Blog

From the Archives #16, June 2023

In the past months we’ve jumped ahead from the beginning years of our region to see how things were going after, say, 10 or 20 years. Now let’s go back to 1975, when the fledgling Las Vegas Region had two solid years under its belt.

For its third year, the LVR had its third President, a fellow named Paul Riley. His opening column promised a number of events for the year 1975: 5 autocrosses, 3 rallies, 3 tech sessions, a ski tour, dinner meetings (presumably several), a swim party, summertime picnics (how many?), a fund-raising dinner (although he referred to these in the plural), a Christmas party, and a gathering specifically for the officers’ installation. 

And in the next paragraph he invited members to suggest other events, especially if the member was willing to chair the event.

All this with a total membership of 64 primary and 38 associates (April 1975)! The amount in the Region treasury in early 1975 was $685.16 (about $3865 today; I called Janet Yellen and asked).

The lead-off agenda at most of the Board meetings was publishing, filling, and paying for the Club Newsletter. Everyone was encouraged to get out and sell ads. A “trial” newsletter was created to show to prospective advertisers in the selling process.

One of the better “Tech Tips” (a regular feature of all the early LVR Newsletters) had to do with battery care. Members were advised to: 1) regularly check the battery’s charge using a hydrometer, to ensure a specific gravity reading of 1.21; 2) regularly top up the water level in the battery, using only distilled water, to a level 3/8” above the plates; 

3) use a trickle charger if the car sits for more than a few days, being sure to disconnect the battery cables before turning on the charger if the car has an alternator; 4) regularly inspect and remove ‘white goop’ from the battery terminals; 5) plus several more activities which we won’t mention here.

Now let me ask you, forwarding to the present…. Do you even know where the battery IS in your Porsche? And could we talk about checking tire pressures? Or torquing the wheel lug nuts? Ahh…. We’ve lost many of the little duties that made you know and feel more personally involved with your Porsche. Progress has its downsides as well, doesn’t it?

Next month we may continue looking back at 1975, OK?