Happy Birthday to Us
A year ago, on Aug. 28, 2007, Amazon Car Lust sprung into being with the promise that "you'll get a reluctant glimpse into that dark place in my psyche that just can't get enough of Peugeots." As anybody who has been around for a full year of breathless odes to better-forgotten vehicles can attest, that promise has been kept in spades.
Thanks to all of you who read this blog, thanks to all of you who comment, and thanks to those of you who care enough to contribute. It's remarkable to me that we have evolved from essays about cars I like into a blog powered by a half-dozen contributors, each honoring the concept of Car Lust better than I could do myself. Thanks to all of you, and here's hoping the next year is just as much fun.
Some notable moments:
Aug. 28--Car Lust launches, with the Audi RS6 Plus Avant and 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS454 the first two cars featured.
Sept. 13--After starting off with a run of nice cars, I signal future quirkiness with a spirited defense of ugly cars. "I miss the terrible cars," I moan.
Sept. 17--Poseur Muscle Cars week kicks off (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), as does Sleeper Sedans week (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The final Poseur Muscle car post, honoring the Ford Mustang II Cobra II, gets me in hot water five months later when the Mustang II cognoscenti discover it.
Nov. 9--The best car commercial of all time, the first of our commercial reviews.
Dec. 10--A new feature, Car Disgust. In the introduction, I pose the question "If I truly like all of the crap I've been foisting upon you, is there anything I don't like? And if so, just how awful most those cars be?" The Yugo GVX, fittingly, is the first featured object of disgust.
Dec. 12--Mulling over the merits of terrible 1970s cars. Oh, and speaking of terrible cars, the 1993 Saturn SL2.
Jan. 21--Our rebirth--we move from the cozy confines of Amazon Daily and get our own site, www.carlustblog.com. The archives make the transition, but alas the fantastic comments did not. They still live on, however, in the Amazon version of the blog.
Jan. 24--Ride, Pontiac, Ride.
Jan. 25--The minivan brouhaha, wherein I defend minivans and say driving one is "almost punk rock." It draws a mind-bending 93 comments, including one that accuses me of being on the Honda payroll (my later Honda Ridgeline post would dispel any such illusions).
Feb. 11--Inappropriately Named Chrysler Products Week! (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
March 4--I get maudlin about the Jeep Wagoneer.
March 17--The Our Cars feature kicks off. Originally envisioned as a week-long opportunity to showcase reader cars, it turned into a nearly three-week tour de force by our readers. It was some of the best content ever featured on the blog and eventually led to some of our readers becoming contributors.
April 4--A reader pulls the Nazi card in response to a post about the Volkswagen Scirocco.
April 7--A post about the 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass somehow prompts an SUV holy war in the comments. We subsequently tackle the issue head-on in the SUV Throwdown.
April 14--The battling inspires the Car Lust Code of Conduct.
May 15--One of the classic commercials of all time--Ricardo Montalban, a "small Chrysler," Corinthian leather, and the Federation starship USS Cordoba.
May 29--When Car Lust goes too far.
June 5--Loving and hating the Lamborghini Countach.
June 9--A mind-bendingly obscure weekly theme--great IMSA GTP race cars! (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
June 17--A conversation about boring cars, followed by the single most boring car of all time.
July 18--The first official contributor post, "Tastefully Overdone" by Cookie the Dog's Owner.
July 29--Rob the SVX Guy and David Drucker beat each other silly in an argument about Harley-Davidsons.
Aug. 4--Best road snacks.
Mochi Mochi on August 28, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Happy Birthday CarLust - It's been a great year. Who would have suspected that a blog about largely non-exotic transportation could be so thought provoking and thoroughly engrossing. The wit, talent, and (largely) genteel conversations we've had this past year have been a delight. I've said it before, but it bares repeating, CarLust is a breath of fresh air in the web-o-sphere. Thoughtful conversations with an anti-consumerist take conducted over largely materialist subject matter is rare. The best part is that this is all so much fun. Thanks to everyone for making this a great year.
AlaskaBrant on August 28, 2008 at 12:01 PM
Thank you and Happy Birthday! You guys are the best. I hope there is enough interest to keep this site going for years. Cars have been my passion my whole life, starting at 16 with my 1952 Ford Customline in o.d. green to my current 2008 Chrysler 300. I have owned 53 cars in those 36 years, and half of them were the cars you guys boast or roast. I love it. Keep up the great work, all of you. I will keep reading.
