Dan Roth  0:04  
I've been listening to Peter Egan stories for years. We've never met. But his columns and features in road and track always echoed inside my head, has my eyes scanned the printed page. There's a lot of us out here, enthusiasts all. But some have made our way into being auto writers or podcasters, or top weird car Twitter accounts to follow. And when we mentioned influences, Peter Egan comes up over and over again. It was his work stories that weren't about cars so much as the cars were bit players, a part of the texture, the set dressing, he showed us what you could do with those things we all love, experiences to have. And those stories stuck. And so it was a random auction post on car Twitter that started all of this. And I set it for sale. Everyone seems to love the odd little mid century European bubble cars. But they're chronically under context it especially now as the long shadow of World War Two, and the immediate post war years fades. So I typed in as one does on car Twitter, that the set of represents the time of austerity for the people who lived it. It's a punch line in the States, always has been. But things were very different. in 1950s, Germany. I only understand this because deep in my lizard brain. There's a story written by Peter Egan in 1993. That said is much a red Toyota super turbo was on the cover of the march 1993 issue of road and track was the all new fourth generation car and bubble era Japanese sports cars were amazing, especially if you were 15. But the only thing I remember of that issue is the story of plans going wrong with a quirky 40 year old car powered by a one cylinder motorcycle engine.

Peter Egan  2:31  
It was kind of fun to think about the Isetta again. And I reread the story that I wrote on it. And my friend Chris Beebe, who still owns the car, just called today just to say hello, and and we got talking about the trip and remembering the good times on the road. So it was a nice reminder.

Dan Roth  2:52  
So how did you know Chris? Like, what's the connection between your tip

Peter Egan  2:56  
he owned a business called foreign car specialists in Madison, and Wisconsin, and I worked for him as a mechanic. I got out of journalism school in 1971. After I came back from Vietnam, I finished up and and got out of journalism school and I couldn't find a job with a newspaper or doing any kind of a writing job. There are a lot of people looking for work right then because so many newspapers had been closing. And so I just I fell back on my primary interest anyway, which is cars and took a job as a as a mechanic at foreign car specialists. So we I worked for Chris for seven years as a mechanic and we both raced cars together and we co drove a few racing cars. Chris raised a load of seven and I had a bug I sprayed in a Formula Ford. And so we're old old buddies. And then Barbara, I lived in California for 10 years. And then we came back here we found the place we're living now as Chris, notice that it was for sale. And I came we came and looked at it really liked it. So we now after all these years we live just down the road. But

Dan Roth  4:15  
that's excellent. So I was surprised by my one trip to Wisconsin, I wound up in mineral springs, not mineral, mineral point mineral

Peter Egan  4:26  
point. Yes.

Dan Roth  4:28  
And it's a charming town. I was out there to do an interview for an unrelated to journalism job but it's it's not what I expected once you get down that way. There's lots of hills.

Peter Egan  4:44  
No, no, it's very hilly. There's a big section of Wisconsin that's called the driftless area. And it was unglaciated during the last glacial period, and so it's it's very hilly, it's almost like people have compared it with the Ozarks. To the Cotswolds in England or something that's all steep hills and, you know, farms and cattle farms and winding roads. So it's very nice place to live if you like sports cars and motorcycles.

Dan Roth  5:12  
Yeah, that was a surprise. I did not expect that.

Peter Egan  5:15  
Yeah, mineral point was a beautiful town. It's an old lead mining town. And it was originally, that area was originally settled by Welsh miners. And a lot of the original buildings are still there. They made a lot of stone buildings out of sort of this tan sandstone that's down in the area. So it's it's it's kind of a tourist attraction. Now, it has a lot of nice bed and breakfast places and old hotels and restaurants and so on.

Dan Roth  5:44  
Yes, yes. And then on their way back to Milwaukee, I took a wrong turn and wound up in Janesville. So I got to see the close GM plant before I finally made it back to me. Oh, yeah.

Peter Egan  5:55  
Yeah. Not quite as scenic. But no,

Dan Roth  6:02  
I got to thinking to remembering that article that you had written. Because now, people know what the isotta is a lot more than they did probably in the 90s. And certainly in, you know, the the post war period in America, I think that the American story of the post war has captured everybody's imagination, and that's tends to be the default. Postwar different, you know, and and you, you know, being of the the baby boomer era or generation, you know, how did you first find out about I set his head? Was that something you knew about in the 50s? And 60s? Yeah,

