Car Lust

Our Cars--1975 Chevy Impala

Not wanting to miss out on the big car nostalgia, I'll wow you with tales of one of the greatest beasts to ever cruise the open road. I first received my 4-door 1975 Chevy Impala when I was still in high school, but it had always been in the family. The car originally was my great grandmother's, but she had wanted a smaller and newer car (a Ford Taurus was her choice), and my family needed something to replace our dying Pontiac Ventura.

When we got the car, I was not yet of driving age, but I had already begun to love cars. The first week we got it, my dad and I took it to my grandfather's automotive shop and proceeded to give it a tune-up, some top-end work (head work, rings, pistons etc.), removal of all things limiting horsepower, and then added air shocks to the rear-end. It also got new brakes and a free-flowing exhaust. It went from Granny's grocery-getter to a pretty wicked towing machine in just one short weekend. We figured that 350 V-8 put out roughly 275 horsepower when we were all done with it. Not a ton of power, but a huge upgrade over the estimated 145 horsepower it sported when stock, and enough to get the barge really moving when you wanted it to.

When we got the Impala, it didn't have a ton of miles on it, something like 45K, in spite of it being 13 years old at that point. It had always lived in a garage and had always been well-maintained. And it was an awesome color--burnt orange. You couldn't miss this thing going down the road; it was huge and orange. And it didn't have a ding, dent, or rust spot on it. By the time I got it in 1991, there were a few surface rust spots; and when we got rid of it in 1995 we were thankful the car was burnt orange so it was less obvious that the rust spots outnumbered the paint spots.

And when I say this car was huge, I'm not kidding. I used to tell my friends it was as large as a Suburban. They didn't believe me. So I parked next to one one day, and we got out and measured.  My car was a mere 1/2 inch shorter. And as Rob wrote in the Mercury article, when people saw it coming, they got out of the way.

1969-1973 Dodge Polara

Updated--new text under videos. This week, which began as innocently as any other, has turned decidedly bizarre--Car Lust has been overrun with a series of paeans to strange, floaty, oversized, underpowered 1970s American cars. In the context of Cookie the Dog's Owner's father's* Ford LTD and Rob the SVX Guy's Mercury Grand Marquis, Rich Menga's "Free Spirit" Buick Century looks downright Lilliputian. In what other context would that be true? Brace yourselves--I can promise that Friday's subject won't be any smaller or more demure.

I think this week's inadvertent theme is wildly compelling, which shouldn't come as any surprise considering my embarrassing predilection for such 1970s anti-heroes as the Impala, Gran Fury, Monaco, and Continental Mk. V. Since I'd like to keep this compelling string of leviathan lusts rolling, I'm going to take this opportunity to honor one of the greatest full-size American cars ever made--the 1969-1973 Dodge Polara. This isn't the Polara's first appearance in Car Lust--you may remember that an immaculate 1972 Polara 440 Interceptor was a narrow runner-up in our $25,000 Challenge.

Buick "Free Spirit" Indy 500 Pace Car Replicas

Submitted by Rich Menga

Many moons ago I asked my father what car he missed the most out of all he’s ever owned. While not particularly a car guy, he did own some pretty decent rides of the day (including a late 1960s Pontiac Firebird, an early 1970s Dodge Challenger, and an early 1970s Oldsmobile Cutlass S to name a few). He thought about the question for a moment, then looked at me and said …

“The pace car.“

I was 15 years old at the time I heard that answer.

I replied, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The Pace Car was a 1975 Buick “Free Spirit” Century Custom Series Indianapolis 500 Pace Car replica. Pop and I never referred to it as The Buick or The Century. It was always The Pace Car.

I thought to myself, “Okay, how hard could it be to find this car?” Let’s just say it took me seventeen years to find one. More on that later.

Our Cars--1978 Mercury Marquis Brougham Sedan

Cookie's post on the LTD inspired me to write about my own experiences with a similar beast:  A 1978 Mercury Marquis Brougham Sedan, pictured below. 

 I originally purchased it for $300 when gas was $0.98 cents per gallon, purely because it had working air conditioning. That summer was extremely hot and humid, and my other cars (a 1968 Charger and a 1997 Neon) lacked that feature. I had the room for it, so why not? Over the course of owning it for a year and a half, I learned a lot about how people give you a lot of respect when you are driving a gigantic, rusty battletank with dings, rust, and missing hubcaps. Merging onto the freeway was like the parting of the red seas; everyone saw me coming and seemed to think, "Oh crap, this guy doesn't care at all! Get out of the way!" Then again, perhaps it was my sticker. My Uncle works for Raytheon, a missile defense company, and he'd given me a sticker that adorned my rear bumper. It read, "Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle: Discriminate and Destroy."   

Our Cars--1976 Ford LTD

I called Dad's '76 LTD "The Battleship," and that was not a term of endearment. It was the size of a capital ship, and painted an appropriate shade of gray. Put a couple of aftermarket gun turrets on the hood and a mast on the roof--there was already space enough for the helicopter landing pad on the decklid--and you'd have a fair representation of USS New Jersey as she appeared during the Vietnam war.

