The fabricated sham, of dear old Mr. Pam

[Dark Lightning]

Heh, here's another stupid moment. I was riding my motorcycle on a winding back road, and came up behind one of my neighbors, because I was driving stupid fast. Stupid, because it was a Harley, and a winding road, to boot. He sped up, and the race was on! We came around a curve, and he slowed way down. I had driven this stretch many times, but I was focused on speed, and didn't realize that this was where the road dropped about 20 feet in about 50 feet, and curved right, all at the same time. I passed him, because he had slowed way down. I ended up on the other side of the road, then into the gravel on that side, swerving around and trying to avoid the barbed wire fence. Had I run into that, I'd've been strung out like beef jerky, drying in the sun...

[billy rubin]

i was out on a straight section of highway once in oklahoma

lots of straight sections there

trying to see how fast my motorcycle would go. i was doing about 110 or 115 mph on my triumph when it went into a speedwobble, then a tank slapper, then threw me off. i think it was the shitty cheng shin tire that probably had the wrong pressure.

anyway, the bike slid about 400 feet in a circle of sparks like a catherine wheel, and i went up, down, up, down up and down. slid to a stop in front of four horrified people just getting into their car to go see grandma in the hospital, so they gave me a lift. very nice of them.

lost some skin on that one, and got to meet nurse satan with her iodine-soaked gauze, but the bike was easily fixed, and im looking at it right now 20 feet away. that was 45 years ago, and the motorcycle is faster now than it was then.

[Asmodean]

The original Mini was tiny, but, much like the Fiat 500, it had a sort of... Character. Personality, if you will.

The new ones are not that small, but yes, worlds ahead of any Smart car in my book.

[Icarus]

It was about 1944 during WW2.   A pair of unrelated women lived nearby. They were nice ladies and they owned a tiny little car.  It was a Fiat Topolino of perhaps 1936 or 38 vintage. It could not be driven because it had a busted transmission.  My father and I made a deal with the ladies.  I would cut their grass for an entire summer if they would give us the car. The deal was struck, and we took the little thing to our backyard workshop.

My dad, a skilled machinist, made some new gears to repair the tranny. I drove the car to school after that. I was only 14 but in those days a kid could get a Florida drivers license at 14. The Fiat was tiny, having only two seats, neither of which could quite accommodate a large person. I don't know what displacement the engine was but it was a four cylinder flathead about twice the size of a shoe box. It did get exceptional gas mileage. Good thing it did because gasoline was rationed at the time.