我不是车男人。我的朋友阿里克斯是一个汽车家伙。后来，我将解释区别。但是《纽约时报》今天选择了feature tying the Beatles to British cars in America, and It got me thinking back to half a century ago, and especially about English cars. (Did you know斯特林苔藓还活着？这就是在1961年发生撞车事故后，莫斯（Moss）在英国汽车中放弃赛车的原因。
我不会对甲壳虫乐队说太多，除了他们从三个和弦中拯救了摇滚，在2和4上节拍。但是我们五个人是同时代人。我什至从事表演业务。当他们第一次来到纽约时，我是一个大学生，为WOR-TV工作夏天，我们在Shea Stadium有两个特别的“维护日”，因为发起人已经售罄了房屋中的每个座位，包括新闻界，这是电视摄像机所在的地方。RCA TK-40S。沉重的野兽。单独的取景器模块加权50磅，我们不得不将它们全部砍倒到地下控制室。那将小伙子刻在我的记忆中。
那时，我的朋友扬（Jan）有一个阳光高山（Sunbeam Alpine），我的朋友鲍勃（Bob）有了TR-2。（对鲍勃有好处；对1月份不太好）我有一辆道奇枪骑兵。（红色，地板上有3个，倾斜六，前面的长凳座椅。）一路怪异的汽车。这个名字（第二年变成了“飞镖”），称为沸腾的愿景。变化并不是一个很大的进步。
There’s a story about how Bob talked his folks into letting him have the Triumph. He told them he had a line on a BMW Isetta that he could afford to buy on his own. The Isetta was an enclosed three-wheel motorcycle with a single door that opened forward. Run into something like that and it would be like Randall Jarrell’s “球形枪手的死亡。”因此随之而来的谈判，鲍勃（Bob）与有史以来最棒的英国跑车相遇。
另一方面，每天回到大学，每天，我的朋友每天都在雷诺多芬（Renault Dauphine）每天通勤60英里。每隔几个月，他就会像与Dauphine有关的那样，将发动机撕下来，以安装新的气缸衬里。有了他身后的经验，Smitty为毕业而赢得了胜利的烈性酒。他们被出售的第一年。Smitty一直是一个重建者，但是多年来，他被证明在古董飞机上的口味要比汽车更好。
It was the height of the “British Invasion” when I got out of college and went to California. It was also the height of the “brain drain,” where – get this – instead of sending jobs overseas, we brought the foreigners here, and made them pay taxes, and there were so many jobs that part-time “job shoppers” were clearing twice my take-home (sans benefits). That was when I bought the new Jeepster Convertible. (Just so you know that I’m no genius about buying cars myself.)
但是我认识很多年轻的欧洲工程师s, mostly Brits, and their car stories. Robert was the one who explained to me how, if you were planning a car trip of 100 miles or more in the U.K., you would spend the weekend before taking the engine to bits and putting it back together again, just to be sure you could return to the place you started.
But it was Stan who was the genius. Eschewing the rinky-dink Robins and their ilk (And acknowledging the brilliance of the Mini Cooper), Stan created a family business in which he would periodically return to Blighty and purchase a used Bentley from the era in which they were built with aluminium bodies. He would crate them up nicely and ship them to himself in Los Angeles, where the input duty was determined by the age of the vehicle. Then he and Libby, his wife would spend several months of spare time detailing the cars to pristine quality. The bodies themselves were in prime condition, and after Libby had had a go at the interior leather and cabinetry, the cars were just short of concours d'elegance condition.
Friends of the ex-pat engineers were also helpful. Peter was a certified Jaguar mechanic and he just about saved my sanity when the tranny on that stupid Jeepster locked itself in second and reverse simultaneously.
因此，我从来没有接近Fab Four，也永远无法扮演保罗或约翰安排的任何内容，但我对那个时代有美好的回忆。
我答应说一些关于像阿里克斯这样的真正的汽车家伙和一个像我这样的不现实的汽车家伙。大约一个月前，阿里克斯（Alix）在这里参加一次会议，我在一个晚上在我的普锐斯（Prius）捡起他吃晚饭。现在，Alix是凉爽，快速汽车的坚果，但他对各种车辆都有更广泛的兴趣。因此，当他进入普锐斯时，他问我如何喜欢它。我能想到的是，它的里程还可以，但是我不在乎“ A”支柱阻止了我在人行横道上对行人的看法。我们没有在整个晚上对汽车说一句话。
