Paul & Dydia's T-87 MUST WIN CONTEST; you can help!

As regular readers will remember, my pals P&D have brought their T-87 back from the dead to be the premier example of this car in the world. I implore you to take 2 minutes and help them out. Forward this to any hot rodders or car peeps you know; thanks!

Hi Friends, Acquaintances, and People We Might Not Really Even Know,

Thanks to your help, our 1941 Tatra T87 “osmivalec” (“eight cylinder”) has been selected from 2600 entries for the New York Times 2010 Collectible Car of the Year Contest.

The prize is $5000 — and if we win the Czech beer is on us. (Greg's note: they're serious)

Help us win — vote early and vote often. You can legally vote every day. No kidding. These are real New York, not Louisiana, rules. (If you live in Louisiana, or want to use Louisiana rules, sign up under your dead relatives’ email addresses and vote for them too.)

Voting is fast and simple:

1) Click here http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/contest/Vote.asp> to view all of the finalists.
2) To view the profile of each car, click on a photo. Look for “osmivalec” with its three headlights.
3) Click on the "Vote" button to submit your vote for your favorite car.

Just three steps and you're done!

Vote now, vote again tomorrow, and again every day until May. Just like coffee in the morning, chocolate in the afternoon, whiskey at night, or beer any time — a regular routine.

The contest voting ends May 17th. Each day’s votes count toward the total.

Never mind health care. This is something really insignificant! It’s up to you. Don’t let the vile pretenders win this contest! Vote Tatra! Vote today! Vote tomorrow!

Send this to a thousand of your closest friends.

Do you want free beer? Vote Tatra!

--Dydia and Paul; Harpo, and Ernie.


P.S. If you’re not familiar with the Czechoslovakian Tatra T87, it’s a rear engine, air-cooled V8 with a dorsal fin down the back. The Czech Batmobile. We bought it “junk” nine years ago and finished its restoration (in the Czech Republic, at a shop in the town where the car was originally built) in 2009. Tatras were the only civilian cars still in production during WWII, and this is one of 3,023 made over a fifteen-year period. Ours is one of roughly 100 surviving in the world. Osmivalec was brought to this country by a US serviceman after the War, sat as a broken-down used-car-lot lure for who-knows-how-long, wallowed axle-deep in manure for over a decade, and then stood outdoors in the snow of Upstate New York for ten more years. From its “parts-car only” “not restorable” status we spent almost a decade restoring it. It runs, it stops. And it could win the contest. Vote Tatra! Vote today!