Peter Egan  6:50  
well, I don't, I probably did, wasn't aware of them. I mean, they were unusual enough that I'm sure they appeared somewhere in a, in a magazine, you know, in a Life magazine story or something as background and and people, I think when I was in grade school, or at least when I was in eighth grade, I knew what they were. I hadn't seen one on the road anywhere. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, and there just weren't many foreign cars period. And I don't think I ever saw and I said until I got older, but I started reading road and track magazine and sports car graphic when I was about 13. And so you know, there were pictures and articles. And I got a lot more familiar with, you know, European cars, I sort of, at that age, right around eighth grade, I fell in love with sports cars, and racing and, and the whole idea of having an unusual, fun agile car. I turned 13 and 61. And I remember I picked up my first road and track magazine. And you know, Phil Hill was winning the World Championship for the US and driving a Ferrari sharknose. Ferrari. And, of course, I was instantly captivated. Here's an American driving through the streets of Monaco and this beautiful car. And Dan Gurney, of course was successful and active. And it was a good time for Americans being involved in Formula One racing and Lamar and so on. So I, I immediately just, you know, read everything covered a cover from that age on since I get my hands on a car magazine.

Dan Roth  8:32  
Sure. And then you wound up writing for riding track as well. And I think that's where a lot of our listeners if they don't already know. That's where you you built

Peter Egan  8:43  
a career. I started when I was working as a car mechanic, I wanted to get back into journalism, and I thought I should I should somehow get some benefit out of having gone to school for four years. So I I wrote a lot of stories, short stories and articles and so on. I didn't have much luck getting anything published. I had a pretty good pile of rejections. And And then, finally, a friend of mine, who was a motorcycle mechanic, Howard springle. told me, he said, instead of writing general short stories, and fiction, and so on, why don't you write about something you're really fascinated with? Why don't you write about cars or motorcycles? And I was I had been racing cars for about six years, and I got decided I wanted to try motorcycle road racing. So I had a Norton and a Honda 400 F and I started road racing motorcycles. And so I decided to write a story for a psycho World Magazine. And the first story I wrote I think was in 1977, and Barb and I took our Norton Commando. Go out to was headed for the West Coast and broke down in Montana. And we weren't able to fix it. So I had to ship it home and beacons moving ban and, and take the rest of the trip by train and bus. And so I wrote a story about that about, you know, being warned about not taking an older British bike across the country and and I sent that into cycle World Magazine. And it was published. And it was a breakthrough for me, it was the first thing I ever got published. And then I was 32 years old. So then Alan Gertler, who was the editor at cycle World Magazine said, Well, if you've got anything else, any other feature story ideas where you'd be interested, take a look at them. So I really got on the case and started sort of generating story ideas and taking trips with motorcycles. And I did a series of stories for cycle World Magazine, and they hired me in 1980. And Barbara and I moved to California, so I could work at cycle world. And then I worked there for three years and rodent track was upstairs in the same building. And they found out you know, that a lot of the people that wrote and track suffer, will the older editors, real motorcycle buffs, and they would come down and hang out my office and, and I had pictures of racecars and so on. And they said, you should be writing something for road and track as well, and your car mechanic for seven years, and you've raced several different kinds of cars. And so road and track asked me to start writing for them as well. And I, I worked full time at Road and track and part time, I started contributing columns to cycle road magazine. So for the 10 years, we're in California, I worked three years full time for cycle world and seven years for road and track. It's not a bad way to do I will say, Yeah, I was very lucky. I mean, I had, at the time, I had no intention, or No, I wasn't even thinking about looking for a job in a car magazine. Because cars in the late 70s were kind of not that interesting. They're having a lot of problems with fuel injection and emission controls and so on. So I'd kind of turned my attention over to the motorcycle side of things. And they're right about the time I got hired at Roden track in 1983, things were starting to come back for cars. You know, small block Chevy's were suddenly making more than 200 horsepower again, this kind of thing. And they're getting fuel injection figured out and technology with cars, and it was actually a pretty interesting time to be working at, at both magazines, actually.

Dan Roth  12:42  
Yeah, right. And still to this day, you know, that whole narrative of being in the right place at the right time, it still works. There's no no real formula to it. It's it's just No.

