my life as a gearhead part V - Nouveau riche

I now had a steady job and a decent pay for the first time of my life.
I had been riding a lot, spent a few years without a car, left home in the morning on a dry road to reach the job in the snow, or noticing that the roundabout was covered with 1 inch of ice as I was already cornering.
Still riding the rex, i decided it was time I went back on 4 wheels for the winter. maybe THAT was it, my new big chance to buy some REALLY cool wheels.

I've always been a fan of full size US classics... satellite, LTD, polara, and most of all of muscle cars. Now I knew there was no way I could use or even buy a charger, challenger, barracuda, but I though a full size rear wheel drive could be affordable.
here in europe, there are several factors agains't US cars:
gas prices
taxes
size
import

the most perfect solution is a hearse. there is a long lasting tradition of american hearses. so most of the impala's you can find are ex hearses, because grave diggers do not pay taxes.
so the solution would be
- gas prices - LPG conversion
- taxes - register the ex hearse as a commercial break
- size - I used to be a truck driver. I won't use it much anyway.

but I could not find any real bargain and the winter was coming, so one night, in discouragment, I quicly decided for a more reasonnable 1989 Buick Regal. it looked like new the day I bought it.
ok, it was a V6 and not a V8, it was a front wheel drive and not a rear wheeldrive, and it was medium and not full, not classic in anyway.
so theorically, I should have bought it.


1989 buick regal
2,8 V6
power to weight ratio:
about 3400 Lbs / 140 SAE, you must be joking.
less than 1/12

eh. I souldn't have. it sucked. it was as old as the monzTa, but it was american and not german, so after a few month and a lot of new bits and pieces (brakes, shoks and every sort of pipe you can imagine), the furutistic (for 1989) pseudo digital dashboard was blinking about all the time, abs wouldn't work, windows wouldn't open or close, the stereo would be stuck on maximum volume, untill it began to start only when it would feel like starting, blame the oh so cool gear stick at the steering wheel. this and some shave monkey decided to invade iraq and the gas price doubled.

so after a year and a half (my average) I gave away the big sinkink boat on ebay.
no reserve, one buyer. cheap. i knew I wouldn't get any money back anyway.
end of the american dream.
back on full time two wheels.
time to save money for the next bike.

73 forgotten (back to illustration friday)

know that feeling ?
this is how you make me feel sometimes.

my life as a gearhead part IV - KING REX

anyway.
after I swapped motor on the zephyr, went to corsica, THEN changed chain because the *s*h*ole that swapped engine left the old spoket on the engine (and by the way, than spocket was NOT 9000km old as mentionned when they sold it to me) I decided to sell the bike for half its price, borrowed the other half, sold, no, gave away the big german coupe and bought the rex.

there was a typo in the newspaper that said zxr1100. zxr1100 do not exist, so the guy on the phone took a very tired voice to repeat "there was a typo in the news paper, it's a roadster" and I said "yeah I know, it's the roadster I want".
it was in a shop, asking 240.000, the guys asked 180.000, I got it for 160.000. turn signals where in a box, no mirrors "who needs those on THAT bike?!" he said, it was champagne grey but the repaint after a crash had failled so it had turned pink on some places.
who needs paint on THAT bike!?

1998 ZRX 1100
inline 4, liquid cooled, carbutrators
106Hp/221Kg
power to weight ratio 1/2
YOZAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

suspensions made out of wood, legs bent as much as possible, saddle hard as a rock, it looked like a truck but never let any other bike get away. the thing was tuned for o to 100, kept above 5000rpm it would eat any superbike for breakfast, I just loved the look on people's face when their over expensive over designed overpowered bike would be humiliated by a naked truck with a topcase on acceleration or mountain roads.
ok, passenger seat sucked but why spil my fun for the very rare times she would go down to come with me on a ride, that just happened less and less. I rode the thing 12 hours a day through europe at supernatural speed in a sound of fury and enjoyed every second. she got discouraged by the rate and the increasingly uncomfortable seat and position.

my butt hurt too tho.
liquid cooled engines are so quiet. so modern !

