Car Lust

1966-1967 Mercury Comet

Okay, you're going to need to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and steel yourselves. I have something shocking to say, and you're going to need every bit of fortitude you can muster just to cope with it. Are you ready?

Okay, here goes: Mercury used to make interesting cars.

Pardon me for blowing your mind. I know we've all become used to seeing a Mercury lineup stocked exclusively with somnolent, chrome-laden, and drearily redundant Ford clones. Mercury is most remarkable for its application of pretty cool names to vehicles that have no particular reason to exist. In an era in which way too many cars are named alphanumerically, Mercury actually bothers to give its cars evocative names. Milan, Mariner, Sable, Mountaineer--these are all great car names, but it's a shame that they are wasted on cars that bring nothing unique to the vehicular world.

1986-1992 Saab 9000 Turbo

When Saab debuted the 9000 in 1986, it raised some eyebrows. It's not often that a car garners attention because of its normalcy; but such is the case when a noted oddball carmaker like Saab introduces a car so seemingly bone-stock conventional as the 9000.

Saab had always been known for cars with profiles that could best be described as quirky. From the early 92 and 95, to the swoopy Sonnetts, to the swollen and hunchbacked 99 and 900, Saabs looked different than normal cars and were seemingly proud of that fact. By contrast, the 9000 was clean and attractive but otherwise unremarkable by the standards of 1986. The aero headlights and the smoothly contoured sides were handsome and aerodynamic, but reminiscent of the ground-breaking Audi 5000 and Ford Taurus. Without the Saab grille and insignia, it would be difficult to identify the 9000 as a Saab--while the 900, on the other hand, showed its Saab heritage clearly and proudly. Only the five-door hatchback bodystyle betrayed Saab's quirky tendencies.

In another break from non-conformity, the 9000's platform was the result of a joint development effort with three other European carmakers. The 9000's chassis and, in some cases, body panels, were shared with the Alfa Romeo 164, Lancia Thema, and Fiat Croma. Sharing a platform with the likes of Alfa and Lancia doesn't exactly raise the spectre of awful and irrelevant clones like the Cadillac Cimmaron or Mercury Bobcat, but its conventionality was a bit worrying for this slavish Saab-ite. Had Saab sold out and built a bland every-car?

Cash for Clunkers?

I'm dipping into quasi-political matters here, in violation of my own policy--but this is just too apropos to Car Lust for me to pass up.

SEMA, the aftermarket performance part/accessory trade group and organizer of the behemoth SEMA trade show, is very active in legislative lobbying. This morning it sent out a legislative alert with the following warning:

"Washington lawmakers are drafting a large economic stimulus package to help create jobs and rebuild infrastructure.  They want to include a nationwide scrappage program which would give U.S. tax dollars to consumers who turn-in older cars to have them crushed, as a misguided attempt to spur new car sales.  The lawmakers need to scrap this idea. 

"The stimulus package is being drafted right now.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants to introduce the bill on January 6 and have it approved by Congress by January 20, so that President Obama can sign it into law after he is inaugurated."

Amazon.com has no official position on this, and neither do I, but speaking as a private citizen who harbors lust for older cars, the idea of a systemic scrapping of older cars sends shivers down my spine.

The Joys of Winter Driving

Offered without comment, this ad for a chain of filling stations owned by StatoilHydro of Norway:

Merry Christmas from Car Lust

Dodge Tomahawk

It looks like a motorcycle. It sounds like a supercar. It's not street legal in the US. You could, if you had one, only drive it on private roads or on a track. And you could do so at high speeds.

Very high speeds.

It's got 500 horsepower. It goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds. It has a theoretical top speed of over 400 miles an hour. And you can actually steer it.

And you could, at one time, actually buy one.

1974 AMC Matador Oleg Cassini

The AMC Matador is a particular favorite of mine--I have both sung its praises and defended its honor from those who would impugn it.

After the most recent Matador post, reader Gary Thoreson dropped me an e-mail describing his Matador. It's the prettiest Matador I've ever seen, bar none, and the story behind the car is truly touching.

Here's Gary's story:

Submitted by Gary Thoreson

It was Feb. 19, 1999 in Abbotsford, B.C., and my Dad, Edwin Alberta Thoreson, became the proud owner of a 1974 Oleg Cassini Matador. The past owner, according to the transfer papers, was a man by the name of Henry Edge. The transfer papers had also stated the car was white in color. I believe this was the original color, but since then it had undergone a complete color change and was now green. The original gold vinyl top had been repainted white, but the front grille and base color for the hub caps were still gold--that didn't match too well with the green.

1962: It was a very good year

I take this opportunity to sing the praises of not one car, but many: those from a single year, 1962. Why this particular year? I can almost hear the thoughts of many out there wondering why this year and not some other one that has way more hot cars. What about '69 when we had Super Bees and Boss 302s? Or maybe 1964, which saw both the GTO and the Mustang debut? To these criticisms I can only respond: Hey, this is Car Lust, after all.

But I have my reasons, some of them carefully reasoned and others a bit more self-referential. I will admit right up front that this was the same annus incredibilis that saw the introduction of the Cagle Mark III model (that would be your humble blogger), but that's actually secondary and is good only as an additional plot device to the larger point which I came to by other avenues. In truth, I'd been gravitating towards the general 1961-63 era for some time, an interest initially sparked by a single event in automotive history (below the fold).

The upshot is that I find the cars produced in the period between what we think of as 1950s classics and the muscle car era of the later '60s to be terribly attractive in their own transitional way. In a lot of ways they seem to capture that moment between the staid '50s and the free-for-all '60s that, in some sense, reflects on how society (or at least society as presented by the media) looked at the time. After the gray flannel suit, but before bell bottoms, if you will.

1977 Buick Nighthawk

It was love at first sight. 

There I was, reading The Truth About Cars instead of doing something work-related, when, lo and behold, they pushed out a capsule review of the 1977 Buick Nighthawk. I was immediately smitten; I fell head over heels.

The black paint. ... The gold hawk and the gigantic stripe on the side. ... The gold wheels. ... Those lines, evocative of a mutant offspring between a Datsun 240Z and an AMC Pacer... or was that an RX-7 crossbred with a Pinto? I couldn't decide, but it didn't matter. Is that a clam-like rear taillight? Why yes. Yes it is. Is it winking at me suggestively? Why yes. I think it is.

Then I was told about the paint.

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8

Nothing about the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 makes any kind of sense. Aside from the insane incongruity of a  420-horsepower Jeep, the whole idea of a high-performance SUV is almost entirely nonsensical.

Compared to cars, sport-utility vehicles have certain advantages--increased cargo-carrying capacity, off-road ability, and the visibility provided by a high-seating position. The inevitable trade-off is a set of dynamic compromises that militate against performance. SUVs tend to be heavier, tipper, and far less aerodynamic than their more car-like stablemates. This goes double for Jeeps, which have admirably retained the off-road prowess that made the brand famous--even as other automakers have emasculated their SUVs' off-road abilities.

So why take a perfectly good Jeep Grand Cherokee and make a hot rod out of it? Especially when by so doing you drop its ride height and cripple the off-road and towing abilities that make it special? Basically, what you have left is an SUV that has plenty of S but no U.