Peter Egan  13:00  
I know, I often reflect on that was just pure luck. First of all, you know, Alan Gertler, who is the editor at cycle world liked my story and encouraged me to write, send in more stories. And I had sent the same story to a another magazine, a lesser psycho motorcycle magazine, actually, it wasn't as widely published. And I sent it to them, because I thought they would be more likely to publish a touring story, and they just rejected it. And I was very depressed because I worked on it for about six months to try to get it publishable. And. And then my friend of mine said, Well, if you you know, don't get depressed about that. I mean, you've written a story, send it to another magazine. And I said, well, psycho World magazine is one of the big ones and they don't publish many. I subscribe to it. But they don't publish very many touring stories. And my friend Lee Hagan said, Well, what have you got to lose? Send it to them. And all I can do is reject it. And so I did, and, but there's a lot of a lot of timing involved there. I don't know if I could do it again, you know, get the right. The people who like your work, being there at the moment, and you know, and it just, it's, I'd have a hard time recreating the path that got me there. And I don't know what I'd be doing if I had not been able to publish some motorcycle stories. But it was also lucky that cycle roll is in the same building because I got to knowledge road and track people who I had been reading for years. And it was a very nice group of people at both magazines. It was like a great big family of enthusiasts and beautiful spot to work. It was in Newport Beach, California, right on the bluffs overlooking the ocean, and I thought, well, this is not bad.

Dan Roth  14:57  
It's a car and drivers stuck on hogback Road. All right.

Peter Egan  15:01  
Yeah. Yeah, well, I was I was glad that I was glad that was in California I was the day they hired me. I was a little worn out with winter. I was. I'd had a long day at the shop and I was driving my. My 68 Volkswagen and the heater didn't work very well. And it was freezing out and windy and snowing and I came home late. I got a call asking if I wanted to work at cycle world. And it was it was a pretty nice moment for me.

Dan Roth  15:33  
Yeah, you never forget that. That kind of thing. But your friendlies advice was still solid. The worst they can do is say no.

Peter Egan  15:40  
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I think I think a lot of it is, is being persistent. Also. I did a lot of writing that didn't get published. I had a pretty I wrote two novels that didn't get published, and many feature stories and short stories. And you know, just gotta keep working, I guess until something happens.

Dan Roth  16:02  
Yeah, it's like an itch you have to scratch. Yeah, yeah. So I didn't mean to get a sidetrack. It's but it's, it's great. I love to hear the that the way everybody, especially since, you know, I started off, even before I thought I could be a car writer, reading your work. It's just interesting to hear how, how everybody's career is just this combination of serendipity and grit.

Peter Egan  16:32  
Hmm. But the that's a lot of it's a lot of us to the people, you know, who you run into by accident. Yeah. And I said, if you you know, you can get up in the morning, if you leave your front door and turn left, you have a completely different life than if you turned right.

Dan Roth  16:49  
Bad philosophy. Yeah. The Internet loves weird cars. And I saw some of the people that I've run into by accident. As car people on Twitter, they posted an auction like eBay or one of the other sites for and I sent him and it just you know, it brought back to mind the story that you had written about your your trip with Chris Beebe in this Isetta and some of the some of the things we don't think about when we think of the set of it's just a fun, almost like a punch line here because it's a small, little bar. That's weird looking. It means a lot. It means different things to different people.

Peter Egan  17:44  
Yes, it certainly. Yeah, it does. And I think you brought up when we talk the other day, you mentioned that Chris's friend Klaus who is German, when he called up from Germany and said, Oh, no, don't tell me you're restoring a nice setup. And Chris said he was nice as Oh, no, you said you Americans find those amusing. But Germans don't have such a fond recollection of having to drive by setups, you know, they're still digging out from war time and short on everything. You know, materials and jobs and roads. And he said, you know, for them, it was it sort of reflecting a hard time in their lives. And whereas Americans were just thought, Oh, this is wonderful. You know, we can give these away as a as a free as a free prize for a contest or something, or we can I think I mentioned in the story, Chris Beebe knew a friend who, who had won and said that when he was he drove it to school and the other kids picked it up and put it on top of the air conditioning unit. And, you know, it's sort of a was all What fun, you know, it's so small, we can do anything we want with this car. And he said the car was actually ruined in order to get it off the air conditioning unit. They used a sling through the windows. And it wrecked the roof and bent the car. And yeah, you know, which is sad, sad and but not, you know, not so funny. And, of course, the set of chemo was first designed in Italy and Italy was probably as poor poorer than than Germany after the war and they were like, all Europeans are looking for inexpensive transport. And so said in the story, essentially they were looking for a Vesper or in a Lambretta with weather protection so they could get to work on a rainy cold or rainy day. And they worked you know, they were pretty good little cars really, there was a great way to get around without using a lot of a lot of gas. Well, that's

Dan Roth  19:58  
right with fuel being Other shortage at that point in Europe, and maybe I can I can picture it on those European streets. I think it would be a real good time. Quite honestly. speeds are low. Yeah, anywhere.

