Car Lust

Car Lust--1971-1974 Dodge Charger

  I'm featuring the 1971-1974 Dodge Charger today, but, after a lot of thought, I'm not dubbing it a poseur muscle car. This edition of the Charger, with its macho looks and fading power, would seem like a perfect companion for overstuffed luminaries such as the Ford Gran Torino and the Chevy Monte Carlo SS. But at the risk of offending those who are concerned with trivial concepts such as "consistency," "fairness," and "rational thinking" I'm going to hold up the Charger and laud it on its own merits. Heck, everybody already knows I'm inconsistent, unfair, and irrational.

So, let's break down the Charger's qualifications for poseur muscle car status.

Car Lust--Mercedes-Benz C111

Sorry for the lack of Car Lusts yesterday and today, folks--I was out yesterday spending time with my daughter, and have spent this morning digging out here at work. Not a good excuse, I realize, so let's dispose with family and work and concentrate solely on what's really important--old cars.

Last week's Audi Avus (a car that, I'm surprised to say, was roundly panned here) was all show and no go--a car notable for its styling, but with vaporware under its curvaceous skin. Today's Car Lust wasn't so much a show car as a series of concept cars. The distinction between show car and concept car is a fine but important one.

$5,000 Challenge Results

I'm incredibly gratified by the response to the $5,000 Challenge--not only did people find a ton of interesting cars, but I found I'm not the only classifieds junkie out there. Anyway, enough text--let's get to the cars!

My picks: My original goal was to have everybody submit one car, but that's really hard to do. Instead, like everybody else, I found a couple. There were quite a few perfectly fair daily drivers available, but what's the fun in that?

My favorite was a faded blue 1976 Chevy Caprice Classic on Craigslist for $2,500 --unfortunately, the listing has disappeared, and I didn't think to grab the photo first. But it looked straight, perfect, and clean--if a little too pricey for what it is. I love '76 Impalas/Caprices; the only reason I haven't Car Lusted them is because I feel I need to do them proper justice.

Car Lust--Ariel Atom

If there is a lunatic fringe among cars, the Atom is at the lunatic fringe of that fringe. It is one of the very few cars that can make the Caterham Super Seven look like a safe, sedate, practical family car. The Atom is street-legal in most states as a kit car and can be driven (rather quickly) on public roads, but while most sports cars make weak pretenses at being suitable for everyday transportation, the Atom eschews with that pretense and goes right for the jugular.

We talk a lot here about the beauty and wonder of light weight, and how a lack of mass can help a performance car excel in every possible dynamic way--acceleration, braking, cornering, and fuel economy. Well, the Atom takes that concept to its ultimate extreme, with sublime results.

Buying Used Cars

It sounds like Mochi Mochi has a used-car conundrum--and because it's an interesting question, I think it deserves its own post.

"Friends: I need your help. I went on a car date this evening. The whole online dating analogy that Chris mentioned is so apt. So I've been looking around. I found a nice 1992 Integra GSR - stock - not chopped up or modded. No signs of rust. No indication of accidents. The asking price was $3900. Body is clean. Everything works ok.

Car Respect--Geo Metro

I'm not actually going to write a Car Lust for a Geo Metro, simply because it doesn't generate lust for me. I have a lot of respect for the Metro, but as we can see in other walks of life, respect does not always equal lust. My respect for the Metro is a purely intellectual response; the only real emotion the Metro prompts in me is a slight tinge of ennui.

(Note that this isn't really true of the Metro's predecessor, the Chevy Sprint--its turbocharged variant will be appearing in this space someday as a bona fide Car Lust.)

Yet the Metro, in its own way, was as superlative as any Porsche, as extreme a performer in its sphere as any Ferrari. Its forte? Providing maximum fuel economy and usefulness for the minimum price. Within that context, the Metro was the ne plus ultra.

