Re: Rediscovering Peter Egan

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/11/20 12:29:37

I remember reading Egan's first submission to R&T "The Great TC Trek" over 30 years ago. And all the letters from readers over the following month or two raving about it.

He had never had a car with A/C before moving to LA to work for R&T full time, and penned a hysterical article about his theory, while growing up in Wisconsin, that you had to store up BTUs in the summer to make it through the winter. Having A/C he feared, would inhibit BTU absorption. His dead body would be found one morning on the bedroom floor, one sock on, one sock off. The corner would say "he just ran out of BTUs".

I dropped the R&T subscription in the late 80s as, to my taste, they had gotten too elitist and their reporting was no longer relevant to the type of cars that interest me, but I would look in on their web site and read Egan's columns. Saw his last column where he said he was retiring, and was shocked when he said he had a couple "moderately serious" health problems, as he's only a couple years older than me.

I see Amazon also has "At Large", a compilation of his articles, including "The Great TC Trek", for an exorbitant price. I might give it a look, after I finish my studies of the independent automakers during the 50s... Almost finished the Foster AMC book, "Studebaker The Life and Death of an American Corporation" is on it's way to me.