What are these? They're 3 versions of an MGB starter motor. Bottom is the original; the top is a 'Lucas' replacement; but the middle one is the one you want to use. Our Tom Rymes explains why in our latest YouTube short video. He's owned several MGBs + knows whereof he speaks. Give it a watch!

"This is it. I've finally found the girnormous American car for me!" — Steph from I Drive A Classic Another video from our U.K. friends visiting the Catskills: Steph drives Tom's 1972 Chevrolet C20 with the Highlander package. Among all the cars, this was the one the Brits all fell in love with.

A great rundown of auto documentaries worth watching, NONE of which we'd previously heard of. The tempting of fate is clearly the cross-country car trip from San Francisco to New York City ... in 1903 ... as the result of a bet ... in a 20-hp Winton touring car ... with a bulldog wearing goggles.

New Video !! We tempted fate a little differently: We rented the absolutely cheapest Turo on the list, the one at the very bottom of a few hundred cars. It was 10 years old, with 114K miles. Also body damage. Stained seat covers. Garbage wipers. And a perplexing floor mat. How bad WAS it? Et voila!

"YouTube is an amazing resource, if you’re replacing the timing-belt tensioner on your 2015 Generica EX Active-Lifestyle Crossover. "But in my experience, YouTube searches for repairs on old vehicles bring up a lot of hackery inflicted on previous acts of butchery." Hmmmm. We can argue both sides.

Courtesy of a slew of new followers who subscribed after we met up with Steph from I Drive A Classic, our YouTube short on @johnvoelcker.bsky.social learning to drive a 1929 Ford Model A woody wagon has absolutely blown up. Here's your 3 minutes on how to drive, shift + brake a 96-year-old Model A.

We are beyond excited that Steph from YouTube's popular 'I Drive A Classic' channel in the U.K. came over to the States + drove a handful of our own cars. Her first video is the 1991 Isuzu Stylus that Scott's had for more than 20 years. (He IS @thestylusguy.bsky.social, after all ...) Have a look!

"It’s less a restoration and more an act of automotive defiance—a machine that looks like it should buzz, but instead barks, ready to turn every short drive into a sensory overload of noise, vibration, and absolute mechanical insanity." Tempting fate in a Beetle with a V-8 .... [via Daily Turismo]

Ummmm ... wow. This is tempting fate in a whole *different* drection. A flat-EIGHT that bolts right into a 1989-94 Porsche 964. Oh. MY.

Our apologies: we forgot to add ,,, As always, our thanks to Bryan 'Woody' Wood. He makes the video magic you watch out of the clips, images, voiceovers, and random emails + texts we toss at him. Do you need videos? HIRE WOODY!

Sometimes Fate just doesn't want to be Tempted ... and bites back. This is NOT the video we planned to make, but it's the troof. The video explains WTH we didn't take part in the recent "Fall Fail-iage" Lemons Rally through New England. We're bummed but that's the way the oil drips. Or something.

"When the turn signal is engaged the fuse blows." The *perfect* $9,200 car in which to tour while tempting fate! www.hagerty.com/marketplace/...

A PERFECT example of Tempting Fate Tours + it ain't even ours! Photographer Jesse Burke bought a 1966 Ford F-250 sight unseen. He was in Rhode Island; it was in Idaho. The friend who sent him the link went with Jesse to get it. (He was the more mechanically inclined of the two.) Adventures ensued.

Oh, MAN. This is delectable. Though beyond any of our resources here at Tempting Fate Tours (it's $42.5K), it may be the only TC you could drive confidently for thousands of miles. Wow.

Woohoo, 6 new subscribers; just 45 left to go. We'll stop begging now; new video coming in a day or three ...

1 new subscriber down, 50 to go !!

OK, gang: Our next video is imminent—but we're just 51 subscribers short of the magic 1,000. Amongst you all, are there 51 more people to subscribe to a YouTube channel on occasional road trips in odd, unexpected cars of dubious reliability, usually decades old, often British? Tell your friends !!

