable Contribution campaign and attracts mostly retirees and their hobby cars. This 1988 Mazda RX7 was bought new and has only 16,000 miles on it. Behind it are some new-ish muscle cars and an American Motors AMX.





Eleven years after my retirement from IBM I'm seeing many fewer of my old comrades, but had a great time chatting with the new younger generation of IBMers. The business is in good hands, I think.




At least they voted the MG "Best In Show Classic" so they have good taste.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

The AutoBlockAmp device that drove the ammeter and (intermittently) the fuel gauge on the evTD dashboard packed it in last Winter. I had been a beta tester for the developers at Rechargecar and I must have done a pretty lame job because the product never did get quite right even though they were selling and shipping it. Rechargecar is now out of business so a replacement is not in the cards. 

Happily, I had earlier found and installed a combination ammeter/voltmeter/state of charge display device to replace the JLD404. It also functionally replaced the ammeter and fuel gauge that were driven by the AutoBlockAmp, so when that failed I was in no hurry to deal with it. We've had a solid week of rain and I took that opportunity to remove the failed gauges and tidy up the basket of snakes behind the dash.

In the rush to completion in 2012, I had just loaded in the dashboard components and put a zip tie here and there to keep the stray wires out of sight. Not a pretty sight and not very maintainable, so this seemed like a good time to make order out of chaos.

Removing excess wire length and encasing everything in split loom makes a huge difference. No one will see it, but it will give me some peace of mind knowing that things are secure and not flopping around back there. I replaced the fuel gauge with a clock from Speedhut with the same face design as the other gauges, then promoted the combo volt/amp/SOC display from its separate bracket below the dash to cover the hole where I removed the old ammeter. It stands a bit above the dash surface, but puts that info in the line of sight. It's a departure from the vintage analog look I started with, but more useful.

Not Precisely an EV, but ...

Not precisely an EV, but the first commercially available hybrid vehicle in the US. This is the car that started me down the EV road, and saved my wife's life in 2009. 

I traded my beloved Miata on a Honda Insight very similar to this one in the early 2000's and enjoyed getting over 50 mpg without even trying. It's rather a different approach from that taken by Toyota with the Prius: a 1 litre 3 cylinder 67hp gas motor drives the car with a 13hp  electric "assist" motor that provides up to 36 lb-ft of torque on demand. The electric motor is powered by a 144 volt NiMH IMA (Integrated Motor Assist - Honda's name for its hybrid technology) battery pack that is recharged through regenerative braking. The key to its high mpg rating is its tiny size, very low 0.25 drag coefficient, and lightweight aluminum structure and body.

That aluminum structure might seem a bit fragile, but it's quite strong and here's where the wife comes in: she survived a head-on collision with a spinning SUV with her injuries mostly caused by the air bag. The crush zone crushed as designed with the passenger compartment unscathed. Even the doors and hatch opened and closed as if nothing had happened. The insurance company totaled the car, and I have missed it ever since.

So why buy a twenty year old replacement now? Our 2016 Nissan Leaf is nearing the end of its lease term and Beth and I have become adherents of Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" principals which rule out leasing or financing depreciating assets like cars. While I want my Tesla Model 3 in the worst way I don't have a savings account that will let me pay cash for one even though the $35,000 entry model is now available. By the time I have cash available, low mileage used Model 3's should be on the market with their initial depreciation behind them. Can't wait!

But for now, this 2000 Honda Insight turned up on Craigslist over the weekend with only 57,400 miles on it. A quick test drive told me everything was working on this car, pretty much like a younger low mileage example, and it drove exactly as I remembered my original. The IMA battery had been replaced in 2015 and seemed to be working properly. It was a non-smoking car and while pretty dirty, it cleaned up nicely. Except ...

It was a fleet vehicle for the City of Austin Parks and Recreation department and says so right on the doors. Someone tried to remove the graphics and gave up before the job was done. I expect a little patina on a car that has spent its twenty years exposed to the Texas sun, but I need to get rid of the civic advertising. WD40? Goo Gone? Compound and a buffer? Eraser wheel? Google presents so many choices ... just don't want to spring for a respray.

The net of all this is that the Insight is a car Beth is comfortable driving (she wouldn't consider the Porsche or the MG) for those days when her Prius is getting serviced or I need it to transport the grandchildren. It was a low cash outlay for a bridge from our Leaf into the Model 3 of my dreams.

Footnote:

While my new Insight is a low mile, low cost find, apparently there is something of a cult following for these cars among hypermilers and other eccentrics which has led to some outrageous prices and bidding wars on these things. The seller raised the price on mine after we arranged the test drive. He honored the original price he had posted since I was local with cash in hand. He decided to raise the price after he got a call from a guy in Indianapolis who wanted to fly down and drive home and said he'd pay up to $5000 if he'd hold the car for him. Happily no deal on that one.

Will I be converting the Insight to a full EV someday? Maybe. It's been done, here's a beautiful conversion by Mark Bishop I saw at EVCCON (free registration required). I see examples of Insights with over 200,000 miles on them still going strong, so it may be a while.

Stay tuned ...