Car Lust

2002-2005 Ford Thunderbird

I can't believe we haven't done a post on this generation of Thunderbird yet. We've already hit the mid-'80s version and some of the earlier gens have been mentioned here and there, but this one seems to be ripe for the Lust pickings. After all, time hasn't exactly been kind to it, having popped up on a few "Worst" lists, including Car & Driver's Dishonorable Mentions list of The 10 Most Embarrassing Award Winners in Automotive History:

Ford’s relaunch of the Thunderbird as a two-seater in 2002 seemed like such a good idea. The styling was gorgeous, the concept car had earned raves at every car show, and nostalgia for the 1955–57 two-seat Birds was at a fever pitch. . .The result was an overweight, softly sprung roadster that looked great outside, was agonizingly boring inside, and was dreary to drive. And at about $40,000, it was stupidly expensive. If anyone were to drive this T-Bird, it would be platinum-haired women prone to carrying small dogs wherever they go.

Okay then.

Not that I'd disagree with the overall assessment -- sales don't always tell the whole story, but they rarely tell an outright lie -- but I've still always fancied this generation and feel the need to raise its profile some and maybe cast it in a bit more of a favorable light.

May 20 Weekly Open Thread: Signs of Spring

Up here in the northern parts of the country, springtime means that collector cars are coming out of storage and appearing on the roads. On my way home from work Thursday I found myself in the company of an AMC Javelin on West Market Street in Akron, and on Saturday I followed a 1958 Packard hardtop into town on route 57.

The world's supply of '58 Packard hardtops was never all that plentiful to begin with--a mere 675 of these catfish-nosed "Packardbakers" were sold--so I'm pretty confident it was the same gold/white two-tone I've seen at the annual Studebaker-Packard meet in Tallmadge.

What automotive signs of spring have you seen lately?

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

Carspotters' Challenge #59--A Lot To Look At

This week we're somewhere in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Note the accessory cat on the Jeep.

See anything interesting?

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

The Natchez Trace Parkway at Highway 96 West

Just southwest of Nashville, Tennessee, lies the Northern Terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway. And about 8.7 miles down the Trace, where it crosses Highway 96 West, sits this amazing structure. This intersection also happens to be the first exit after you enter the 444-mile-long Parkway.

Here we are looking East toward Franklin, Tennessee; Google Maps shows a nice picture of it. And as one indication of the magnificent scenery here, the view from the bridge won me a Car and Driver "10 Best Straightaways Contest Winner" sweatshirt and some ink in the January, 2000 issue.

May 13 Weekly Open Thread

During the May Days Blowout Sales Spectacular here at Car Lust Cars-R-Us, every customer is entitled to complimentary coffee, root beer, and sugar cookies--no purchase necessary--and our friendly and knowledgable sales staff dosen't wear hideous lesiure suits or use high pressure sales tactics.

Found something you like? Excellent! Lets sit and chat a spell while the service department finishes the dealer prep on your new R3 Avanti. The topic of the day is whatever you want it to be.

If you're anywhere within semi-reasonable driving distance of Seattle, we hope you'll join Chris Hafner, Anthony Cagle, and your fellow readers for the "First Annual Car Lust Drive-In Meetup" at the Greenwood Car Show on June 29.

Finally, a brief tech note: a couple of months ago, TypePad upgraded the blog's comment spam filter. The new software does a much better job of keeping out the counterfeit watches and Nigerian investment bankers, but it also occasionally gets overenthusiastic and blocks legitimate comments. If you leave a brilliant, insightful comment on one of our posts only to have it vanish without a trace--and your screen name isn't something obviously bogus like "CheapPlymouthCricketLamboDoorKit"--don't worry, we check the spam comments for "false positives" and will eventually rescue it from the dumpster.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum.)

Carspotters' Challenge #58--Beetlemania

This week, we've set the WABAC Machine to March, 1964 and arrived in Elten, West Germany. Elten was one of several towns that were annexed by The Netherlands in 1949 as reparations for World War II. The territory was repurchased for 280 million Marks by West Germany in 1963.

From the presence of the uniformed officer talking to the driver of the Mercedes in the foreground, I'm guessing this photo was taken at one of the border crossings during rush hour.

This being West Germany in the early 1960s, there are of course a lot of VW Beetles. See anything else interesting?

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum's collection of vintage street scenes, contributed by member "OrthmannJ.")

Great Cars of Russia

Alex spent a week in Russia on a school trip and took a lot of pictures, including quite a few of the local four-wheeled fauna. Here's some of what he saw:

The First Annual Car Lust Drive-In Meetup and May 6 Weekly Open Thread

We here at Car Lust are a far-flung bunch, typing in our missives from various points in the continental US (and elsewhere), but despite our common devotion to all these Lustable vehicles, most of us have never actually met in person.

And this event probably won't change that.