Peter Egan  20:14  
The perfect car for European towns, they still have these medieval narrow streets and so on. When I got out of the army, I lived in Paris for a winter. I just wanted I was bumming around Europe, and I really liked Paris and stayed there and small French cars like to do Chabot were just perfect for Paris because you could drive them right up on a curb and get them out of the way. So the road was open on these small back streets. And if you saw a full sized American car, you know, from the diplomatic corps, or somebody who was wealthy and had a Lincoln or a large Cadillac or something, you'd say, Oh my God, that's huge. Are they going to put that so you know, small cars really fit very well. They still fit well. In Europe and Barb and I did a trip through England about four years ago, and with a rental car drove up to the Cotswolds and and it struck me that British cars have gotten as big as American cars people are driving Range Rovers and, and large jaguars and so on and medium sized sedans, but they're big now, BB BB and I went there when we were first married in 1973 and rented 1000 cc Mini, and drove all over England. And it was it was the perfect size for driving England on the narrow roads. But the roads are the roads in the streets haven't gotten any wider. But the cars are, are six inches wider now than they were in longer and nothing nothing fits quite as well as

Dan Roth  21:57  
it did. Now. A modern Mini is it looks small compared to other current cars, but boy does it tower over interventional.

Peter Egan  22:08  
Yeah, it does. You have to see it next to an original to realize that it's it's grown quite a bit.

Dan Roth  22:14  
So how did you come to to take a trip in the first place, or to be restoring the isotta in the first place? What was the genesis of the idea?

Peter Egan  22:25  
Or crispy Beebe saw an ad for the I set up? I think it was in. In Illinois, it might have been in North Chicago. And he bought it it was disassembled somebody had started to restore it just taking it all apart. And he bought it for $1,000 disassembled. And it was a roller. I mean, I think the engine was out of it. And a lot of the pieces. Some of the interior was out but the car was able to grow onto a trailer. And he brought it home. And as I said, he lives across the bridge from us across the creek and he has some doors that go into his basement, sort of a little drive in basement and he and his wife just parked the I sat next to their washer and dryer in the basement. And I think I said the story it fit in perfectly it looked like it was related to the to the washer dryer. But anyway, I would see it down there. You know, it's I'd go down there to help them move something and I'd say we should fix that up. And finally I suggested I said why don't we Why don't we restore that thing and take a trip and it would be fun to write about it. And so we worked on it for a couple of months together at his shop and we took the you know, we took it all apart the suspension and we didn't rebuild the engine The engine was okay. But structurally it needed a little help it needed repainting. And it was just kind of beaten up. But it was all there. It wasn't it wasn't terribly rusty or anything. It was just straight car that was kind of worn out. And so we spent a lot of time. I remember be blasting all the suspension pieces at night and painting them, you know, spray painting the the links for the suspension system and so on. And we're originally planned to take it to the runoffs at Road Atlanta, the SCCA annual sports car championships. And we were actually on our way down there. We were fighting against the clock to get the car done to get down to the runoffs and then we had some engine trouble in Rockford, Illinois in Northern Illinois at night, and we had to stop and fix it. And we got into a motel about three o'clock in the morning and we realized I'd looked at my watch and said you know we're never going to make it. If we drive. If we drive straight through to Road Atlanta. We'll get there in time for the last race on Sunday. I said we got to figure out someplace To go with this thing, it's too far and we're too late. So we get up in the morning and look at the map. And I said, let's go over to the Mississippi River and down through Hannibal, Tom Sawyer country, and I'm a big blues music fan. And I've always liked Memphis a lot. I've been down there a few times. And I said, let's just drive down to Memphis. And you know, we can go through a Hannibal and see the Tom Sawyer museum. And then we can go down to Memphis and go to Beale Street and go out and see the Elvis museum. Maybe we'll see across from his home, maybe we'll see you in the museum. So we just, we just diverted we decided it was too late to go to Atlanta and sort of went straight south

Dan Roth  25:46  
of us out of 507. should sort of be the other BMW they made at that time.

Peter Egan  25:52  
Yeah, Elvis had a lot of unusual I was surprised, in fact that he didn't. He didn't have one. In fact, in the story, I said, if when we pull up in front of Graceland, I said, If Elvis were alive today, he'd probably come come running out and buy this thing from us. And then we could we could fly home. Instead of driving, you know, 45 miles an hour back to Wisconsin, but we were we were actually having a pretty good time in that car. It was it was fun to be in it, everybody was charmed by it. And it ran fairly well, most of the time, we had we had a few mechanical problems with it. And Chris had decided that he had had one in Vegas freshman year in college, and he had remembered how slow it was. And he thought if he put a larger carburetor on it, maybe we could cruise at slightly higher speed or and have a little more hill climbing power. We had the 300 cc version. I think it's 295 CCS and and so he put a motorcycle carburetor on it. Mike Cooney, it was a 32 millimeter carburetor. And in order to fit it on there, he used he was trying to find something that would work as an intake manifold, and he found a piece of Peugeot radiator hose that fit in. And so he put that on, and it worked fine, except that the hose would pulsate, it would pulse with the engine intake and eventually crack the hose. So all the way down there, we were taping the hose and replacing it. You know, it seemed like about every five hours of driving, the hose would blow and the car would stop running. And we'd have to, you know, cut another piece of hose and take the side panel off the engine and dig our way back in there and fix it. But other than that we had very few problems with the car was that was our own doing really trying to pop it up a little bit.