Anthony Cagle on August 28, 2008 at 12:43 PM
There's just one thing that could make this site better:
It's coming. . .
Wait for it. . . .
Almost here. . .
CAR LUST TV.
Like a Top Gear for anachronistic dweebs.
Instead of a hangar, we can host the show from Chris's garage with a couple of neighbors and some local dogs wandering in and out instead of a studio audience. And in lieu of a makeshift track at a local airport we can just take whatever cars we highlight and do donuts on the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Of course, since we have no budget to speak of, we won't be able to actually obtain any of the cars we talk about, so we'll have to just use whatever daily drivers we have already and put a sticky note on the dash to signify the make and model of the car that we would be driving at that moment if we could actually afford one.
"If this were a 1973 Monte Carlo -- which it's not -- instead of the 1992 Volvo wagon that we have, I would right now be looking at a dashboard rendered entirely in matte black. . . ."
Chris Hafner on August 28, 2008 at 04:37 PM
Car Lust TV ... yeah, i could see that. It would be wacky, low-budget and demented, just like this blog.
Mochi, this may amuse you - I was poking through the old comments on the Amazon version of the blog and realized that you've been commenting since the second day of Car Lust's life. You're definitely the longest-tenured commenter we have.
Mochi Mochi on August 28, 2008 at 06:35 PM
Wow - I've been here since day 2? Cool! Kinda makes me all misty and everything. It's a great ride. Let's see, day two, that's easy to remember! When I saw the article featuring the Squareback my head nearly exploded. I don't think I'd ever been moved to write comments on blogs prior to that. Now look at me - you can't shit me up ;)
Cookie the Dog's Owner on August 28, 2008 at 07:19 PM
I'm not sure exactly how far back I go, but I came in here riding shotgun on an Instalanche* pretty early on in Car Lust history. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here as a reader and commenter, and I'm especially grateful that our genial host gave me a set of keys to the sandbox.**
*Apologies to Shawn Colvin.
**How's that for a mixed metaphor.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on August 28, 2008 at 07:19 PM
This is like one of the TV Sitcom retrospectives:
"Tonight, on a very special Car Lust..."
It's been a great ride so far, and I know I've got plenty of gas left in the tank.
Thanks, Chris, for daring to let us take the wheel at times and share our own car lusts.
Mochi Mochi on August 28, 2008 at 09:00 PM
It's the cars AND their people that make this adventure so much fun... CarLust TV? Sign me up - where's the Walmart parking lot?
Brian on August 28, 2008 at 10:35 PM
I think I caught this "blog" which has evolved into some kind of viral institution, back in December/January 2007, started reading, laughing hysterically all the way back to the beginning! This blog shows that there's a lot of passion for cars out there, and quite a number of eloquent, passionate individuals who are as unique as the Opel GT. Or more unique, possibly.
This blog is the cutting edge of a rapidly exploding genre, internet automotive info-tainment, I love the idea of an indy "Top Gear" about old beaters and daily drivers.
David Drucker on August 29, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Just a bunch of knuckleheads with skewed views, is what we are. (And I'm so happy to be one of those knuckleheads.) I raise a cyber-glass, and toast us all: Confusion to Our Enemies!
Rob the SVX guy on September 03, 2008 at 06:56 AM
What I really like about this blog, over other automotive sites is that we don't croon over the latest and greatest. We also don't point out the obvious: "Boy this million dollar ferrari is awesome". I personally don't care about the unattainable. Sure, it's fun to dream every once in a while, but I find it much more engaging to dream about automotive possibilities that are based in reality. And honestly, most of the weird, the obscure, the strange and wonderful stuff highlighted by this blog is a lot more interesting than some new supercar.
Sillypickle on September 08, 2008 at 05:06 PM
I haven't commented since day one, but when I discovered this blog about a month ago, I went back and read every single post, and commented on a few of the old ones even though not many people will see those comments anymore. I've definitely found like-minded people here, and like Rob the SVX guy I love reading about attainable cars that are often rare and special not because they cost a ton of money, but because they are old, odd, or otherwise out of the norm.
Speaking of which, let's see more articles on strange and interesting cars from Europe and other places overseas. Every trip I've taken out of the U.S. has been an unparalleled experience of vehicular wonderment; I spend more time looking at all the cars I've never seen before than I do seeing the sights that I'm (ostensibly) traveling to see in the first place!