We realized we'd never introduced another member of the very diverse TFT team. Please welcome Jack The Dog. Jack enjoys road trips, even in dubious British cars of questionable reliability. He also keeps Tom's garage free of pesky squirrels. He also sleeps more than the rest of us put together.

This pic is a metaphor, kinda, for why we're not at the #fallfailiage #lemonsrally this weekend. The car Tom + John built (not this one ... that's why it's a metaphor) wasn't actually USABLE for 1,000 miles in 3 days. ☹️ And the one @thestylusguy.bsky.social planned to use ate some valve shims. ☹️

"The check engine light doubles as mood lighting. It overheats when it feels like it, the AC is broken + one of the doors hates humanity enough to barely open." Also: British!

And we are live! Here's the second of 2 videos from our July road trip to Tennessee to run The Snake (Route 421) + hang out with fellow owners who've become friends over the years. We include advice on how to organize your own road trip in old cars, just like ours—except totally different.

Here it is, all 65 throbbing hp from a 1971 'A' Series 1275c engine! Move aside, peasants, Tempting Fate Tours is coming through ... pending just a few wee fixes to which the entire coming weekend has been set aside. Perhaps including a generator WITHOUT a JB-Welded lug ?? Ahem. Sigh.

What, you ask, is this rather horrible-looking thing? Oh, it's the lug on a replacement generator that @rymestom fitted to the 1971 MG Midget 1275 engine in our 72-year-old Morris. What's the goop? Oh, the lug broke off. JB-Weld to the rescue! Will it last thru 1,000 miles of Lemons Rally? Great Q!

We are LIVE! Our first episode since June brings us into 2025 at last. We drove 5 obscure 1990s Japanese cars 1,500 miles round-trip, over 5 days, to hang out with other owners who are now really good friends. This year, we brought 5 cars from the Northeast (NH, Mass, upstate NY, Long Island + PA).

Who's this? Why, it's @highmileage.bsky.social !! Why's he doing this? Sheer joy! It's all 'cuz he's not only in front of no fewer than TEN Isuzu Impulses, Geminis + Styluses, plus Geo Storms, but we all just ran The Snake. He's happy to be here! And ... oh YEAH ... video imminent. Within hours!

This car is all @thejohnvoelcker.bsky.social's fault. Sigh, another #MorrisMinor. But this one's, ummm, interesting? CONS: - wrong trans for new engine (long stick from Series II, gulp) - needs tires - prewar rear end leaks like mad - needs windscreens - wiring is ... varied ... [cough] (1 of 2)

We're about to post a new video, our first adventure of THIS year. To get y'all in the mood, we figured we'd reup last year's most popular video. It's the one in which John introduces his survivor 1949 Morris Minor. There's also a cameo by local wildlife, who are NOT supposed to be in the workshop.

"Mary Carr Leatherman is celebrating the 100th birthday of her family’s 1925 Model T this year by going on long country drives with her sister + husband. With its 2-speed transmission + 40-mph top speed, the Ford can be seen chugging along Charlevoix County’s two-lane roads in traffic." Wonderful.

For those of you who follow us on Instagram, here's a fantastic reel @thestylusguy.bsky.social put together that conveys this past weekend to a T. We took TEN 30+ year old Isuzus down The Snake. Also, live music ... and beer ... BBQ ... and a whole bunch of very skilled wrenching. Until next year.

And so the next big adventure begins ...

If you only watch ONE thing tonight (yeah, we know, Friday night ... whatever), make it THIS.

From their blog: "I took a lady I didn't know that well on the 5 hour, brutally hot drive, in an old car with no air conditioning. We are married now." ❤️

OMG, OUR PEOPLE. To take part in this 1,000-km+ rally, your vehicle (or you) must have a working ... CASSETTE DECK !! We bow in respect. Slogans: "Drive More, Wax Less" "You Might Not Like It" "Type 2 Fun"

A rare + valuable Sacred Document, this, from 1968 ... when the entire idea of any sort of emission control was utterly foreign + vaguely disturbing to a British auto industry that would collapse into bankruptcy just 7 years later. Why have we posted this? Oh, we found ourselves with ... (1 of 2)

John: Will order fan belt + rear seal to ship directly to you; anything else we need? Tom: I don't think so. Tom, 90 mins later: Which translates to “yes, lots of things. I just can’t remember them ATM, or I don’t know we need it, yet. 😁

The "Death Camper". In goooooooooooooooooooold!