The Battleship had a vinyl landau roof treatment and opera windows. Its interior was festooned with imitation wood and plastichrome. Its engine was an emissions-strangled V-8 mated to a three-speed Slush-O-Matic, which produced a 0-60 time geologists could relate to. It had no-lateral-support bench seats, soft springs, overboosted power brakes, and steering that employed Ford's most advanced sensory deprivation technology.

In other words, it was exactly the kind of car I hate.

This is, however, a "Car Lust," not a "Car Disgust." The reason why is because of what that ugly, overweight, underpowered, hulking monstrosity of a car did for Dad and me on one extraordinary January day 31 years ago.

Porsche 959

When I went through my adolescence in the 1980s, bedroom poster coverage was a pretty reliable barometer of popularity. As you'd expect, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey Jr., and Magic Johnson dominated the sports poster world, Top Gun ruled on the movie front, and Cindy Crawford was an ubiquitous choice in the few cases in which my friends were able to put up posters of that kind. None of this should be surprising; both these topics and subjects dominated the teenage male mindset at the time.

More than anything, though, I remember lots and lots of car posters. Perhaps my car lust is causing a memory bias, but I remember my friends having a ton of car posters in the 1980s There were Panteras, Vectors, and Corvettes, of course; but the clear stars were the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Testarossa. Low-slung, exotic, dangerous, and emotionally Italian, the Countach and Testarossa had all the ingredients for teenage-boy-poster hegemony.

Behind those two Italian powerhouses, the Porsche 959 was a close third. The Porsche line was certainly potent, and my peers respected and even lusted after Porsches; but generally speaking Porsches were too serious, too common to be grace many posters. Only the potent and exotic 959 had the charisma necessary to be a serious player in the poster wars.

How NOT to promote alternative fuels technology

Representative Eric Massa, a newly-elected member of Congress, decided to drive the General Motors Chevy Equinox prototype hybrid fuel cell car from New York to Washington for the inaugural to promote alternative fuels and green energy and all of that good stuff. According to this news article, there was only one small problem with the scheme....

Fiat and Chrysler?

In the latest and perhaps most dramatic news yet to emerge in Domestic Auto Industry Crisis Watch 2009, the WallStreet Journal is reporting a potential Fiat/Chrysler partnership. According to this report, Fiat is considering taking a 35-percent share of Chrysler, with the option of increasing that up to 55 percent--the immediate goal would be to use Fiat technology to help Chrysler build competitive small cars, while retooling a Chrysler plant to build Fiats to be sold on the domestic market.

Personally, I'm extremely excited by the news. The idea of Chrysler and Fiat sharing their best practices on durability and build quality tickles my funny bone; the worst-of-both-worlds potential comes second only to the AMC/Renault partnership a few decades ago.

Snark aside, I'd love to have Fiats available in the United States again. Nobody knows how to make fun, frenetic cheap cars like Fiat, and so the prospect of even a small Fiat return to the U.S. market is pretty attractive. Fiat-owned Alfa Romeo has been rumored for a U.S. comeback for some time; it would be fantastic if Fiats and Alfas were available through the Chrysler dealer network.

My favorite part of this proposed marriage is the idea that Chrysler and Maserati (owned by Fiat) would once again be linked. Could we perhaps see a 25th Anniversary version of the late, unlamented Chrysler-Maserati TC? My co-worker and blog commenter "isitacrossfromchris" (who, ironically, no longer sits across from me) thinks a Chrysler Sebring with portholes might do the trick. I couldn't agree more. 

--Chris H.

Ferrari 365 GTC4 2+2

This magnificent machine once belonged to a very dear late friend of mine, Mr. George Arents, III. Though somewhat obscure, the Arents family has a remarkable American history. From Dutch descent, they came over to The New World on the second voyage of the Mayflower. The family owned the Richmond Hotel; the lobby was copied for the final scene in "Gone With The Wind". 

George's dad accumulated great wealth, even starting American Machine and Foundry (AMF) just for fun. He invented cigarette and bread wrapping machines among other things. A rose is named after Mrs. Arents; George III came along in 1913. Their home in Westchester County, New York, "Hillbrook," shown here, had 52 acres of mowed lawn. They eventually gave it to the Catholic Church, as nobody could afford to buy, maintain, and pay the taxes on it. My understanding is that the house was disassembled in recent years; we found the front door assembly in Chicago a year ago. They wanted $135,000.00. For the door.

George III, hereafter called George, was an accomplished sailplane and airplane pilot, and served in World War II. While flying over Europe, he had the chance to actually look down on a UFO. In George's typical understated manner, he looked at the co-pilot and said, "Well, they're here". He also loved to race cars, eventually winding up with the Ferrari team. His cars were blue with white striping, and George crashed in Pescara, Italy, spending months in hospitals and losing two inches of height. They named that curve after him. Later, George, Enzo Ferrari, and Luigi Chinetti would become business partners, bringing Ferrari street cars to America for sale. Chinetti Motors, in Greenwich, Connecticut, was just a few miles from Hillbrook. George also knew another racer around that time named Zora, who was working on a production fiberglass two-seater. Seems George made a suggestion to modify the car's rear suspension that Zora took to heart.

Cars on Film--Le Mans

It's considered by many to be the greatest film about motorsports ever made--Le Mans, directed by Lee H. Katzin and starring Steve McQueen, released in 1971:

When you’re racing, it... it’s life. Anything that happens before or after... is just waiting.