Car Lust

July 30 Weekly Thread--Fantastically Pointless

I'm sure at least some of you have seen the 1985 Saab 900 Turbo limousine that has been making the rounds of the automotive blogosphere over the last few weeks, most prominently on Autoblog and Bring a Trailer. As a dyed-in-the-wool first-gen Saab 900 Turbo fanatic, this car leaves me sputtering and speechless, my mental wheels spinning helplessly while I try to sort out how I feel about it. Is it a heretical creation, a profane insult to the proud Saab 900 family that needs to be burned as an offering to the concept of Saabish purity? Or is it a cryptically compelling oddity that serves no discernable purpose but must be protected and treasured--like the automotive equivalent of a unicorn that recites baseball statistics in fluent Spanish?

Carspotters' Challenge #23--Swedish Edsel?

Let's journey back to Sweden this week to sample Scandanavian cars of the Sixties like this...'58 Edsel?????

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from Ultra Swank; hat tip to Car Lust reader and commenter "toronado.")

Our Cars--Mom's 1996 Buick Century

Submitted by Car Lust reader and commenter Al Sapp

*Author's note: In order to fully understand this post, it's worth noting that, at the time of writing, I’m 14.

When we think about the 1982-1996 Buick Century, not that we do often, we often think of the driver's age being somewhere between 76 and dead. And you'd be right. My mother bought this prosthetic limb beige Light Sand Rift Metallic '96 Century from a 94 year old family friend back in 2007. She was looking to replace her trusty but unneeded 1997 Dodge Caravan SWB. My brother and I had aged to the point where a minivan just wasn't necessary.

When she came into possession of the Buick, it had something like 38k on the odometer. Without sounding cliché, it was only ever driven to church on Sundays.

1972 Pontiac GTO Wagon

My brother contributor Big Chris went to his local county fair and came upon what appears to be one of the rarest muscle cars in the civilized world: a 1972 Pontiac GTO station wagon.

Your wife is hot! - 7/23/12 Open Thread

This is your Monday thread - the collecting bin for all your thoughts that might not fit elsewhere.

This photo comes from a friend of mine who has a car audio business:

 

Appropriate for this summer I think.  Stay cool, pull up a chair, and join us for some conversation.

--Big Chris

Carspotters' Challenge #22--X(-Body) Marks the Spot

The peril of being an early adopter is...

...that they might not've gotten all the bugs worked out yet. I'm not sure who I feel sorrier for: the person who bought the Citation, or the one with the Aspen/Volare.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum's collection of vintage street scenes, to which it was contributed by member "yellerspirit.")

"Styling and the Experimental Car" (1964)

Submited for your consideration, a Ford promotional film from 1964, Styling and the Experimental Car.

The Aurora concept wagon, which was our subject on Tuesday, is featured in great detail from 9:39 to 12:00.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

In the Garage of the Mountain King

YouTube user "nothinghereok," who lives in the UK, made a visual record of his rebuild of a Triumph four-cylinder engine. The music is "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

Ford Aurora

Station wagons are a bit out of fashion these days, their role as middle-class family truckster now largely filled by minivans and minivans with plausible deniability SUVs and crossovers. Even so, they are still in production in the twenty-first century. Maybe it's just my age showing, but I always thought that twenty-first century station wagons would look like, y'know, something from the twenty-first century. There's nothing wrong with the styling of a Subaru Outback or a VW Jetta SportWagen or an Acura TSX, but none of them look truly "space age."

If you want a big old traditional family station wagon with that twenty-minutes-into-the-future vibe, you have to go back in time to 1964.

July 16 Weekly Open Thread: It's Just Too Hot To Handle

Have you walked out to the car lately and found it looking something like this? Well, you're not alone. Most of the Nation has had an epic heat wave lately; here in Nashville, we set an all-time (not daily) record of 109° on Friday, June 29th.

The outside of our cars is taking a beating in this heat; of course, it's even hotter inside the car. And after a long day at work, getting into our mobile ovens can be unpleasant, at best.

One thing I do to help relieve this scorching misery is to lay a large white beach towel over the entire dash, and especially the steering wheel. Not only does this help shield the dash plastics from this inferno, but you can actually touch the wheel without getting burns on your fingers. Then you can get moving and have the A/C working that much faster.

Other than parking in the shade if possible and cracking the windows a bit, I'm out of ideas on how to cool a parked car. Oh, and if you live below the Mason-Dixon Line, you might want to get a white car next time. I hear they stay about 10 degrees cooler than a black one.

Does anybody else have some heat-avoidance tips? This being Monday it's a place to share them, as well as anything else even the least bit car-related.

--That Car Guy (Chuck)

Image Credit: Cache.Boston.com.