Car Lust

Citroen CX

                         
Today's Car Lust could not be more different than yesterday's; while the Dodge Charger is a blunt object of a muscle car, the Citroen CX is a smooth, slick, sophisticated tourer with a particularly Gallic spin on the curiously bulbous hunchbacked shape that is such a Car Lust favorite.

When it debuted in the mid-1970s, the CX, like the SM and DS before it, was a ground-breaking vehicle. Hugely technologically advanced, with fantastic aerodynamics for the time and with a funky and futuristic interior (check out the single-spoke steering wheel!), it thoroughly modernized the typical French quirkiness into an extremely compelling tourer.

The tiny engine compartment only allowed four-cylinder engines, so the CX wasn't exactly a sprinter. However, its advanced aerodynamics and long-legged nature made it an excellent top-speed cruiser for devouring the Continent. The traditional Citroen floaty ride came courtesy of a self-leveling hydro-pneumatic suspension which made for an excellent ride/handling compromise.

1968-1970 Dodge Charger

As a kid who grew up engrossed in the exploits of Bo and Luke Duke and their seemingly indestructible General Lee, I was raised with an innate love of the late 1960s Dodge Charger. The General Lee was fast, stylish, sounded great, and, for some reason, had its doors welded shut. As a six-year-old, it filled all of my criteria for Car Lust. In fact, it's likely that the General Lee sparked my Car Lust in the first place.

To my admittedly biased eyes, The Dukes of Hazzard has aged surprisingly well. Its portrayal of the South as a place where the citizens and officials are all rubes and/or casual outlaws could be considered offensive by some, I suppose, and certainly the Confederate flag on the roof of the General Lee is a lightning rod for criticism.

And, no, the show wasn't particularly believable. The Charger, while obviously fast, was never truly able to shake the pursuing police Polaras and Gran Furys. And as an adult, I cringe every time one of those priceless Chargers takes a spectacular jump--most of the time when the car lands, you can see the suspension buckle and the fenders crease. As a car lover, I grieve for the countless classic Chargers ruined in making The Dukes of Hazzard.

Chrysler-Maserati TC

                         

Today's Car Disgust spotlight shines on a car so thoroughly compromised, so obviously a cynically mediocre car, that it embarrassed everybody involved four years before it even debuted.

When rumor began to circulate that the long friendship between mid-1980s Chrysler potentate Lee Iacocca and Maserati honcho Alejandro DeTomaso might result in a collaborative automotive project, everybody sat up to take notice--who would have guessed that one of Italy's most prominent luxury/performance automakers would deign to produce a car with the beleaguered American automaker?

It was, of course, a brilliant idea--why not combine all the frumpy styling sensibility of a mid-1980s Chrysler with the legendarily spotty reliability of a Maserati?

The Chrysler-Maserati TC failed to meet even those rock-bottom expectations.

AutoWeek debuted the car with a cover story in late 1985, with the cover blurb, "Let's hope it comes in more flavors than this." The opening line of the article was, "Maybe we expected too much."

1993 Saturn SL2

                         

Today's Car Disgust is a car that I loathe out of personal experience--the 1993 Saturn SL2.

From its inception, Saturn has enjoyed a mystical halo--a reputation of kindness, decency, and the ability to inspire cultish devotion among its customers. Part of it, I think, was the much-hyped Saturn no-haggle price policy, which in my opinion was breathtaking in its cynicism. There's actually no need to dicker on the price of any car--just offer to pay full price, and you'll have a grinning salesperson ready to sign you up without negotiation. Negotiation is good for the customer because it will get you a lower price.

But, whatever the motivation, Saturn has enjoyed one of the most passionate and fervently joyful owner bases in autodom. What really confuses me about this is that until the last year or two, when they increasingly became rebadged Opels, the cars weren't great.

My wife and I purchased a six-year-old '93 Saturn SL2 from some Saturn-loving friends of ours. The idea of owning a Saturn didn't especially excite me, but we needed a second car and a Saturn seemed a harmless if boring choice. The SL2 at least had a twin-cam engine and a five-speed, so I thought it might be at least mildly interesting to drive.

Not so. The interior was strictly econobox-class, with abrasive, cheap plastics, poor design and layout, unsupportive seats, and shoddy construction standards. The exterior design was uninspired and cheap-looking.

Things were vastly worse on the mechanical front--and I can only think that the problems we had with our Saturn were part of General Motors' highly successful campaign to drive away a loyal customer base during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It certainly had that effect on me.

Thoughts on terrible 1970s American cars ...

There is a nice little exchange in the comments of my Chevrolet Chevelle Laguna Type S-3 454 Car Disgust post regarding whether bad American cars of the 1970s are worthy of ridicule or not. I responded in the comments section, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought the subject deserves its own post.