But I thought I'd toss this out there and see if there's any interest from the hordes of Car Lust aficionados out there who might be in the mood for a road trip of whatever length in order to indulge in our little habit and meet some of the other folks who frequent this blog. Thus, I give you the Greenwood Car Show, coming to a neighborhood near, well, me, this June 29. Yes, it's here in Seattle, far up in the northwest corner of the country, so I don't hold much hope that many of you will drop what you're doing in late June and drive up to our rainy little corner just to see a bunch of cars and meet a couple of the Car Lust staff. But who knows, maybe some of the more local people might take a day out for a little Car Lust interaction.

Feel free to drive your Lustable car and present it; the GCS isn't a terribly formal event and we plan to be showing a couple of our rides, none of them particularly valuable. But if we get at least 10 people to show up we can all park together. So, if you have a mind to come up for a little meet and greet, email the Car Lust staff (contact info off to the right there===>) and perhaps we can arrange out own Car Lust grouping.

And, of course, feel free to discuss anything else auto-related.

Credit: Got the photo from the West Seattle Blog.

Carspotters' Challenge #57--Maybe Diamonds Are Forever, But Police Cars Sure Aren't

There's a great car chase scene in James Bond's "Diamonds Are Forever" that was filmed in downtown Las Vegas. I've seen this whimsical pursuit at least 50 times, and still get a kick out of it every time.

In this chase, our favorite double naught spy, along with the lovely Miss Tiffany Case, are being pursued by Sin City's finest. Among other treats, this chase introduces moviegoers to the right way (and the wrong way) of driving a car on two wheels. There's also some great smash-'em-up scenes, yet nobody gets hurt.

Here's a frame from the 1971 feature during the wild pursuit. The blue & white police car is a bit out of focus, but there's plenty of other vintage sheet metal that can be identified:

Some Cars Just Should NOT Have 4 Doors

"You're travelling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. At the signpost up ahead, your next stop... the twilight zone." --Rod Serling

Yes, folks, some cars just should not be 4-doors. A lot of folks felt this way when the Dodge Charger was reintroduced in the 2006 model year, but we did get used to it. For the most part. I know the cops sure did.

And usually, if a car has a back seat, I'd like back doors there. I learned my lesson in a 2-door Chevette about leaning forward to let folks in the back.

But there are some cars that no amount of time will ever pass to let them be. They are surely from, or should go to, the twilight zone.

Carspotters' Challenge #56--Sunset Strip, 1979

Swimmin' pools, movie stars... and great '70s vintage cars! Why, Cecil B. DeVille himself couldn't have assembled a better cast of Car Lust Delectables for this week's Carspotters' Challenge.

Our occasional contributor Tigerstrypes found this beauty shot. And if I may, I'd like to suggest that we all click here to get the best resolution of the image, sweetheart. That's better than sunglasses; there's no need to squint while you're in Tinsel Town. ("Look, is that John Belushi I see over there? Hey, John!")

1972-1976 Volkswagen SP2

While searching images for the Buick Centurion / LeSabre post, I stumbled on this car by accident. I had never heard of an SP2... and now I'd love to have one.

But I'd probably have a better chance of going to Mars than getting one. Only 670 of them left their home in Brazil, and none of them ever came to the United States as new cars.

That racy bodywork included a rear-mounted engine under a hatchback lift gate. Not an easy trick to design, I'm sure. And it's got to be safe... look at all that front crush space. The only styling reservation I might have is that I think a little more time should have been spent on the grille-less front end... though it does grow on one after a while. And just imagine some rallye or fog lights there.

An SP2 is stunning to look at, even 40+ years later. The long hood/short trunklid styling screams Italiano! As well it should, since the SP2's designers included Jose Vicente Martins, Jorge Oba, and Marcio Piancastelli, who studied under the great Luigi Segre at Carrozzeria Ghia. Its cabin appointments were also first class for the time, and the rear engine area shows engineering packaging of sheer genius.

April 22 Weekly Open Thread: The "New Car" Blues

Our recent $100,000 Fantasy Garage Challenge has inspired me to seek out and find a new vehicle. I won't say the brand so that nobody gets offended or sued, but I will say that so far, the experience has been a borderline nightmare.

On my first visit to the dealer, they said they can't discount any new ones at all. Then I got on the internet, and saw that they are advertising a $1,500 discount or more on all of them (after a "Dealer Fee" of $598 is added).

Now I'm getting the usual runarounds... "There's no markup to work with," and "It's the time of the year where everybody wants one."

There was the perennial favorite, "There aren't any incentives on them right now." Then I got hammered with, "What are you going to trade in?" (I never trade.) Also, "Who do you have your financing with?" (It's a cash deal, folks.) Seems they're exploring every other opportunity to stick me as well. At this point, I'm seriously thinking about forgetting the whole thing.

But the biggest "pisser" has been when I have twice placed a vehicle request all over the Middle Tennessee region, and the local dealer sees it. They saw the requests and quickly called me back to say, "You won't get a better deal than we will give you," and, "You need to come back in so we can toss some numbers around."