after a few dents and scratches I had the thing painted black, gradually.

alternated square and round headlight untill I crashed in a dumb kid in his mother's opel. then went for a ratbike dual headlights I always wanted.

of course I had to change sparks every 9 or 10.000 km or it would just stop running. I lost the exhaust one day and had to change a few seals here and there, and the front fork kept blowing, but I kept the idea that I would write 100.000km on the clock, city riding and moutain roads dogfights.

the bike was rare, brutal, beautifully ugly and surprisingly mighty. a force from another planet, unsuspecting chassis, great brakes, power all the way, width of the tires was the only limits, and I used all of it.

I loved my king rex, even tho it was quickly gettint old.
so I began to put money aside, just in case, and one day stopped invest on mainteance and fixing.

found a song

went to a show. great guitar player. wrong band.

my life as a gearhead part III - MONZtA

in the meantime, three jobs began to pay. actually I had to give up one. that only left me with about 35 hours of delivery and 35 hours of drawing a week.
hey wait, that's 70 hours a week? hmm ok.
So I began to think that maybe this was it, my big chance to at last buy me some decent wheel for the winter and snow riding.
I started to look for some classic euro coupe, gave up on a 1976 ford M26 because of all the chrome involved and found the monzta.
It was cheap but the owner probably took pity on me and told me the overdrive was dead, making any trip above 100km/h a torture. I found a gearbox in a junkyard, he offered to have it installed by his mechanic and cut the price by half and I left with the really cheap monzta. now if you live in the land of the free, do not mistake this with a chevy monza. the OPEL (part of GM) monza was the equivalent of an euro dodge charger. the 3.0 GSE would be the R/T, I owned a 2.5i. not collector, but a mean machine. not of good taste in any way, but the sound of the 6cyl was enough to scare people away.

and it had only 160.000 km on the clock.

it was my first automatic car and I will always miss it.

1985 OPEL MONZA 2.5i AUTO
2490cc, 6 cyl. straight
140HP/5800 rpm, 1340Kg
power to weight ratio: 1/9.6 (nice!)

rear wheel drive and old tyres made it uncontrolable on accelaration, no abs, weight and poor tires made it uncontrolable on braking, the thing was just dangerous. and it spitted gas from everywhere. if it wouldn't kill you in a crash going sideways in straights roads, it would probably catch fire sometime.

the only problem was I had try that green muthaf*cking bike my boss let me ride and ... I wanted one.
I clearly remember the day one of my co-worker (oh yes, I had a new job by that time) threw around a free news paper as a joke while I was scanning some bike picture for the magazine and I said "thanks, let's see if there's a cheap zrx in it!" and there was one. so I tried to get rid of the giant german coupe (after my brother used it for a few month and crashed it) and in the end, I gave it for free to some guy in the south of france who always dreamed he had one. he took a train here then rode the 12 hours trip home without any problem. never heard of the monzta again, but I do miss the big fat german bitch.
next on blogspot: "king rex"

my life as a gearhead, part II, -XXI century-

I spent my non riding year looking for the perfect bike. reading, making researches on power / torque / reliability and visiting every used bike shop in the area.
after a year, I decided on a 199... whatever kawasaki zephyr.
I wanted one of those older boxy Z1000 but those I could find were in bad condition when the zephyr with 18.000 km on the clock looked perfect.
Odlly I don't have too many picture of that bike. here is it on our way down to marseille and corsica, crossing what I considered as the toll between north and south. 10 minutes later an gigantic storm broke and almost drowned us.



KAWASAKI ZEPHYR
1062cc, inline 4
86hp/245 Kg
power to weight: 1/2.8
not that much more than the LTD but a lot faster.

then I began to ride like frenzy. and soon the big old bike felt big and heavy and the ground clearance wasn't good enough. I'd put the exhaust on the ground on about every fast turn, and I didn't put too much confidence in the brakes at 200kph. the chassi itself would slowly undulate on straight line and franckly shake on fast turns.
I had to put another engine in it after the 2nd gear broke. cost me a 4th of the bike.

one day, coming to one of my 3 works, there was this big brand new flashy green bike. My boss had it lent by kawasaki belgium; He simply handed me the key saying "carreful the first km, let it warm up"

my life as a gearhead part I (coming out)

I found some old pictures while emptying boxes in my new office. made me think...