To sum up the two viewpoints:

Anthony Cagle: "I've tended to defend the mid-late '70s cars and feel I must do so now!"

Mochi Mochi: "With all due respect to their defenders, Mid-70's american cars were an absolute abomination of the grotesque."

The strange thing is that I agree with both of these statements.

By today's eyes, or even those of 1970s Europeans, 1970s American cars are abominations - ugly, overwrought, hideously out of proportion, slow, and unrewarding to drive. There are exceptions, of course, but it's hard to deny that it was a dark decade for domestic iron.

1974 Chevrolet Chevelle Laguna Type S-3 454

                        

My inclusion of the 1974 Chevrolet Chevelle Laguna Type S-3 454 as an object of Car Disgust might seem puzzling. Why would a 454-cubic-inch Chevelle-based muscle car wind up lumped into Car Disgust, especially when the 1970 Chevelle SS454 was one of the very first Car Lusts?

Well, in truth, the Laguna Type S-3 454 wasn't so much a muscle car as it was the decaying, bloated corpse of a muscle car--the dug-up remains of the glorious Chevelle SS454, reanimated Weekend at Bernie's-style, with nothing more substantial than a freshly pressed leisure suit.

While the Chevelle SS454 was one of the brightest stars of the resplendent automotive firmament of the late 1960s, the Laguna was just the opposite--an impossibly inky black hole in the considerably darker sky of the early 1970s.

In a 1970 Car & Driver comparison test, a Chevelle SS454 had battled the legendary Shelby Cobra to a draw and established itself as one of the most powerful and seductive muscle cars of its era. Only four years later, changing tastes and emissions regulations had turned the smooth, torquey engine into an unresponsive weakling, and the bold Chevelle into a tacky Laguna.

Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am SD-455

                         

I'm taking a brief interlude from Car Disgust this morning for the Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am SD-455. Why? Well, because I wanted to use the SD-455 to help set up and contrast with the object of disgust this afternoon.

I'll explain more this afternoon, but for now I'll just foreshadow that there will be a yin to the SD-455's yang. Anyway, on to this fully worthy object of lust.

What had once been a bright automotive sky full of muscle car stars in the 1960s had dimmed in the early 1970s. Many of the brightest stars had been blotted out, one by one, by the dark clouds of federal emissions regulation and skyrocketing gas prices. Even the greatest giants of automotive performance had eventually succumbed, sliding into the mediocrity of paint-and-sticker performance packages.

Yugo GVX

                        

Yugo introduced its unreliable, underpowered, hopelessly antiquated GV hatchback in 1986 to worldwide jeering and derision, a level of scorn that only grew as people became more familiar with the intrinsic problems with an ancient Fiat design assembled with the meticulous disregard and thorough apathy of Yugoslavia's Zastava auto group.

The GV's carbureted, 61-horsepower four-cylinder engine, its antediluvian suspension design, and four-speed manual transmission were part of the problem. The remainder of the car constituted the rest of the problem.

In response to the deafening lack of demand for a performance variant of the GV came the GVX--a hot-rod Yugo that thoroughly failed to meet even the dimmest expectations.

Car Disgust--An Introduction

This week I'll be featuring "Car Disgust" instead of "Car Lust"--and frankly, I think it deserves an explanation.

Up to this point, I've only been sharing with you those cars that I truly lust after--cars about which I've spent my waking moments dreaming, and, despite their many flaws, that I would put in my garage in a heartbeat.

This is not to say they've all been great cars--beautiful, exotic, and desirable. Quite the opposite. In fact, as I say in my In Defense of Ugly Cars post:

"Cars are like people--beautiful, perfect people are interesting from time to time, but if that's your entire world, they get very dull. That's one failure of some car magazines, I think--they overdo the exotics to the point where they become mundane and commonplace. There is beauty and wonder in all levels of the automotive world."

Triumph TR6

                         

As I run through lust-worthy cars, I would be remiss if I ignored the Triumph TR6--one of the defining and most popular English roadsters of the 1970s.

The TR6 was an interesting case. It wasn't really as huge a competition success as its Triumph forebears, it wasn't as agile as its competition from Fiat or Alfa Romeo, and despite its brawny six-cylinder engine, it wasn't all that quick. In fact, despite its trim size, the TR6 handled like a truck and just barely managed to break the 10-second mark in the 0-60 sprint--roughly about what one would expect from a mid-1980s Honda Accord.

But, really, none of that mattered. The TR6, with its handsome, squared-off looks and jaunty British flag sticker mounted on the rear quarter-panels, sold a dream.