Yes, zombies do bowl. Candlepin bowling, in fact. Not the regular kind that live people do. Also, they dance. And, yes, this has a connection to Tempting Fate. Can you work out what it is? [We'll send a TFT sticker to the first person who figures it out.]

Our pal Darren in London—who you met in a couple of our videos about last summer's adventures—just drove his MGA from London to Yorkshire. And back. That's about 450 miles. As one does. (Yes, it rained. The car does have a top, of sorts. Also side curtains. The videos are fabulous.)

Tempting fate in a four-door Chevelle ... in the best possible ways!

We're still startled at the relative popularity of YouTube shorts vs the actual video episodes we put so much effort into. But, hey, if you can't beat 'em ... so here's our latest. It's our pal Tom Morris trying to fire up John's 75-year-old '49 Minor—after it's been sat in a lockup for months.

The second paragraph of this piece is ... sheer poetry ... on modern life. The piece is called, "Rolling Away the Bruises of Projects Past in My Garage". It's about dealing with workspaces. (I know, Hemmings' pages don't render properly here.) Just read it.

This is your reminder that the latest, longest + last episode of our 8-month Summer 2024 adventure is now LIVE! John's 75-year-old survivor + Tom's 70-year-old barn find woody wagon went on display at the NEC Classic Motor Show in Birmingham. See the very important milestone John's red car crossed!

And we are live! It's the latest, the longest, and the very last episode from last summer's 8-month adventure. We took two ancient British cars—a 1949 survivor with just 19K miles + a 1955 barn-find woody wagon—through Holland, Germany + England, attended shows + visited the factory that built 'em.

Read this list. I mean, really, READ the list. This is a metric bucket-ton of work already done, on a car that hasn't moved under its own power since 1974. So we, ummmmm, y'know, bought it. And sourced the missing transmission (NOTmentioned!). That went in last Sat. Now waiting on more parts ...

THIS is tempting a whole different kind of fate! A Fiat 500E with 200-hp, GSX-R1000 engine (revs to 13K) driving the front wheels ... via CHAIN! The fully fabricated superbike drivetrain—complete with cable-actuated shifter, hand clutch + tall gearing—turns it into a snarling road-legal track toy.

Just a reminder that if you want a Tempting Fate Tours sticker, just drop us a DM with your postal address! Yeah, you're doing a bit of marketing for us if you display it ... but what could possibly be a more worthy cause than telling others about foolish road trips in unreliable old cars ?!?!? 😁

"Matthew Anderson is a North Carolina native, professional engineer + devoted crapcan connoisseur. He owns a Holden, a Citroën, a Hobby 600 camper, a Moskvich, a Studebaker, an Isuzu, and he thinks that’s it. We don’t ask him too many follow-up questions." Matthew is TOTALLY our kind of guy. Isuzu!

"I'm on the way to 'The Vintage,' the annual vintage BMW event I attend in Asheville, NC ... in the FrankenThirty—the salvage-titled 1988 BMW E30 325is that’s a bit like those dolls that Sid created in the first Toy Story movie." The Hack Mechanic describes how he too tempts fate in an old car ...

STICKERS !! IT Only took us 3+ years to get legit Tempting Fate Tours stickers. Our 1st trip was Feb 2022: Sterlings from Portland to Austin. Then 2023 Fall Failiage Lemons Rally. Etc. Want a sticker? DM us your mailing address. Follow us on YouTube, subscribe, like, tell yer friends, etc. etc.

Thanks, @alexkalogiannis.bsky.social ... we encourage everyone to visit our YouTube channel to see those adventures and antics! If you watch one of them verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry closely, you'll even get to see Alex K his ownself ... briefly ... 😁