Car Lust

Everyday Iron--Dodge Power Wagon

Forget wimpy truck-ettes like the Ford F-150 or Dodge Ram. You want a truck? This thing is a truck.

 

July 13 Weekly Open Thread

As always, this is the thread for open reader discussion of any relevant topic. Don't feel limited by the suggested topics!

Suggested topics:

- As many of us hoped, the Pontiac G8 will live on as a Chevrolet Caprice. It seems a slightly weird fit as a Caprice instead of an Impala SS, but the important thing is that one of the best GM cars around will still be available.

From that same article, another piece of good news--the lustable Cadillac CTS wagon may be available in hot-rod -V trim. Whoo hoo! There is some bad news, though; the burly Camaro Z/28 might be toast. Even there, though, there's some good news, as the surviving regular V-6 Camaro might actually be the better car.

--Chris H.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture--Plymouth Voyager

On the rare and unfortunate occasion that one thinks of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, one usually tends to think of the slow, ponderous pace of the film, the drawn out periods showing nothing but blue clouds, the soundtrack periodically intruding with the mechanical whine of a power drill. Of course, all of this was meant to frame the riveting conflict between V'Ger the Nomadic Space Probe and the intrepid disco-tastic spandex-clad crew of the USS Enterprise.

But what was V'Ger? Of course, we had to sit through hour after interminable hour of slow-motion special effects and stilted dialog, revealing at the end of the movie that it was some hokey 20th century space probe called "Voyager 6," followed by a highly uncomfortable make-out scene involving a bald woman and a guy who would eventually play a reverend on TV--precisely the sort of predictable plot development you would expect out of a movie like this. But happily there's one quote that sums the whole thing up:

V'Ger is that which seeks the creator.

In all seriousness, though, what could be more ponderous and produce more blue smoke than Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Well, in the spirit of the original movie, let's take an extended, unnecessary, and highly unwelcome diversion, shall we?

If Car Lust wrote Star Trek scripts ...

As David Colborne noted this morning, we're going to be geeking out in the next week and featuring a string of cars with highly pun-ny Star Trek associations. As odd as this theme is, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. After all, our baked-in Trekkie leanings were on full display in the Ricardo Montalban and Chrysler Cordoba posts; one of my favorite pieces of content ever featured on Car Lust is the USS Cordoba video from the latter piece. Besides, Car Lust tends to manifest itself as vehicle lust--is there any vehicle more sublimely lustable than the original USS Enterprise?

We had a lot of fun tying these cars to Star Trek movies, and so in the process of unveiling our subjects for the next week I'd like to share our thought process on Star Trek movies, Car Lust-style.

Now, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that the cross-section of humanity that both reads Car Lust and appreciates Star Trek puns consists of roughly 11 people. For the rest of our readership, the sane folks, I'd recommend skipping the rest of this post and its baked-in geekness.

This bizarre but compelling Star Trek-themed Enterprise Rent-a-Car image comes from Upgrade Travel Better.com. Oh, and just for the heck of it, here's the USS Cordoba video again.

Star Trek Cars--An Introduction

As some of you have undoubtedly noticed by now, we are a little theme-happy here at Car Lust. The reason, of course, is quite simple: Laziness. See, the trouble with writing about random cars all of the time is that you eventually run out of cars to write about. By introducing themes, it helps us focus our energies on cars that we may have otherwise missed, cars that ordinarily wouldn't warrant a Car Lust of their own. Thus, you end up with themes like Inappropriately Named Chrysler Products, our slow and ponderous funeral dirge through Pontiac, Epic Fail Epoch, Saratoga-Class Week, Crackerjack Box Week, and so on. Without these themes, we'd almost never have an excuse to dig into the merits of GM's T-Series, which, frankly, would be inexcusable.

This brings us to our latest theme. Inspired by the ongoing success of the newest Star Trek movie, we here have decided to engage full speed ahead into Star Trek cars. Now, were other blogs to engage in a Star Trek-themed cavalcade through automotive history, they might be inclined to write about fast, futuristic cars, ones that make you wish you had inertial dampeners or some sort of electromagnetic shield in front of them to keep out stray micrometeorites. We, however, are not other blogs. No, when we write about Star Trek cars, we use the opportunity to engage in a pun-ishing exercise in automotive pun-ditry. Such is our way.

With that in mind, we shall choose a car that we feel best reflects each Star Trek movie and pun-p you full of automotive wisdom and wit. Why? Simple--logic. The needs of the punny outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

You're the one.

July 4 Weekend Open Thread

I'm out on vacation until Tuesday morning, so here's the open thread for the holiday weekend. The usual rules apply.

Possible topic for July 4:

What car would George Washington drive? Thomas Jefferson? John Adams? Benedict Arnold?

--Chris H.