Committment, Devotion and Hours of Life.

How to spend the hours of life? 

 

I guess nobody has a plan. We all think we know how we would like to spend our time if all dreams would come true. Since that specific situation is far fetched and seldom happens, we better stay true to commitment and devotions instead and live our dreams right now.

What does that really mean?

 

Let's start with definitions. According various dictionaries, commitment is an act of dedicating to an activity to which you're obliged or emotionally impelled. While devotion is an act of prayer or private worship of your liking.

I started to think about the above when visiting a Car Show in Ulricehamn, Sweden a week ago.

Devotion: Johanna Hedlund inherit several 1959 Oldsmobile Rocket 88's when her father sadly past away not too long ago. She loved him, his cars and she's definitely devoted to old Oldsmobile's...

 

Now she and her boyfriend, are trying to learn all about 371 engines, Hydramatic transmissions and Rockets in general. Yes, she has the -59 Oldsmobile 88 Wagon tattooed on her arm.

Commitment: I guess Magnus Viktorsson is a strongly committed man since he built this fantastic Ford GT40 himself....

...with a Richardo Transmissio, modular Ford V8 and eight stack. Beside building the vehicle, he has spent some hours on engine calibration and mechanical throttle adjustments too...

You've got to be committed to adjust a VW Golf to the more appropriate north-south-rear wheel driven powertrain configuration. Turbocharged 3.0L 6 cyl Beemer is what a Golf needs.

The essence of commitment. Mattias Svensson's amazing Speedster V6.

A technical miracle. 

Recipe:

• One Opel Speedster (Lotus)
• One Jaguar V6
  
• One Audi Transmission 
• Original wheel base.
• Supercharged
  

Let it cook in the workshop for a couple of 1000 hours.

Enjoy together with time slip from race track.

What? A commitment to down-sizing. 

Turbocharged Supra Six Cylinder in Dodge Coronet.

Summary; Commitment, Devotion and a couple of thousand hours are all you need to live your dream. The rest will follow.

On the surface...

It happened one of these unusual summer nights. We call them tropical nights. When the temperature stay above 20 deg C (68 deg F) until dusk. 

During this exceptional night, our deep speed soul finally got a surface. Our brand name (a result of a fun SMS exchange a late Friday night 2014) was finally painted on the wall of our Speed Shop at Ringön, Gothenburg, Sweden.

We've been talking about an old school painted logo for years and back in 2020 we painted the wall white to prepare for it. Didn't help.

It was not until Therese, our garage neighbor artist, came by, kicked our ass and made it happen. Now, not all asses are worth kickin' so she helped out with the artistic work too. I guess she couldn't stand our inability to paint.

  

 Finally, there were darkness and the work could begin. 

Pictured; Therese and Anders are painting the Salt Slush Racing symbol.

At midnight, the work was done and the symbolic high speed Amazon Wagon was on the wall forever.  

Hand painted sign are not so common anymore. We don't care, because we love this way of showing where to go for Magnuson Superchargers and BorgWarner EFR and AirWerks turbos. 

 

We might have a new surface on our shop, but in deep in our heart we're the same car guys with same crave for speed and power as always.

The only difference is that it's easier to find us when you want to talk turbos and chat about superchargers.

On any Silent Summer Sunday

The heavy rain has just stopped. It's vacation mode. It's Sunday. Things are slowing down. People are getting sloppy and while preparing for a barbecue in cold rain. 

 

Sweden is entirely covered by steamy barbecue smoke and a slow summer sadness. Well, not entirely... one small community of indomitable guys still holds out against the sloppy summer. It's the Salt Slush team with friends at Ringön, Gothenburg who still search for speed and while follow schemes with the ambition to accomplish dreams. While politics, the pandemic and travel bans are making things slow, there are still those with speed on their mind out there...  

  

...like Mattias who arrived in his Speedster V6 today.  A modern go fast mixture of a mid engine Opel/Lotus chassis equipped with Jaguar V6 and Audi Transmission. Yes, it's supercharged too.

 

 Not comfy, but Cobra fast. Behind in the background is a Magnuson Supercharger equipped C6 Corvette. It's my daily drive and it's fast too.

 

At some point in time, we took a stroll over to our garage neighbor. To check out what's going on over there. You never know what that professional diver, go kart race driver and motocross kind of guy are up to. Turns out that he has the ambition to complete Gotland Grand National endurance race on his home built two stroke 500cc motocross (CR500) bike.

We'll be thinking about him...

...as he pull the throttle on this 1hp/kg two wheel beast. Yes, he promised me a test drive. Looking forward to that. 

 

Meanwhile Magnus is not slowing down either, creating a homemade EFI for his...

 

...360 FE engine equipped Ford F100 Truck. It will be a bolt on kit after he spent a few hundred hours or so to tailor it...to the engine.

 

Summary; We'll keep ourselves busy as bees and we have no plans to slow down. We'll survive too, but deep in our heart we want go to and race in, the US of A.

The feeling...

  In addition to that...

 

 

Join us in the celebration of Ed "Isky" Iskendarian...as he turns 100 years old. 

A real role model if you ask me. (Picture from Engine Builder Magazine).

A welcoming attitude while at idle.

All we want is a GO! We want to get busy as bees, ready to roll and stop this slow softness. We wanna hear that big bad turbo rev up, while our Amazon find its top speed in the holy place called Bonneville Flats and we pray to the god above.

 

We want to support customers under pressure, who need a turbo tomorrow to be race ready.

 

But while we wait for the world to open up and for someone to announce that the race is on, we celebrate what is there to celebrate. 

So what's there to celebrate? Short answer; A new engine type arrives. Long answer; A new and engine type and a Harley Earl creation arrives after a long journey at sea.

 

Since it was the first Salt Slush straight eight, Carina made a cake and set up a social activity. Please pay attention to the chocolate cylinders, strawberry valves and Delco-Remy kind of candles.

While the cake was consumed more straight eights showed up. Long gone friends got together too.

 

When sheet metal and art comes together. I admit. Guilty as charged. I'm in a Harley Earl period. Here's his apparent motto: Wide, long, low and streamlined. Still valid, if you ask me.

She named him Buck. So Buck it is. 

Pictured; Carina and Buck. Buck, The Buick.

 

How can it happen? At the straight 8 celebration, another straight 8 arrives from nowhere. Or rather from Norway...is it a miracle? Can't tell.

  

Dig the Aircraft window, that Art Deco Speaker and those Analogue meters.

  

The reason to celebrate; the inline 8 cylinder (yes, torsional vibrations at high rpm is a concern). Anyhow, it's the smoothest Fireball you'll ever find.

Yes, I'm a sucker for the details, for the grill that melt as marshmallows over the front, for that low long wide streamlined body. For the Art Deco appearance in every detail.

How to summarize? Here's what; Straight eight engine, Bonneville Buick and an Amazing piece of Art. 

That's all. For now.