Dan Roth  27:53  
So what's it like to be in? And I'm assuming to you are on roads? Like secondary roads, not highways?

Peter Egan  28:01  
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we stayed away from anything that resembled a fast state highway or an interstate. And we took we took all, you know all the blue highways, as you'd say. It's all the back roads. And it was actually kind of pleasant. Because the car would go, they're supposed to be able to go 52 miles an hour, people in the car is just slow enough, we were only able to cruise buck 45 miles an hour, and the car was slow enough that it didn't really hold traffic up people would, there was no doubt when you come up behind a nice set of it's going 45 that you can pass it so people would just pass in wave and Hawk and, you know, look in the rearview mirrors and give us a thumbs up or something. And so we didn't really block traffic. And it was quite comfortable to ride and the suspension is very good. It's actually quite compliant and comfortable. And so it just it just kind of motored along. And the only shortcoming really with the car was that it was in the fall and it was pretty cool in the north here when we left and the heater really doesn't do much of anything. That's a real small heater that just runs off feeds air through the cooling fins on the engine like a Volkswagen except it's got you know, a lot less surface area than a Volkswagen so we we weren't really able to tell that any heat was coming in with the air that was blowing into the cockpit it was it was pretty chilly but once we got in the south It was not a problem that warmed up quite a bit.

Dan Roth  29:36  
Yeah, well and and i'm assuming to once you with all that glass once you get in the sunlight, it's kind of like a little aquarium and heat. Yeah.

Peter Egan  29:46  
It is it is it didn't have much space in it. You know, we had very mean it's just two seats in a luggage shelf behind the seats. And so we had a essentially a real small duffel bag to take on the trip. I Get a camera bag and a camera and that was about it.

Dan Roth  30:03  
Yeah, yeah, traveling light is that's an art in itself too, you know, nothing but a credit card and maybe a toothbrush.

Peter Egan  30:12  
Yeah, yeah, it was, it's kind of fun not not to have to wonder what you should take along or shouldn't take along because you just can't. So let's you just pack white and that's what we did. But it was it was a good trip. It was we have all good memories of the trip. Except for you know, having to fix the radiator hose intake manifold at night. A couple of times, but

Dan Roth  30:35  
it was it was fun. While the engine is still still, you know,

Peter Egan  30:39  
yeah, yeah, it was a little hard to get back in there, you have to work on the engine, there's a penalty removed on the right side of the right rear of the car and there's not a lot of room to see in there. So we're kind of working with a flashlight and your teeth reaching back in there try to fix things. But anyway, but the engine ran all the way it was the transmission, the clutch everything worked on it breaks, you know, we didn't have any any major mechanical problem. And Chris in retrospect said he thinks it would actually have been faster and gotten better mileage and everything with with the original carburetor. You said there was not really a great idea. It was probably a little bit over carbureted and a little less tractable. Sure. I think we I think we got about 58 miles per gallon something like that, which wasn't bad. Yeah, that's that's not too bad. It only has what two or three gallons capacity and it's tank. Yeah. Three 3.5 gallon fuel tank. And I think when the first 250 I read I just looked this up recently, I just to remind myself about production dates on I said as the site that I looked up said that the when the first 250 I said it came out it said a world record for a car and fuel got 98 miles per gallon, which was the, you know, a world record for anything that would haul to people and be called a car, you know, have a body on it and windshield wipers, all that kind of thing. I mean, there are cars now that get almost that mileage. I had a Volkswagen. One of the diesel's that is now you know, we had to give it back sell it back to Volkswagen because it was part of the the diesel scandal, but that thing was getting low 50s and had lots of power and torque. And so you know, it was very comfortable in air conditioning and so on. So it's not as remarkable now as it as it was then. But mileage down. I mean, I remember somebody in my hometown when I was in about, I don't know, middle and high school, borrowed a Volkswagen from his uncle in Madison and came home and he told us he got 28 miles per gallon, and we just couldn't believe it. We have never heard of a car that got 28 miles per gallon. And you gotta be kidding. How can you get 28 miles? You know, my dad's new it got seven

Dan Roth  33:18  
four times a small economy.

