feature vehicle:

I bought my 1978 Spitfire in March, 1994, when it looked like this:

Paul Geithner's 1978 Triumph Spitfire - "BEFORE"

background

My first car was a 1984 VW Scirocco. Being an engineer, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I learned the basics of working on cars with this vehicle, doing things like changing anti-sway bars, springs and shocks, and wheels and tires. I also installed a good, free-flowing exhaust, a slightly larger throttle body and K&N filter, changed the cam, fiddled with the ignition and cam timing, and installed an oil cooler.  I even installed a Rootes-type supercharger providing 6 psig. It was with this car that I started autocrossing.

 

The first car I actually built from the ground up was a 1971 Toyota Corolla coupe:

Inspired by my friend Peter Troin, I got very active in autocrossing in Southern California and acquired the Corolla. This was a good choice as it was lightweight yet tough, rear-drive, easy to work on, and parts for it were plentiful and inexpensive. I learned much more putting this thing together, spending lots of time in "junk" yards and rebuilding or adapting virtually everything from inexpensive salvage parts.

The "red car" served me well as my transportation and competitive autocrosser from mid-1988 through mid-1995. It was followed by a black 4-door SOHC 1995 Dodge Neon. Known as the "appliance," the Neon served me well as a basic transportation vehicle, surviving a deer strike along the way, until the summer of 2003 when it just got to the point where it wasn't worth maintaining.  After the Neon, I really wanted to try a luxury performance car, so I bought a used (or is that ‘previously owned’? ;^) black 1996 BMW 740iL that I found in the newspaper. It was a nice upgrade and it certainly was a pleasure to drive!  The new “appliance” is my 2002 Dodge Dakota Quad-Cab Pickup.  It’s great!  I can haul and tow stuff, and the whole family fits in it too.  I even towed home my latest acquisition, a 1968 Triumph Spitfire Mk3, with the truck.  I split my commute between the truck and the ’78 Spitfire.  If it’s a nice day out and no precipitation is seriously in the forecast, I drive the Spit (the hardtop is great in winter) and enjoy the journey; otherwise, the truck is quite fine--especially if I have to stop to pick-up something large on the way home.

Other subjects of the Fossil Motorsports garage have been my wife's cars: 1979 Datsun 210, 1975 Toyota Corolla sedan, 1981 and 1982 Subaru GL wagons, 1988 Toyota Camry wagon, 1995 Ford Windstar minivan, a 1998 Dodge Grand Caravan and the current 2005 Toyota Sienna.

the future

I would like more tools (wouldn't everyone?), and over time, they are accumulating.  I would love to restore a series 1 Jaguar XKE, a Sunbeam Alpine or Tiger, a Healey, and hey--how about an Alfa?  Maybe it would be fun to get into vintage racing too.

So many cars...so little time!

Paul H. Geithner