A Treatise on European Car Shows, Gut Feelings, and the Ride of Shame

 by Ken Edgar
  Traveling to the Eurofest auto show in South Carolina has been an annual pilgrimage for my brother Richard, brother-in-law Kevin, and me for some years now. I’ve never entered any of my own cars in the show as I feel mine are generally too scruffy for display in a high-profile show such as this one. My brother always enters a car so I feel that is representation enough for the family but I usually drive one of my cars to the show anyway since it’s a good run from where I live - about 100 miles one-way - and the beasts are usually grateful for the exercise.
   This year was different. My TR7 is basically finished but not yet road legal, the Spit is calling for a valve job, and I was unsure of the weather a week out as the E-type leaks like a sieve in the rain. The failure of the E-type’s clutch slave cylinder last year on the way home gave me pause as well; she still got me home under her own power, however.  I only put a rebuild kit in the slave cylinder and I know it will fail again. I hadn’t had time to put a new one on before the show date arrived. I’m a paranoid individual by nature and my gut was saying, nay, screaming there would be peril and tribulation if we sallied forth in one of my vehicles. My brother-in-law hadn’t driven a car to the show yet so he volunteered this time. We proceeded to the show in his 2012 Hyundai.
   About two-thirds of the way to the show my phone rang. I cocked an eyebrow and looked at Kevin.
   “I’ll bet it is Richard”, I told him. “He’s either wondering if we’re coming or he’s had trouble.”
   The latter was true: Richard drove his Series II E-type roadster the 115 or so miles from his house, arrived at the show, checked in, parked at his spot, and the car promptly puked its entire contents of antifreeze on the grass. On the phone he complained to us that he was unable to raise any auto parts place that could (or would) deliver him a new hose. I found it somewhat amusing he would expect one of the auto parts chain stores to give him roadside assistance.
   “We’ll figure something out when we get there”, I told him.
    After an adventure in finding a parking space we proceeded on to the exhibit area. The British marques seemed to be thin in numbers this year and we had no trouble finding my brother. He showed me the bottom hose, which he’d the courtesy to remove before we arrived. The hose said “Kevlar reinforced” but it had a lengthwise split about four inches long. I was able to tear the hose apart the rest of the way.
   “This thing is rotten”, I told him. “I wonder what the others are like.”
   “I have no idea”, he replied with a nervous laugh.
    I’ve been down this road many times with him.
   We took in the show before heading out to a parts store and saw some rather nice machinery.  The Teutonic and Italianate cars never have done much for me unless they’re pre-war so I took in the British machines. I took a particular interest in a pretty much all original Austin Marina GT that had been in the same family since new and had once participated in road rallies whilst being driven by the owner’s Grandmother! If the car has a good story behind it the marque is irrelevant.
   After seeing all the cars and berating Richard for looking at the Ferraris we set off in the Hyundai to find a hose for his E-type. Three overweight, over forty  plus males exiting a Hyundai Veloster is a sight to behold and I couldn’t help but thinking about the clown car gag where the audience wonders how they all got in there. A hose was procured and I was volunteered to replace it. Jaguar engineers, in their infinite wisdom, made the lower water pump nozzle bigger than its counterpart on the radiator. The result is two pieces of hose of different sizes coupled together with a piece of pipe – the previous owner had used a piece of galvanized chain-link fence post for this part when the original one most likely crumbled to nothing. I showed it to Richard and laughed.
“You paid how much for this car?”
 We put the new section of hose on the questionable section of old hose and tightened everything up. Three gallons of coolant got the system full and we warmed the car up with no leaks. I am happy to say he arrived home with no problems but I’ll have to stay on his case to make sure he replaces the other hoses. Most likely I’ll have to change them for him.