Carspotters' Challenge #55--Bird's Eye View

In keeping with our theme this week, we go back to the 1970s again for this Soviet spy satellite photo bird's eye view of an urban parking lot.

See anything interesting?

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum's collection of vintage street scenes, contributed by member "Yellerspirit.")

Car Lust, Tom Clancy Style: the Cars of "The Americans"

Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings and their two children may look like your typical middle-class family from the Washington suburbs, but they're anything but. Phillip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are Soviet sleeper agents assigned to infiltrate the US government, Russians who were trained and drilled for years to look, sound, and act American. Their true identities kept secret from their own children, they lead a complex and dangerous double life, torn between their loyalty to (and fear of) their employer, their love for their kids and each other, and their growing realization that they might be working for the wrong cause.

My son and I have become hooked on The Americans, a new spy drama series that is set in the year 1981. The newly-installed Reagan administration is taking a confrontational stance toward the USSR, and the KGB is desperate for information on a rumored missile defense system that would render the mighty Soviet nuclear arsenal impotent. Moscow is pushing Phillip and Elizabeth into ever more dangerous situations, while showing no tolerance for failure--and if that wasn't trouble enough, their friendly new neighbor Stan (Noah Emmerich) is an FBI agent assigned to the Counterintelligence Division, working to identify and apprehend deep-cover Soviet agents!

What do I like about the show? There are a lot of things to like--the protagonists are complex and realistic characters, the "tradecraft" they use is very authentic, the show never forgets who the bad guys are--but as one who was there in 1981, I appreciate the attention to period detail--including, most particularly, the very Car Lust selection of vehicles on display.

Battle of the 1970s Super Cars!

Submitted for your consideration, this delightful bit of animated Car Lust:

1971-1973 Buick Centurion vs. 1971-1973 Buick LeSabre

"Uh-LLLLadies... and... Gen-tle-men! On the left, weighing 4,329 lbs. and standing 54 inches in height with a wheelbase of 124 inches, we have the 1973 Buick Centurion. And on the right, also weighing 4,329 lbs. and standing 54 inches and with a wheelbase of 124 inches, we have the 1973 Buick LeSabre."

"So, from the Car Lust home office here in the great United States of America..."

"... Uh-Let's get ready to rum-bullllllll!"

Quite a while back in a discussion here at Car Lust, we swapped stories comparing the similarities and differences of Buick's Wildcat/Centurion vs. their LeSabre. If memory serves, the outcome more or less stated that the Wildcat/Centurion was Buick's "sporty" full-sized car while the LeSabre was the more practical one. Of course, the Electra 225, Buick's flagship luxury model, had enough differences to not be included in the discussion.

April 15 Weekly Open Thread: "'Leisure Suits and Avocado Ovens' Theme Week"

April 15 is a very historic day. The Titanic sank, Abraham Lincoln passed, and our federal income taxes are due. So to cheer things up a bit today, we're announcing a time travel "Theme Week" back to the 1970s.

We're taking some light looks at a few automotive subjects, staying silent about that little thing that happened in Washington, and we'll totally avoid the dreaded "D" word as well.

Plus you won't even see the word "Vega."

Now get out your CB radios, squeeze into that blue leisure suit, and climb into the Gremlin for a few days.

Oh and today, this is also the place where we can talk about anything even remotely concerning cars, trucks, bikes, station wagons, convertibles, and stuff.

--That Car Guy (Chuck)

Image Credit: Our totally hip cruising van image is from WIUX.org.

Carspotters' Challenge #54--Yakima Street

The location is said to be "Yakima Street;" no word on what city. I know it's not Youngstown, where I grew up, but Youngstown has a lot of early 20th century "low rise" office buildings like the ones on the right side of the image. The mix of cars suggests a date in the late 1970s or very early 1980s.

See anything exciting?

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum's collection of vintage street scenes, contributed by member "75t&c.")

2013 Honda CBR500R: The First Ride

Dreams can come true. Some time around last November, I read that Honda was about to build the bike of my dreams. And since I'm quickly reaching the age where the "Sunny Acres Trailer Park" in Retirementville, Florida, is looking more appealing every day, I figured this may be my last motorcycle. So I wanted to go all out and do it right.

On January 16th, 2013, for my birthday (Which I surprisingly share with Top Gear's James May), I put a deposit down on a red, white, and blue CBR500R, like the one pictured here. I knew the bike would not go on sale until sometime in April, which was fine with me. Turns out we had a longer winter than normal, and I was not going to be able to ride it anyway. Plus, waiting for the bike gave me something to look forward to as the dreary winter day pages fell off of the calendar.

I had about three months before the bike was to arrive, so internet shopping, here we come. First, a new all-white helmet was in order. Sounds easy enough, but that was harder to find than first imagined... most of today's helmets look like a custom shop has spent hours airbrushing each one of them. New boots and a riding suit to match the bike soon came in the mail as well.