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Reply to "Engine issues"

I'm a confirmed retrogrouch, but I love (and I mean LOVE) being able to say, "yeah, it's just a fancy lawnmower engine back there", right before winning the respect of people who expect it to perform as such. I like to think of my car as Underdog (I've thought of putting him on the fender instead of the flying horse) - out here in Buttscratch, Nowhere USA, getting it done in spite of the limitations baked into the cake of an 80+ y/o engine built to be accessible and disposable.

The truth is, I can buy any one of two dozen modern sports cars that will suck the doors off anybody here (Subi guys too), and do it for a fraction of the cost. But I care not - I can get everything I want (and indeed need) in all it's gooey goodness in an air-cooled package that everybody else has given up on. To guys like me, dropping in a Subaru seems a bit like swapping an LS in your AMC AMX - it's better by every objective metric and it's an easier road. But sometimes (for a certain kind of guy) it's more satisfying to take the road less traveled, just to be able say you did. The highs seem just a little bit higher (and the lows admittedly lower) when you get there by your own sweat and effort.

It's entirely possible to build a Type 1 to be anything you wish it to be... but not all of those things at the same time. A Subaru will do that. So will an LS. I'd rather take the hard road.

I'm like the patron saint of lost causes.

Mighty Mouse

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  • Mighty Mouse
Last edited by Stan Galat
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