Car Lust

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Who are your favorite online automobile writers? Besides us, I mean. Here are some of mine:

Clark Novak calls himself "The Studeblogger", and his website chronicles his restoration of a 1963 Studebaker Lark Standard sedan (pictured at right) affectionately named "Barney." Mr. Novak has written a very detailed narrative of the work he's been doing. He's been at it since September of 2006, and while Barney still has a ways to go, it's a journey well worth following along with. His blog postings explain the down 'n dirty intricacies of such tasks as rebuilding a Delco distributor, installing a new wiring harness, and refurbishing the "Climatizer" heater system. They're excellent tutorials for working on any car from the pre-microprocessor era.

Aaron Severson's "Ate Up With Motor" is a treasure trove of detailed, meticulously-researched, encyclopedia-quality essays on all manner of cars from Mercedes to Mercury, Vega to Valiant, and Plymouth to Packard. He also has a small library of posts on technical issues, such as what the correct definition of a "coupe" is and how horsepower ratings are figured. New articles appear weekly, and it's well worth reading the whole archive.

I'll finish with a couple of my favorite writers at the invaluable The Truth About Cars. Paul Neidermeyer's "Curbside Classics" are a series of essays about interesting cars found parked on the street in the author's hometown of Eugene, Oregon. He writes about the same sort of well-worn and well-loved cars we tend to gravitate toward here at Car Lust.

Fellow TTAC writer Sajheev Mehta's "Piston Slap" column answers reader questions about repair and maintenance issues with style and wit. To give you an idea of what Piston Slap is like, one recent article diagnosing problems with an OEM Toyota stereo system was entitled "Is There a Mouse in my Boombox?"

If you have some favorites of your own that I haven't mentioned here, please share them in the comments box.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

Oct. 26 Weekly Open Thread

As always, use the comments for random conversation.

I've been thinking "Ask Car Lust" might be an interesting feature--just send in your questions to our e-mail address in the right column and we will do our best to give you some good answers. Everything from opinions on cars, buying advice, questions about the blog, why we ban conversation about politics/religion--ask whatever you'd like!

--Chris H.

Lexus Unveils $375K LFA Supercar

As usual, Autoblog is all over the Lexus LFA announcement, with the official press release, some analysis, photos, and video--all confirming that we now live in a world in which Lexus sells a $375K supercar. These photos and more can be found in the Autoblog image gallery.

The exhaust note certainly sounds great, and the performance specifications (552 horsepower, 3.7-second 0-60 time, 202-mph top speed) are nice, but I still don't really understand this car.

Lexus says the LFA will cost $375K. It's easy to gloss over big numbers when reading them in print, so I'm going to do the pretentious author thing and spell it out--three-hundred-and-seventy-five-thousand dollars. That is a lot of money--more than many Americans can afford to spend on a house, even with the payments spread out over 30 years. That amount of money is what you'd pay for an ultra-mega-supercar from Ferrari or Lamborghini, which both have the cachet, styling, and image to attract customers in this price stratum. More specifically, it's roughly four times as expensive as a Nissan GT-R, which is an astounding performer in its own right.

Our Cars--1978 Ford Fairmont

My first car, and the one I occasionally lust for, was a 1978 Ford Fairmont two-door. I had never driven a stick before, which led to some interesting stops and starts at the stoplight when I tried to pull away in third gear. It had a three-speed, but my friends would always kid me and ask ",you sure it isn't a four speed? Does it start to whine when you get to about sixty?" Ha ha ha, mmmble grmmble...

It had a plethora of electrical problems, and we had to replace pretty much everything that would spark or hold a charge under the hood, but eventually it was reliable enough to drive away to college and on road trips under 300 miles. Towards the end I had to drive around with a small can of gas in the trunk--when it sat for too long and I went to crank it, if it didn't catch right away I'd have to pour some gas down the carb. When I did that, she'd fire right up. A friend saw me do this after a wedding and commented to another friend of ours that he was impressed I knew exactly what to do to get it running. I was pretty flattered, because this was coming from a guy who fixed a broken throttle linkage in an MG with a shoelace. But that's par for the course owning an older car.