Peter Egan  33:19  
Yeah, we were just slapping our foreheads it's a sort of 28 miles per gallon now and now I've got a Honda Ridgeline pickup truck that you know, we'll get about 25 on the highway. So, and it'll haul 5000 pounds too tough. Yes, yes. Yeah, it is. It is a radio and air conditioning system. Yeah, it'll, it'll hold a motorcycle, which was more than a Volkswagen when I read the story. And I commented that it would be impossible to make this car now because it weighed I think the weight was 800 pounds. And of course No, I said no civilized country on Earth would allow a manufacturer to make something like this without any safety features, or airbags or I said it'd be impossible to make this 800 pound car again and make something is sufficient even if you could put a modern drive train in it. But I'm not sure that the world doesn't still need that car. It's it seems in retrospect like it's not such a bad idea. We have enough oil right now but you know we're heating up the planet and and you know, and and wrecking the atmosphere and so everybody's looking for ways to increase fuel mileage and get more efficient and of course, we're getting a lot of electric cars now that are probably going to be the the answer, but there's something to be said for having a car that just gets you where you're going and doesn't, doesn't carry any extra weight or cost a lot of money. It was an affordable thing. And I think some of the, you know, like the early Volkswagen in that car and the Citroen dutiable. were aiming for a goal that is still laudable today, as far as not occupying a lot of space and using a lot of material and burning a lot of gas.

Dan Roth  35:23  
Yeah, well, I think we could look to China right now for for some of that they've got this whole industry of cars, electric cars that aren't that expensive. And they're all basically the same, you know, they're stamped out from different different brands, but they're all basically the same thing. And they're just a little box on wheels. One of the writers for Jalopnik, Jason torchin, ski, he bought one and imported it, and I think it was it was less than $2,000. And it's very much the same thing. There's no safety with it, you know, you don't want to be you don't want to get in a crash. But as something that gets you around town and takes you takes you where you need to go in a dense urban environment, it's really, it's hard to beat that. That consistent idea of just a small thing with a motor that that goes in and it being electric makes it pretty agnostic to whatever you want to fuel it with. So I hope you as we figure out how to make how to charge batteries without without, you know, gas or diesel or coal, it'll still be viable.

Peter Egan  36:39  
Yeah, I think as we batteries keep improving, and the range range keeps improving and electric vehicles. And then if we can combine that with a real effort to get more solar power, wind power, whatever, certainly will answer a lot of questions. I you know, I've spent my whole life working with internal combustion engines and building Twin Cam engines and racing engines. And you know, that's sort of what I've done my whole life. But I last year, I went out to Colorado to visit friends and and we went to a motorcycle shop and I took a ride on two different electric motorcycles that they had for sale. And I came back and the guy who ran the motorcycle shop said, Well, what do you think of the spike? And I said, I said if they ever get range, sufficient range on the electric motorcycle, and people get used to riding this. I said, it's got like three moving parts compared with an internal combustion engine, you've got the you got the simple engine. And I said, riding this thing makes a motorcycle an internal combustion engine feel like a feel like a steam locomotive that's fed with coal or wood. I said it's, it's so it's a seamless, it's got torque from zero RPM up. It's quiet. it you know, it's fast. You said and you think of the the number of parts in the push rods and chains and bearings and valves and shims and so on that it takes to, you know, to make even a simple gasoline engine do this. So this is it's a revelation, I think. And, you know, we're all nostalgic for the sound and feel of traditional engines and so on. But I think there's a point where we may be able to enjoy those as kind of a special thing and not have to depend on them all the time.

Dan Roth  38:49  
I agree. I think that you know, every time I get to, to try an electric car, I just I love the experience because it's it's exactly what you said. They feel really lively. And they're generally quiet and smooth in a way that you know you do, you do miss some of the aspects of, say a high performance car, but if it's just something like a Chevy Bolt or something that's just a runabout, it doesn't really matter. And it's actually a lot more pleasant to use the Eevee

Peter Egan  39:25  
you know, we all we all like older cars and sports cars and the history of racing and all that. I certainly do. That's what I've done my whole life but I at this point, I would rather have a really efficient electric car and and one fun thing, you know, an mg TC or a Morgan or something that's genuinely, genuinely archaic to sort of appreciate where we've come from, but I don't need to. I don't need to be working on one in order to get to the grocery store and back I would assume trumping something that's kind of seamless and efficient. And then have you know, my motorcycles and cars as a hobby thing where you go out for special occasions? Great. I'm 73 years old. So that's that's where my interests are at right now. I still like old cars, but I don't really want to restore an older car now to drive daily on the road or anything. I'd rather have one just for kind of

Dan Roth  40:26  
a hobby. That's wisdom. I guess.