I was raised on the plastic seats of a vw411, then in a 1978 first generation passat, then I learned to drive on my father's 1984 vw passat hachtback (second generation).

1984 vw passat hachtback:
FWD, inline 4, 1600cc
985Kg/74 Bhp (although I seem to remember 92)
power to weight ratio : 1/13,1

When my father died, we kept the car and I drove it untill it died too. it was a cool car for a teenager, comfy, no power steering, no abs, no cassette player, no power window, no nothing. dented and reasonnably fast for 1989.
I sold it too cheap (6000 Bfr) and convinced my mom that what she needed was a used 1988 1300cc corolla hachtback.
aka known as "the worst car I ever drove".
funny enough the internet gives the exact same data as the vw:

1988 toyota corolla 1300cc
915Kg/74 Bhp
power to weight ratio 1/12,4

it was ugly, slow, uncomfortable and smelled dog poop/vomit. a friend's dog got sick in at the back and I never could get the sticky stuff out of the carpet. I just had to roll the windows down when the temp would go above 15°C. no power window or nothing, BUT power steering.

me, on my side, I got this with the money I could spare, giving th fact that I earned 14000 and had to pay 9000 for the attic I lived in.

1982 (or was it 83?) KAWASAKI KZ LTD550 (US import) my first bike. (used)
inline 4, 550cc,
Power: 50.00 HP (36.5 kW)) @ 8500 RPM
Gearbox: 6-speed
Final drive: Chain
Wet weight: 211.0 kg (465.2 pounds)
Top speed: 178.0 km/h (110.6 mph)

the tacho topped at 100mph - 140 km/h so in the beginning, I took the habit to just stick the needle at the end of the tacho. at the end, tho, it had a hard time getting there.
here is a picture of the bike after a cutom paint job that turned out wrong but I was so tired to wait I got it back together like that.


The LTD was a gpz engine in a custom outfit, a 6 speed fire spitting in disco dress, it need to be kept high around (or above) the red zone of the counter, it was pure fire, not really fast, certainly not efficiant, but a ball of fire in sexy dress. and it was all I could afford at that time while being chopper minded. my ideal bike at that time was a 1400cc intruder.

power to weight ratio : 1/4.2. yes, that is about 3 times more efficient than the car I owned before.
I only had ridden a friend's cx500custom before I bought it (he could let me ride his bike after his dog had puke at the back of my corolla) so I only survived the kawazombie by accident.

I rode the little devil for 4 years. the counter cable kept breaking so I'm not sure how much km I put it on. probably around 50.000 km. by that time, the bike was 14years old, shocks and exhaust were dead, it would just spit out oil by every seal and the only way I could get it running to go to work at 5 in the morning would be to open the saddle, spray a large amount of start pilot, then run down the street, jump on the saddle and kick down a gear.
then I quit my job as a truck driver to take a part time job and spend the rest of the time working on my art. that turned out bad of course. One day I just couldn't afford to pay for insurrance or even for maintenance and decided to get rid of it.
now really if it had been a pet, I would have had it sedated. the poor thing just diserved some peace. I refused to sell it to a few nice people then had to give it away to some bloke who wanted something to work on. the bike probably kept him busy until now and he probably still hates me. it died at the end of the street when he asked to try it, but still he wanted to buy it, so.. he got what he diserved.
eh... what should I do?... drown the bike in the river and declare it stolen ?

anyway. as I am really smart I didn't sell it/quit the insurance fast enough and I was stuck for another year of payment. might aswell keep the bike. but too late. so I swore I would NOT buy another bike within a year and would quit the insurance company and get my money back after a year.
that was 1999. worst year of my life. stuck in a dog poo stincking corrolla with no power. took 3 jobs to put money aside.

(to be continued)