That Garage Thing Part 1 – The British Invasion

Drive Time

Former Drummer Knob wrote to me, enclosing a listing for a house in Plano, and mischievously asked:  “It’s in your neighborhood.  Would you buy it?”

I have no idea why Knob would be looking at a house in Plano (from his penthouse in Monaco), but whatever.  I’ve shared the link but by the time this is posted, it will probably already have been sold — houses in the swanky Willow Bend neighborhood seldom last long on the market.  Still, it provoked a train of thought in me because, unusually for a house in the $2.5 million range in that area, it had four garages (most have only two or three).

You can probably guess where this is taking us, because I’m a total slut when it comes to cars and my likes and loves change quite promiscuously depending on what I happen to be looking at.

Nevertheless, I’m currently locked on a mindset which asks the question:  “If I wanted to escape the modern trend in cars of electronic everything, basically a four-wheeled laptop which has the added benefit of spying on your every move, would I be prepared to sacrifice some of the modern characteristics, e.g. reliability or handling, for that freedom?”

And the answer is, “Yes.  But I’d have to have backup.”

It’s no good having a car you love and adore when it’s in the mechanic’s hands and you need to make a grocery- or liquor store run.  One funny guy remarked on these very pages that if you collect vintage cars, you actually need more than one, for this precise reason.  (“Two is one and one is none… actually, sometimes even three is none.”)

But a 4-car garage certainly gives you the opportunity to indulge yourself.

So here’s my current list — for some reason I’m on a British kick at the moment, so a couple may be familiar from recent posts — of three desirable beauties that would make parts of me throb every time I opened the garage door:

1966 Austin Healey Mk III

1956 Jaguar XK140

!968 Jag E-type Series 2

Alert Readers will notice some similarities:  stick shift, wooden dashboard, leather seats etc.

“But Kim,” I hear, “didn’t you say you had a four-car garage available at your lottery-winning house in Plano?”

Indeed I did.  But given the history of the above three when it comes to reliability, I would have to have a car that would be absolutely guaranteed to start every time I turned the key, and for that, I’m afraid I’d have to forsake British cars because

Yup, I’d have to go Japanese if I wanted a supremely-reliable sports car.  And here it is:

1999 Acura (Honda) NSX

All the performance I’d ever need, matchless reliability, and as befitting its relative modernity, in crass shouty-yellow.  Also with a stick shift, of course.

But I know that some people are going to laugh at my fondness for old British cars, so next week I’ll go all-European, applying the same criteria for my selections.

14 comments

  1. Would I buy that house? Absolutely not. The first floor would have to be gutted and completely redone. It looks like someone gave his ex-stripper trophy 3rd wife a blank check to use with the gay decorator and his boyfriend from Lumber Liquidators.
    ….. and a four car garage is not big enough. It would service the Main house, Wife’s car, Everyday Driver, Weekend car, one child’s car. Then you need a separate building for the other cars. Lots more -= because older British cars do not last long in the heat and distances of Texas.

    and don’t you need a space for the Pickup truck as well?

    2. I agree – that over decorated POS is contrived to use as many architectural elements as possible everywhere you look. It reminds me of an overdone set on some TV soap opera where all the characters have to immediately go to the liquor cabinet or bar and pour a drink at 11:00 am in order to have a conversation about their spoiled, over sensitive, metrosexual, mop head teenage son screwing the maid.
      The pool and view out the back are lovely – I’d keep that, but tear the house down and annex two acres to build something less contrived to live in, along with a twelve car garage and shop.

      1. Other than the leather-covered oversized sofa, there doesn’t appear to be one comfortable chair in the entire place – even the office chair is minimalist.
        But, now to serious commentary:
        Why the fascination with a XK-140 DHC? A 150 is much nicer!
        And, YES, the NSX is Mr. Reliable – Domo Arigato.
        Plus, as mentioned above, you’ll need space for a pickemup, and perhaps a Range Rover.

    3. If you feel the need to keep your pickup in a garage you don’t get “pickup truck”.

  2. .41 acre lol

    Move that decimal point 2 or 3 spaces to the right and maybe you’ll get my attention.

    At this point in my life I have less than 0 toleration for anything neighbors.

    Peace of mind is everything and neighbors are anathema to that narrative.

  3. I appreciated the British sense of humor displayed on a bumper sticker that stated, “We want everyone to know that the parts falling off this vehicle are of the finest British manufacture”.

  4. Kim,
    Were you to have a stable of British Motor Carriages, you’d need to live close to a place like this:
    Brit Bits located in Rye NH. http://britbits.com/

    As for the house .. no thanks, not my style.
    – Brad

    1. I’ve been to Brit Bits. Most fun I had on the whole trip.

      AND my companion was a redhead.

    1. Other than the leather-covered oversized sofa, there doesn’t appear to be one comfortable chair in the entire place – even the office chair is minimalist.
      But, now to serious commentary:
      Why the fascination with a XK-140 DHC? A 150 is much nicer!
      And, YES, the NSX is Mr. Reliable – Domo Arigato.
      Plus, as mentioned above, you’ll need space for a pickemup, and perhaps a Range Rover.

  6. Slickest Healy 3000 I ever saw was one that some dude had plucked out the straight six and dropped in a nice 283 Chebby rewired, etc., etc. Couldn’t tell anything had been done until it was started. I might go for a Toyota Supra in place of the NSX. More of a sleeper – don’t cha know. . .
    Ah yes, Brit cars – Lucas electrics, Prince of Darkness(and they weren’t kidding, heh, heh.)

  7. Being a Ford fan (yeah, shut up) I’d go for a ’67 Mustang with a 289 under the hood and a 3-speed on the tranny tunnel. Then, for utility purposes, a ’61 F-150 with a “3 on the tree”. Finally, for reliability grocery getting, a 1990’s era Honda Civic (although the Prelude looked pretty sweet, too).
    But that’s just me. YMMV.

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