Peter Egan  40:33  
I've restored one too many cars in my hands for this wisdom or fatigue,

Dan Roth  40:39  
but maybe they're linked? I don't know.

Peter Egan  40:43  
Yeah, I think I think they're the same thing. Maybe.

Dan Roth  40:46  
You know, you commented when you just want to square off a couple of points. One of the things you noted about the I said it was how well made they are and one of the things that that I found my first first love as the as an enthusiast was air cooled Volkswagens. And so it's the same name, a small, cheap car. It's sort of an engineering tour de force. beautifully made though, all the parts are just their little their gems, you know, the jewels, Rio.

Peter Egan  41:22  
Yeah, they're nice pieces, it's and that was true of the I set it to it was, I did a lot of work on the pieces on that car. Chris and I were both busy. When we're restoring the car, we would take apart the suspension or the steering apart or whatever, take the brake drums off and go through them and be blessings. And I was impressed all the way through the car, there was no, there was no hidden cheapness there, everything was nicely made. And, of course, Germans are pretty good at that. You know, there's, there's a high level of craftsmanship in Germany. And I think people, you know, even sort of being out of the rules of the war, were still inclined to do the best job they could on anything they designed or machine. And that sort of, you know, sort of the home of precision precision machinery. And along with England, at one time, England kind of lost the plot, I think, in the early 70s precision, but anyway, that's true. And this is coming from somebody who's mainly in English. Anyway, um, yeah, the pieces were very nice in that car. And it was nice to work on, you know, you'd look at a suspension arm and say, this is this is really, you know, very nicely made, it's nicely forged, and it's got good bearings in it, and it was nothing. It wasn't, you know, they didn't make a coal cart and put a motor in a lawnmower engine or something. It was it was actually a sophisticated car for its intention. Yeah, and

Dan Roth  43:07  
that That to me is I think, where, where a lot of the charm is, it's a it's a purpose built thing. And it is almost an appliance but it's it's still fascinating to look at and to

Peter Egan  43:19  
Yeah, it is it's still I think it's still a good looking car people talk about it as a bubble car or that it's humorous in some way but it's also very nice shape. When you look at one you say they did a really nice job for you start with a you know, a blank piece of paper and a drawing pencil and you come up with a shape that will enclose a couple people and carry a little bit of luggage and have an engine and steer and let you get in and out it's a very pleasant looking car it's it's not just like something that was made out of necessity and is an eye you know, it's not an eyesore, it doesn't look cheap. It looks like a nice thing to have in your garage. And I think it still does it did then probably in it it's held up very well as a as a design.

Dan Roth  44:11  
I just love that. You know, the thought that went into everything that articulating steering column for that front door and it's it's a neat thing to look at for sure.

Peter Egan  44:21  
Oh yeah. People used to love it we'd pull up in front of a cafe or something and open that front door and the steering wheel would come out with the front door and and you know the restaurant would almost empty out people you know just see people stop chewing their cheeseburgers or whatever and put them down in the middle later everybody's on the street looking at the Isetta and it was God dropping I guess is the is the term said.

Dan Roth  44:52  
You said crystal has the car.

Peter Egan  44:55  
Yes, he does. Uh huh. NFC sold. He sold His business. And he had a very nice building downtown Madison, an old bus station building that's right in the heart of campus. And with the money he got from selling his business, he built a very nice shop out in the country, which is about 12 miles west of here. And he's got a lot of space there. And he's got quite a quite a few cars. Still, he's got a small motorcycle collection. He's got a lot of the race cars that he he owned over the years, and he's got the Isetta still sitting there, and we haven't driven it for a long time. I don't know if he's used it lately or not. When the last time was he stirred it up, but it still looks fine. Sitting here on the workshop. You see, I

Dan Roth  45:46  
was gonna be my next question is, now that we've jogged everybody's memory, you want to go take it first?

