There is this thing in Santa Fe called the Car Table. Once upon a time, years ago, it was A table. Now it is usually 4 tables, each seating 8 people. It is a unique phenomenon in my experience. I'm not really sure exactly how it started. It isn't exclusive. My friend Jeff Kramer told me about it and insisted that I check it out. I resisted for months, thinking I was too busy working on The Alfatross to waste time talking about it. But I finally relented--and The Alfatross is glad I did! It isn't a club. There are no rules, no sign-in sheet, no agenda, no formalities. You just walk in, sit down, order lunch, and start talking about cars. After a few visits you discover common interests, unique abilities, and uncommon knowledge among the attendees.
I am a newcomer. Some of these men and women have been meeting at the Car Table for decades. I gather that it was started by Denise Mccluggage and some other Santa Feans. Google her. You'll get about 27,000 results. She was racing and rallying cars before most of us were born. But don't bother Googling the Car Table. It isn't there. And we all know that anything that isn't Googleable doesn't exist. That's how exclusive it isn't.
The Car Table has been a Godsend for The Alfatross. The attendees probably have more than 1,000 years of combined knowledge and experience of everything car-related. Need a window winder for a 1973 Porsche 911E? Somebody knows where to find one. Want to see a D-Type in the flesh? Somebody has one. Want to know what a full-race '55 OSCA MT4 Spider is going for these days? Someone knows. Need a carbon fiber bonnet for an E-Type? Somebody knows how to make it.
Topics of conversation run the gamut from technical nitty-gritty topics like can you shoe-horn a 3.2 liter 911 engine into a '68 VW Crewcab bus, to hilarious self-deprecating personal experience stories like "the time I ran out of gas in West Texas." Just don't ever ask anyone how many different cars they've had over the years--you'll be there until the restaurant closes. Then there are always stories about great drivers, great races and great wrecks. If you've got a restoration project under way they always ask how it's going and cheerfully point out all the mistakes you are probably making. They are uniformly skeptical of restorations that take too long.
Car Table people don't just talk cars, they live cars. And they like to show them to people who know what they're looking at. When I walk through the parking lot as people are arriving it's a mini-car show with no theme. It's as if the cars are having their own meeting. It's always different. You might see an 800 cc 3-cylinder SAAB Sonnet or, if the weather's nice, a Morgan look-alike 3-wheeler.
Porsches abound. The lot is usually infested with them. Old ones, new ones, daily drivers, concours restorations, rare ones, common ones, resto-mods, full race--you name it.
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| A descendant of The Alfatross, waiting in the parking lot for the Car Table to adjourn. |
I am a newcomer. Some of these men and women have been meeting at the Car Table for decades. I gather that it was started by Denise Mccluggage and some other Santa Feans. Google her. You'll get about 27,000 results. She was racing and rallying cars before most of us were born. But don't bother Googling the Car Table. It isn't there. And we all know that anything that isn't Googleable doesn't exist. That's how exclusive it isn't.
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| Some of the Car Table people even have newer cars . . . . |
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| A Triumph of Automotive engineering . . . and a lot of fun to boot. |
Topics of conversation run the gamut from technical nitty-gritty topics like can you shoe-horn a 3.2 liter 911 engine into a '68 VW Crewcab bus, to hilarious self-deprecating personal experience stories like "the time I ran out of gas in West Texas." Just don't ever ask anyone how many different cars they've had over the years--you'll be there until the restaurant closes. Then there are always stories about great drivers, great races and great wrecks. If you've got a restoration project under way they always ask how it's going and cheerfully point out all the mistakes you are probably making. They are uniformly skeptical of restorations that take too long.
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| Harold Williams 240 HP' 68 VW Crewcab with extensive modifications to suspension, transmission, and instrumentation (http://there.dino.com/harold/bus.php). |
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| Some are more eclectic than others . . . . |
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Porsches abound. The lot is usually infested with them. Old ones, new ones, daily drivers, concours restorations, rare ones, common ones, resto-mods, full race--you name it.
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| A brace of 356s flank a slant nose DP935 I call the Midnight Rider. |
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| Mild to Wild! A prize winning carefully-restored Early 911 (above) and a race-ready pavement ripper cohabit the parking lot peacefully. |
A common topic these days is the up-coming Santa Fe Concorso (http://santafeconcorso.com/schedule.html). There is going to be a lot of cleaning and polishing for the next couple of weeks! A year ago I optimistically hoped that the 2014 Concorso would be The Alfatross' coming out event. It was not meant to be. But next year IS meant to be! Not a problem. No sweat. Sure thing. You can count on it.
