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.
Jed on July 08, 2009 at 09:56 AM
I nominate the Avanti as the ultimate "Star Trek" car. Not only was an Avanti II owned by DeForest Kelly, the car has many similarities with the Star Trek series. Both were conceived in the 60's, had a futuristic premise and had a short life when new (2 years for the Avanti, 3 years for Star Trek). The originals had complex bridges with many blinking lights and lots of buttons and levers. Both were revived with almost no changes (Avanti II and Star Trek the motion picture). Both were kept around so long that they no longer seemed futuristic (1980's era Avanti II and 1980's era Star Trek movies). Both were redefined unsuccessfully in the 90's (AVX and Star Trek Enterprise).
This leaves the question: Where's the 2010 Avanti? We're waiting...
Jed on July 08, 2009 at 09:59 AM
I forgot to add that both the Avanti and Star Trek were pitted against much more mundane competitors, the Ford Mustang and Star Wars, which ground them into dust and have never lost popularity over the years.
Yeah, I am a trekkie and an Avanti lover.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on July 08, 2009 at 10:18 AM
A 2010 Avanti? I would so be in line to buy one!
Steaming Pile on July 08, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Then there would be the automotive equivalent of the Starship Enterprise. While this would change over time, what 60s car would be most like piloting the Enterprise? A Klingon battle cruiser? I nominate the Hummer H1 to the the Borg Cube of vehicles.
...m... on July 08, 2009 at 11:26 AM
...minivans, shuttlecraft minivans!..grand voyager, lumina, previa - full-out TNG-inspired runabout goodness!..
John B on July 08, 2009 at 07:45 PM
I have an Avanti and I see it as an early 60s car...one I where I want to wear Botany 500 suits with narrow ties and look like the characters in Mad Men. It's from the JFK-era where people believed the optimism of the "New Frontier" and we really were going to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
By then Cadillacs were still too "50s", and the four-door Lincoln Continentals were probably too expensive for the executive on the way up the corporate ladder (without really trying...to borrow a title from a period Broadway satire on the business world).
Mid-year (63-67) Corvettes, and E-Type Jags, were just a bit impractical for a family man. The Studebaker looked like nothing else.
It's not hard to imagine young, successful, showbiz types of the day in an Avanti?. It's easy to imagine TV writer Rob Petrie and his sexy wife Laura driving one to the famed El Moroco in New York on a Friday night. In fact, Dick Van Dyke had a white Avanti which is now in the Peterson Museum collection.
It's also no surprise that Rod Serling...the premier TV story teller of the time, owned an Avanti.
The Avanti's interior was designed to mimic a jet...the heater levers on early cars look like a throttle quadrant, rocker switches overhead looked like something you'd find on a 707 and the red aircraft style instrument lighting finished the look. Its wheel openings were a gentle asymmetric curve, designer Raymond Lowey said were pattered after spacecraft orbits.
It was a jet-age car in time for the jet age.
On the other hand, I see Star Trek as (early) late 60s in tone and style.
It was at the dawn the time of shag carpeting, weird clothes, lava lamps and eight track era... just before the mod/hippie/generation-gap time of the Nixon administration.
Ronaldo HK on July 09, 2009 at 01:31 AM
Star Trek cars?? I dont belive it yet....what is the fuel for that car?
Robert on July 09, 2009 at 10:49 PM
For Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, the car would have to be the Plymouth Reliant. Khan fought Kirk and the USS Enterprise using a captured starship named the USS Reliant, at the same time that Ricardo Montalban was Chrysler's #1 pitchman. The screenwriters must have been joking around when they chose the name. I suppose that USS Cordoba would have been too blatant a cross-reference.
Open Road Rambler on July 10, 2009 at 03:48 AM
The Avanti would be the ultimate Star Trek car. Unfortunately by the time Star Trek V came out, Mr. Spock was pimping Oldsmobiles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbShNQLYfo
Rob on July 10, 2009 at 05:24 PM
In an old episode of Star Trek, when Kirk and Spock travel back in time to visit earth, they're driving a '68 plymouth satellite.