There has been a lot of conversation lately about alternative-fuel cars, hybrids, electric cars, hydrogen-fueled cars, Smart cars, and the like--all very cool developments, all interesting additions to the automotive world. Then fellow Amazon blogger Rich Sloan blogged about his friend's Smart fortwo--and subsequently got roasted in the comments for saying that his friend's fuel costs were $0 after 142 miles.

All of this really puts into context just how amazing the Geo Metro was--or, possibly, that we just haven't made much progress on fuel economy in the last decade. I like both the Smart and the Prius--there's something gadgety about them that appeals to me--but if your goal is just to have a useful gas-sipping car, it would be hard to do better than a Geo Metro.

$5,000 Challenge

Hi, my name is Chris Hafner, and I'm a used car listings addict. I've been a compulsive used-car listing reader for the last 15 years; and I'm ashamed to say that I read them even when I'm not shopping for a car. In this way I'm similar to the people who are addicted to online dating sites--the used car listings offer a breathtaking diversity of cars, each with their own look, their own story, their own intoxicating sense of possibility.

One of the things I do for fun on a weekly basis is run through the listings and find which car I'd buy that week for a given price range. Yeah, I'm not particularly well-adjusted.

Anybody else want to join me in this compulsion? I'll set a price cap of $5,000 this time--anybody who wants to participate, just find the car you'd buy from your local classifieds and either put it in the comments thread of this post or use the "E-mail Car Lust" link at the top-right of the blog. I'll compile them in a post on Friday comparing our finds.

And if nobody else is interested, well, I'll just continue my lonely life as a used-car listings addict.

--Chris H.

Car Lust--Audi Avus

With a few exceptions, I've never been a big fan of show cars. Many show cars are meaningless styling bucks, with impractical styling and imaginary engineering; they never see the light of day. I can see why people like show cars, but for the most part the whole exercise seems a bit empty.

Nothing about the 1991 Audi Avus concept remotely approached production, and given that its high-horsepower "engine" was a mocked-up dummy, its wild performance claims were based purely on imagination. Yet show cars are meant to inspire, and based on inspiration and impact, the Audi Avus might be one of the most important show cars ever.

Car Lust--Opel Manta Rallye

OldCarGuy, your wish is my command--though you may not like my intro.

It's difficult to describe the attraction a car like the Opel Manta Rallye holds for me. In comparison to the lowliest late-model Ford Escort, the Manta is a gigantic, steaming pile of automotive dung. To a modern driver, the Manta would be considered noisy, unrefined, and cramped--but at least it's slow and ugly. To the casual observer, the Manta Rallye looks like nothing more than a slightly less offensive Datsun B-210 with a weird flat black hood that ostensibly was obtained from a junkyard.

At least that's how I think most modern observers would react--I'm biased because I'm hopelessly besotted with the Manta and think it's wonderful.

Driving Slow Cars Fast

There's a great discussion going on in this comments thread regarding the old saying, "It's more fun to go fast in a slow car than slow in a fast car." David Drucker wrote a great article on this subject at The Truth About Cars, and I can attest to its truth.

I've never driven a true exotic, but I've driven some very fast cars, of which the fastest were probably a recent Pontiac GTO and an Audi S4. Both of those cars provide perception-bending acceleration and road-holding--capabilities so far beyond mine that they gave me the same heady, breathless rush provided by the most modern and extreme roller coasters. Make no mistake, driving fast cars fast is a good time.

But the thing is, the most fun I've ever had behind the wheel came with a 1981 Honda Prelude. The Prelude in question was, at the time, about 15 years old, had roughly 150,000 miles on it, and was in a slowly crumbling state of repair. It's engine, never powerful, buzzed so much that various loose interior plastic pieces vibrated in sympathy. The manual transmission linkage was so loose that it was almost impossible to tell what, if any, gear it was in.

None of that mattered. That Prelude and I had about 45 minutes of glory together, three-quarters of an hour of the best, most involved, most thrilling driving I've ever experienced. That abused, scabrous Prelude was the Ginger Rogers to my Fred Astaire.