Eventually it ended up behind my uncle's barn, and one spring when we went over for Easter dinner it was gone. I wish I would have taken off the steering wheel or something for a souvenir.

--Matt

(Matt didn't have a picture of his original Fairmont coupe, so I'm including this Ford Fairmont Futura advertisement from Vintage-Original-Ads.com.)

Oct. 19 Weekly Open Thread

As usual, this is the thread for general discussion that doesn't fit anywhere else.

-- Chris H.

Triumph Spitfire and GT6

This is the car I wanted 30+ years ago, so much that I still have this brochure I got from the dealer when it was new. I was 19, full of vinegar, and needed an "image" car. The Mustang II I had was fun, but I wanted something more sophistimacated and sexy. Still crazy after all these years, I finally got a 2001 Miata a while back, the closest thing to a Spitfire I could find that might run a while before needing any major service or ruining my bank account. Somehow, both of my dream roadsters turned out to be British Racing Green with tan interiors and real wood steering wheels. Brooklands Green is shown in the 1977 brochure here.

Why a Spitfire? What made it different from, say, an MGB, Triumph TR6, MG Midget, or a Fiat X-19? Well, for me, three things: 1) It had a full independent suspension, the only Brit car of this class to do so. Also, a perfect 50/50 front/rear weight ratio for great balance. 2) The bonnet and wings rose together, giving full access for engine, chassis, and electrical service, which was usually a bit too often. 3) The car also had real wood on the dash, quite unique in a car like this. I live in a rural area with small, twisty roads, and a muscle car would be as out of place here as a stretched Escalade limousine in downtown Tokyo.

What's in a name?

What do King Tut:

A killer whale:

and Richard Hammond:
 

of BBC's "Top Gear" all have in common?

It is, in fact, something of a circuitous route to get to the common thread running through all of these personalities and also through Car Lust, but it is there and I think worth examining. At this point, suffice it to say that, generally, we've all done it at one time or another; parents, generally, hate it when their kids do it; and I, not having ever, specifically, done it, think it's rather dumb.

"It" is, generally, naming things, and, specifically, naming cars.

Oct. 12 Weekly Open Thread

As always, this is the thread for discussion that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Both MSNBC and Car and Driver recently took some easy shots at bad cars; MSNBC ran the obligatory "rolling atrocities" piece that includes such shocking inclusions as the AMC Pacer, AMC Gremlin, Edsel, and Pontiac Aztek. Gosh, really? Then Car and Driver ran a snarky piece in its print edition on a recent AMC show in which it made fun of the owners of some gorgeous AMCs in an astonishingly snide way.

When will these worst-car lists start to include dull cars instead of the interesting ones?

--Chris H.

Suicide Doors

I'm not sure why, but I love suicide doors. Maybe because I remember the 1960s when they were available only on a few cars and were so expensive! If memory serves, during that time, the only American cars with suicide doors were the Lincoln Continental and Ford Thunderbird.

The name pertains to any door that is front-latched, whether it opens to the front or the back seats. Other names include "Rear-Hinged" and "Freestyle Doors". The current $412,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe is a two-door, hinged at the back; Rolls-Royce calls these "Coach Doors". One touch of a button closes them, as there is no way that one could reach out and grab these behemoths, and also since Jeeves or Bitterman may not be around all the time to handle these affairs.

Suicide doors did not get their name because, if you opened the door and fell out, they would probably drag you to your death. There are, however, some safety concerns--when a car with suicide doors is at speed, low pressure on the sides of the vehicle causes rear-hinged doors to open easier than front-hinged ones. Pressure helps keep front-hinged doors closed, but it tries to force rear-hinged doors open.

Oct. 5 Weekly Open Thread

As always, this is the place for conversation that doesn't really fit anywhere else.

You know those exotic sports car clubs, in which club members rotate through Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and the like? Membership in one of those clubs would be pretty fantastic--but how great would a Car Lust car club be? One week you'd get to sample a 1983 AMC Eagle, the next a 1989 Subaru Justy, the next a Porsche 924, the next a 1974 Chevrolet Laguna, the next an International Scout, the next a 1988 BMW 635CSi ... I'd join that club in a heartbeat. Given the worth of the cars involved, membership would probably be incredibly cheap, too.

--Chris H.