Peter Egan  45:53  
Yeah, I'd like I'd like to, it'd be fun to get it out. Again, I don't know what the Chris tends to keep things running. You know, if he's got something sitting in his workshop, it's not. It's not forgotten. And, you know, with a dead battery and bad tires. He kind of moves things around and keeps keeps after them. And so it may, it may be fine. He started up, he's got an mg t b, which was the just immediate pre war predecessor to the TC. And we needed that for some pictures this summer. And all he had to do was check the tire pressures and it started up and we drove it over here for some photographs. I would guess the set is not quite that ready to go right now. But it's probably still in in good shape. I would like to drive it with the original carburetor on it. Because I think you know, that was really our only worry when we're driving that car was we've just kept blowing these radiator hoses that we're using for intake manifolds. And I think probably the original carburetor, which was probably a big, I would imagine being on a BMW, it probably was a little more linear and how it delivered power and a little more tractable for going up through the gears. I think Chris may have put that back on the car, I'll have to ask him. Well, good. I've

Dan Roth  47:16  
run through all of my, I think all the points I wanted to hit and I've kept you on the phone longer than I thought I would. So

Peter Egan  47:24  
Oh, sorry, I was actually out of my workshop, doing some adjustments on a guitar. Doing a neck adjustment was fun, too fun to talk about the asset. Again,

Dan Roth  47:34  
what acoustic or electric

Peter Egan  47:38  
is an electric it's a Gibson Guitar, and I was just doing a slight neck adjustment to it. We've got a garage band that we've had for years, and we we haven't played lately because of the virus but we we usually played about four gigs a year. And we play a lot of sort of Chicago blues and Delta Blues and old Rolling Stone songs, that kind of thing, kind of a mixture of few country songs. And but I've got I've got a corner of my workshop that is set up to be a band corner with a sound system and drums. So the drummer doesn't have to constantly be moving drums when it comes out to practice. That's not too bad. You know, it's

Dan Roth  48:23  
it's funny. There are times where as a video editor in my career, I've had to wait on computers. And so I usually had my my Squire strat next to the desk. Oh, you did? Oh. And you know, I practiced the minor Pentatonix as I waited at the progress bar to go across the street. So yeah, you guitars are another thing like cars that and all the gear that it goes along with them. It's another rabbit hole to fall down.

Peter Egan  48:58  
It is I've always thought if if I had to write an autobiography, it would be something like cars, guitars and motorcycles. You know, it just, that's that's where I spent a lot of time, mental time and, you know, thinking about things. I've got a couple of acoustic guitars on a small collection of electric guitars. But I've started playing guitar about the same time I got interested in cars and motorcycles and they seem to have just gone hand in hand somehow. Yeah,

Dan Roth  49:32  
they all kind of fit together. When you were in Memphis Did you get to go by like you know ardent or any of the other sort of famous studios and the sun was down there too. Right sun and

Peter Egan  49:43  
yeah, so we did a sun studio tour. I've done a couple of those. Barb and I my wife Barbara and I went down there a few years ago and did a tour and and did a story for cycle world about two years ago. We went Mark Hoyer, who was the editor at cycle World magazine is a really good guitar player and as a couple of guitars and amps, and he always wanted to see the Mississippi Delta. So we we did a trip with two Indian motorcycles from Memphis to New Orleans. And I've I've sort of made a hobby almost of traveling in that part of the world I love. I like the Mississippi Delta and I New Orleans is probably my favorite city. So any excuse I have to go down there and do a story. I've done about three travel stories that involve the Mississippi Delta and the blues trail and yeah,

Dan Roth  50:42  
like what a 60 Cadillac or something at Mardi Gras.

Peter Egan  50:45  
Yeah. Yeah, I did a 63 Cadillac. That was the first time I really well, I actually went down I went down on a 400 f Honda one of the first stories that did for cycle world was a trip from here to New Orleans on them on a Honda 400 F, which was my race bike at the time, and I just took the number plates off and took it on a trip and but I, I've always enjoyed traveling down there and looking around finding these old old blue sites and Beale Street is always interesting. And there's a lot of music person Orleans in the same way. It's good food and good music and lots of lots of spirit. So it's a fun place to go. I've done a lot of travel writing over the years and about probably about half of the stories I've done are somehow based on a musical journey. I did a story with a 53 Cadillac for road and track called Hanks last drive. And Hanks last ride was Hank Williams died in the backseat of his Cadillac on New Year's Eve 1953. between 52 and 53. And so I restored a 53 Cadillac and went with a friend of mine who's a musician and we went from Montgomery, Alabama, up to to Oak Hill, Virginia, and follow the route that Hank Williams took on his sort of his last trip his last gig. And so it's sort of a good excuse to get out and drive somewhere you've never been and do some exploring. So yeah, it's it's fun, fun to get out. And it's, uh, it all fits together somehow. And you said, Where can I take a motorcycle or a car trip? I think I'll go go to Memphis or go to New Orleans.

Unknown Speaker  52:43  
Well, all right, let

Dan Roth  52:43  
me let you get to your evening. I really appreciate you spending some time with me and

Peter Egan  52:48  
it was great talking to you. I enjoyed it. And if you get out this way, give us a call and stop in or something. Play Guitar or whatever.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai