Car Lust

The First Annual Car Lust Drive-In Meetup and May 6 Weekly Open Thread

We here at Car Lust are a far-flung bunch, typing in our missives from various points in the continental US (and elsewhere), but despite our common devotion to all these Lustable vehicles, most of us have never actually met in person.

And this event probably won't change that.

But I thought I'd toss this out there and see if there's any interest from the hordes of Car Lust aficionados out there who might be in the mood for a road trip of whatever length in order to indulge in our little habit and meet some of the other folks who frequent this blog. Thus, I give you the Greenwood Car Show, coming to a neighborhood near, well, me, this June 29. Yes, it's here in Seattle, far up in the northwest corner of the country, so I don't hold much hope that many of you will drop what you're doing in late June and drive up to our rainy little corner just to see a bunch of cars and meet a couple of the Car Lust staff. But who knows, maybe some of the more local people might take a day out for a little Car Lust interaction.

Feel free to drive your Lustable car and present it; the GCS isn't a terribly formal event and we plan to be showing a couple of our rides, none of them particularly valuable. But if we get at least 10 people to show up we can all park together. So, if you have a mind to come up for a little meet and greet, email the Car Lust staff (contact info off to the right there===>) and perhaps we can arrange out own Car Lust grouping.

And, of course, feel free to discuss anything else auto-related.

Credit: Got the photo from the West Seattle Blog.

April 1 Weekly Open Thread: Don't Open That Door!

We've all seen it played over and over in hundreds of movies and TV shows: The hero or heroine is trying to escape from the bad guy, monster, zombie, alien, TV critic, etc. They rush to a car -- either theirs or any random car sitting nearby which miraculously almost always has the key left in the ignition -- and start it up. . . .only to find it won't start! After thumping the steering wheel and looking at the approaching fiend a couple of times, the car miraculously starts just as the bad guy reaches it! Saved! (loud clip, btw)

I'm not entirely certain when this particular cliché got started. Some have argued that it all began with Double Indemnity when the director, after his personal car didn't start on the set, decided that a little more drama was required and had the actors pretend to have difficulty starting the car a couple of times before really turning it over for real and speeding away. This made sense to me growing up because, let's face it, anyone over the age of 30 or so remembers when cars quite often did have trouble starting. This scenario has gradually changed as cars have become far more reliable and the idea of, say, a Honda not starting up is kind of unthinkable.

Car Lust Easter Classic: What Did Jesus Drive (WDJD)?

On this Easter weekend we resurrect (pun entirely intended) a Car Lust Classic that poses a question nobody really asked: Just what did Jesus drive?

A somewhat farcical question to be sure, but one that we here at Car Lust are more than willing to throw ourselves into with gusto. This post has as its ultimate source a small movement some years ago by environmentally-directed religious groups to get people out of their gas-guzzling SUVs and into smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles (no obvious relation other than in name to the band). While the merits of this quest of theirs is beyond the scope of this post, it nevertheless spurred me to ponder the question: Just what did Jesus drive?

Admittedly, a small treatise on the wheeled vehicles present in the early 1st century AD Levant isn't all that relevant to modern drivers. OTOH, it's still (IMO) a useful exercise that may shed some light on our common wheeled heritage going back a bit further than the initial stabs at automobiles early in the preceding century. Besides, a little foray into ancient history never hurt anybody and it might add another small  dimension of humanity to the divine that many of us are celebrating this coming weekend.

So, come with me as we journey back 2,000 years to see what sort of wheels our Car Lusting forebears were perhaps drooling over and come at least a little closer to answering the age-old question of: What Did Jesus Drive?

(Obviously, If Jesus did come back today, He would certainly drive a 15-passenger Econoline van: room for the 12 Apostles, plus the two Marys, of course!)

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Car Lust Classic--A Minivan Is Better Than What You're Driving

by David Drucker, posted August 22, 2008

I don't care what your current ride--or even pie-in-the-sky dream ride--might be. A minivan is better. "But wait!" (I can hear you say)... "A minivan will make me look, well, like a minivan-driving loser." Get over yourself. If your self-image is based on what you drive, just put a Ferrari Owners Club license plate frame on the minivan. Awestruck onlookers will assume that your Ferrari is in the shop, which it probably would be anyway....

Click here to read the rest of the original post.

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I didn't know David Drucker particularly well, having only 'worked together' tangentially here at Car Lust. Being as we're such a far-flung and almost entirely virtual set of co-workers, I haven't really gotten to know any of the other contributors very well -- I've only met Hafner once and we live in the same city! -- but we've generally worked together harmoniously and with little conflict. All this despite having some deep divisions on certain subjects, from the role of the SUV to (probably) politics and, perhaps far worse and more contentious, basketball. I think this is probably because this is an all-volunteer outfit and we're just in it for the love of writing about (mostly) dorky cars. Still, it saddens me to see one of our own shuffle off this mortal coil and into the Great Unknown. At my age (ca. 50) I'm still young enough to be surprised when people I know pass away, but old enough to be starting to get used to it. As a great philosopher once said "We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."

Like many others here, I enjoyed David's devotion to big American cars, even though some of them had barely crossed my radar over the years and the idea of someone actually writing fondly about them was beyond my ken. I mean, a 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis? Well, that's what we're all about here, and David pretty much exemplified the Car Lust philosophy in every one of his unfortunately small stable of posts.

The one that will always stick with me, however, is his famous homage to the minivan. "A Minivan is Better Than What You're Driving" -- the title alone is enough to demand a click-through just to see what this deranged lunatic is talking about! But, you know, it actually made some sense; even though I didn't agree with all of it, the whole post started to change my mind about minivans -- especially in comparison to SUVs -- and my own attitudes towards them (along with our Minivan Madness Week which, if memory serves, this may have been the impetus for). I've actually passed that link along to others who are thinking of bypassing a minivan purchase because they don't want to be one of those people who drive a minivan. And all this after Drucker went and celebrated the Lincoln Navigator! Truly the mark of a great mind: the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

So, yeah, even though I didn't know him very well personally, I'll miss David's unique insights into the world of Car Lust. Requiescat in Pace, sir: You enriched my life.

--Anthony Cagle

March 18th Weekly Open Thread: The Borg Edition

With this entry, we continue (sort of) our series of Star Trek Cars, although this one may actually be more deliberately Trekkian in origin than those others. For those unfamiliar with this whole "Borg" thing, I direct readers to the relevant Wikipedia page:

Borg is a collective proper noun for a fictional alien race that appears in various incarnations of the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones of the collective or the hive. A pseudo-race, dwelling in the Star Trek universe, the Borg force other species into their collective and connect them to "the hive mind"; the act is called assimilation and entails violence, abductions, and injections of cybernetic implants. The Borg's ultimate goal is "achieving perfection".

I actually find this to be a fascinating concept, something of a melding of different science fiction end-of-the-world scenarios. Instead of a purely biological (e.g., Invasion of the Body Snatchers) or machine (e.g., The Terminator, The Matrix) entity or collective taking over humanity, with the Borg we have a combination of the two. I should also point out, however, that this isn't an entirely new concept. Among probably others with which I am unfamiliar, the Dr. Who series also had a species of cyborg -- the Cybermen -- attempting to absorb other species into their collective, although the Borg took the concept to a higher level, being possessed of a 'hive mind" rather than justa large collection of autonomous beings with a common goal.

Admittedly, this is all just a nerdy prologue to the car of the week provided here. I have no idea what the story behind this car is; the photos were sent to me by a colleague from the University of North Dakota. I've not even determined what make/model/year it originally was. Apparently, this "Borg car" has often been seen parked near the engineering building, and she decided to snap a couple of photos. An engineering student's project car? A Trekkie's project car?

Or could it be. . . .

$100,000 Fantasy Garage Challenge: Anthony Cagle

You know, when this topic was first broached I thought the process would be about as exciting as painting the living room. But once I started I found it a lively little exercise in pushing the boundaries of getting as much as possible without going over budget. There's only two of us in the household so I was looking at a minimum of two vehicles; I've already got a true Car Lust car so I wasn't about to get a stable of Pacers, Hornets, and F-body Camaros and Firebirds. So I went mostly new and nice with one thrown in for fun. I did, in fact, consult the Spousal Unit on her preference(s), and after dissuading her from demanding a Tesla roadster, I think I've come up with a few decent choices.

Once Upon a Lust: The Cars of Storybrooke

We've done a few "famous cars" posts before -- James Garner's Firebird(s) on The Rockford Files, among others -- but how about some not-so-famous cars? You know the ones, the automotive equivalents of Star Trek's 'Redshirts', anonymous Security personnel who frequently end up dying horrible deaths so the main stars won't have to. Actually, a better analogy might be Hot Ad Girls, "unknown actresses or models. . .in various television commercials" who grace our TV screens, largely anonymously, offering up everything from cellular phone service to credit cards (a truly addictive, and largely SFW, site even if your hormones don't run in that particular direction). Oh sure, we all know about the Batmobile, or the Munsters Coach, both of which had near-starring roles of their own. But what about all of those background cars, only ever seen cruising in the background or in some anonymous taxi garb dropping a character off before driving away, or even the true automotive equivalent of the Redshirts: those that show up on-set only to be gloriously wrecked? Who would even notice such things?

Well, dweebs who write about mostly forgotten and anonymous cars, that's who. Well, and the fan-geeks who follow certain shows with near-religious fervor.

And in keeping with that tradition, I present to you a truly odd and interesting collection of cars from the ABC show Once Upon a Time. "Huh?" I hear you thinking, "What could a show about fairy tale characters possibly have to do with cars?" Well, not much really, but when one writes about odd collections of cars for an avocation one tends to notice such things. I'm not sure why I noticed these in particular, but the show seems to have a lot of different -- and usually older -- cars in the background, most of which are more or less typical Car Lust-type cars. Maybe the producers designed it that way for some internal storyline reason (which is what I suspect, so keep reading) or maybe I'm just imagining things. At any rate, I'd like to take some time to have a look at some of them and let you, gentle readers, decide for yourselves whether I'm blowing smoke or am really on to something.

I should note that I'm not the only one to notice this; I've done some minor searching and found it commented on tangentially in various show-related fora, but probably not to this extent.

February 4 Weekly Open Thread -- The Stick Shift: Better than a Club?

Submitted for your approval, we find the following Yahoo! News story that should be of some interest to auto-heads the world over: Would-be Carjackers foiled by stick shift:

An attempted stickup was confounded by a car’s stick shift, when would-be carjackers failed to understand the mechanics behind a manual transmission.

Randolph Bean tells WOFL FOX 35 that two men attempted to steal his 2002 yellow Corvette at gunpoint outside an Orlando hospital, but they ended up running away after they couldn’t figure out how to drive his car.

"They apparently couldn't start it,” Bean 51, is quoted as saying in a police report. “I had to tell him four different times to push in the clutch, because it's a standard transmission."

Apparently, not something you learn in driver's ed anymore. We've pondered this issue before and not come to any firm conclusion as to whether the death of the "standard" transmission has been greatly exaggerated or not, but perhaps this little incident may start a comeback for the good ol' stick shift. Now, to really throw off a potential thief, perhaps a 3-on-the-tree is in order. . . . .

As always feel free to discuss anything else car-related.

Also, video of the news story here which is also where the photo comes from.

--Anthony Cagle

1970-1981 F-Bodies: A Lust Story

You know, I spent a lot of time pondering what kind of "hook" I wanted to bring to this post. Do I liken my affection for these cars to teenage "first love"? An overarching ode to the otherwise generally derided 1970s automobile design? Nothing really seemed to fit, it all seemed either strained or maybe, well, a little skeevy.

So to heck with it: this is a pure vanity post. I'm going to post pictures of cars that I think are some of the most beautiful ever created. Yes, I actually typed that. Yeah, yeah, everyone likes to rip on 1970s cars as being over-styled and under-powered or whatever, and I can't help but agree with a lot of the criticisms. But I'd like you, gentle readers, to step back for a bit and have a good look at the second generation of GM's F-body pony cars, the Camaro and Firebird. I think their looks, and to a fair extent their performance, actually reflect positively on that much-maligned decade in automotive history.

Now, as I mentioned above, this all might be related to that whole "first love" business, since I was in my teen years when these were being produced. So, yeah, at least for me there's something of a nostalgic air about them. But ever since I've started reading and writing here at Car Lust I've actually grown more fond of them: for the era they represent and the features of their design that, in my opinion, makes them as fresh today as they were back in the era of bell bottoms and avocado appliances. I really think they hit on a nearly ideal set of proportions and lines that manage to capture that time but also transcend it (to get a little bit metaphysical). I know I won't convince everybody, but I hope that at least a few of you out there will start to look at these wonderful examples of true pony car designs with a little more respect.

To set the proper mood, it might help to have the theme from Love Story in the background as you read this. I mean, just look at that thing!

Dec. 17 Weekly Open Thread: Is GPS Taking the Fun out of Driving?

Submitted for your edification and approval, this article from The Smithsonian Magazine:

If we are, in fact, ditching the map for flashier gear, will we be better off? Maybe not. A study conducted in Tokyo found that pedestrians exploring a city with the help of a GPS device took longer to get places, made more errors, stopped more frequently and walked farther than those relying on paper maps. And in England, map sales dropped by 25 percent for at least one major printer between 2005 and 2011. Correlation doesn’t prove causation—but it’s interesting to note that the number of wilderness rescues increased by more than 50 percent over the same time period. This could be partly because paper maps offer those who use them a grasp of geography and an understanding of their environment that most electronic devices don’t.

We've all heard or read of people who slavishly follow their GPS while it leads them into deserts, mountains, and even lakes, sometimes with fatal consequences. This isn't to suggest that people never got lost before GPS technology, but I do wonder whether many are not relying too heavily on the devices and letting common sense lapse.

I've yet to break down and get one for the car, relying instead on a trusty DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer for most of my navigational needs 'round these parts. And, as I once opined, I'm quite comfortable heading down the road "with nothing but a star and an oil company map to steer by." That's not really a Luddite's lament; I'll happily use electronic maps when the need arises, but I don't travel often enough to unfamiliar areas to really need a specific device for navigation. OTOH, I will admit to being somewhat wary of the turn-by-turn GPS units, and e-maps in general: several times either one has been just plain wrong with the location of a road or it decided on routes so circuitous that I really wondered if it had any clue what it was doing. Mostly, I put this down to an over-exuberance on the part of designers to get maps out with something -- anything! -- on them, whereas the slower pace of paper-map making would, I think, tend to persuade mapmakers get something right before committing it to paper. Of course, it's also far easier to update an electronic map, so there's an advantage of the new devices right there.

Still, part of that article resonates with me: knowing the general area you are navigating through rather than just the narrow route your GPS takes you through, for example. I find it quite satisfying to get to where I'm going with a combination of maps, experience, and sometimes just with by-guess-and-by-gosh dumb luck. It also, I think, makes one less prone to panic when making a wrong turn here or there, though I suppose knowing/assuming your GPS will get you back on track probably also has that effect. But I also have sort of a longer-term fear that road designers might end up getting sloppy with their signage once they think everybody's GPSing it around.

So, what do you readers think? Do you use GPS to navigate? Often? Has it ever led you astray? And, as always, feel free to discuss anything else auto-related.

Credit: The Far Side image from this site which laments other GPS-related incidents.

December 10 Weekly Open Thread: The New/Old Lincoln

It's official: It is now known as The Lincoln Motor Company. Errrr, what's that? What was it called before? The Lincoln Division of the Ford Motor Company, as of 1940, according to Wikipedia. Well, there you go. 

This has caused a bit of consternation in some quarters, bordering on (dare I say?) sarcasm:

Legions of people with much more experience and wisdom have written about Lincoln’s pitfalls and how the brand can save itself from oblivion, so I’ll steer clear of those prognostications. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that this whole retro theme (which Lincoln has been playing up heavily at auto shows with displays of classic vehicles) is a non-starter.

I don't mind the change so much, but as the TTAC link makes clear, Lincoln needs to have better products or else this whole retro-naming scheme will go down in the dustbin of history as yet another Silly Gimmick designed to put a fancy shade of lipstick on a pig. We'll see, I guess. But who knows, if this works out, perhaps we'll see the return of The Chevrolet Motor Car Company, the Dodge Brothers Company, or perhaps even Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft!

What say you, gentle readers? Is this the first sign of the end of Lincoln, the start of a renaissance for the division, or a minor blip on the radar signifying nothing? As always feel free to discuss anything auto-related.

Great Cars of Egypt Revisited

Thanks to the wonders of the 3G cellular revolution, I am now able to surf the Interwebs from "the field"; the archaeological field, that is. As I type this, I am sitting in a dig house in the Fayum Depression of Egypt working on an archaeological project. The last time I was here in Egypt was 2003, well before Car Lust launched. And, as the world watched last year, Egypt threw off the shackles of the Mubarak administration, which had ruled Egypt for some 30 years and ushered in, for better or worse, a new and more democratic era of government. Sadly, we've also watched a number of demonstrations that have occasionally turned violent, but I suppose that might be expected in a country that has rarely known any sort of real democracy.

But hey, this isn't a post about politics, it's a post about cars. As regular readers may be aware, a couple of years ago I composed a post for this blog on the Great Cars of Egypt. Most Americans wouldn't be aware of the sorts of automobiles running around on the highways and biways of many developing-world countries, and I thought the introduction might be of some interest. Besides, having spent quite a bit of time here, I had a certain fondness for many of the models. Were they "great" cars? Well, as I noted then:

True, in some absolute sense they aren't what one would call spectacular. . . .And perhaps quality- and performance-wise, they aren't exactly world-class; though as we have seen, in their day, many of these were considered more than adequate and in some cases exceptional. . .Automobiles are very expensive purchases for most [Egyptians], and many rely on them for their very livelihood. Combined with the generally poor roads in a lot of areas, you really want a vehicle that is simple, has abundant (and therefore, inexpensive) spare parts, are relatively easy for the owner to fix, and can operate on a variety of roads. They're not glamorous or trendy, but by and large they get the job done, if not exactly in comfort or safety.

November 19 Weekly Open Thread: The Forlorn Expat Chevy

I snapped the accompanying photo on one of the back streets of Cairo recently and seeing a fine old American sedan rather piteously sitting in the street like that made me a little sad. American cars aren't all that prevalent here in Egypt, primarily because they've traditionally been far too large for the generally tight and crowded streets and roads here. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the bulk of the cars here -- until recently -- were something like captive imports: older European and Russian models produced locally along with some higher-end imports for the well-heeled, which tend to be Mercedes-Benz's. After a government initiative to remove the old clunkers from the roads, the older models have been replaced by newer imports, most from Asian countries: China, Japan, and South Korea. Egypt has also begun manufacturing some of their own versions of at least Chinese models as well.

But you occasionally see some American iron around. Back in the '90s I was shocked to see an early '70s Chevelle muscle car cruising around, though I wasn't able to ascertain whether it was driven by a local or an expat American. I've also been treated to the odd classic Mustang or two. Jeep Cherokees have also been rather popular with the off-road crowd. I even saw a mid-70s GM sedan prowling the streets of Cairo shortly after arriving this year. But that rather just underscores the point that there really aren't that many. GM, I think, has been making more of a push lately, and I drove past one of their showrooms with a threesome of full-size Silverado pickups sitting out front. Will Egyptians take to the US pickup craze? Too soon to tell, although their smaller Chevrolet cousins are fairly common. Only time will tell I guess.

Our particular car here -- one of the 1977-1990 "New" Chevrolets -- seems to have been there quite a while. Both streetside tires are flatter than a pancake, and it even appears that the road may have actually been paved around it. Truly a forlorn piece of Americana. For myself, I had a wild urge to buy the dumb thing for a song (heck, I could probably just haul it away), get it running, and bomb around the highways and biways of Egypt with Stone Temple Pilots or something similar blasting out the windows. Call me crazy.

So, readers, weight in: What are the odd contexts you've seen American vehicles in? Or any other model that seems a bit rare and out of place. And, as always, this is the place to discuss anything and everything car-related.

Credits: Photo by me.

Great Cars of Death III: The Franz Ferdinand Death Car

Once again a full moon rises above the moors and tiny witches, goblins, vampires, and Paris Hiltons roam the darkened streets in search of treats. The wind whistles through the trees and a mist creates horrifying shapes out of mundane objects parked in suburban driveways. . . .Vegas of every description, mean and aggressive Chargers, and even -- dare I mention its name? -- a forlorn yet strangely diabolical RAMPAGE!! or two. Yes, it's that time of year again. . . .it's Halloween and  . . . *cue spooky music crecendo* . . the General Mills Monster Cereals hit your local grocery store!

Oh wait, my bad. It's Halloween and  . . . *cue spooky music crecendo again*. .another installment of Great Cars of Death.

Like the previous installments, this one will focus on a car that involved a death of some sort. Unlike previous installments, however, this one is rather more sinister in that not only were its primary occupants tragically killed in it, but it led directly to the untimely deaths of millions in World War I. A forgotten war to many, overshadowed as it eventually was by the horrors of World War II, it was -- accurately for the time -- known as The Great War, involving as it did countries from around the world and savage in its brutality. Until 1939 it was also known as The War to End All Wars, since the carnage for soldiers and civilians alike was really unlike anything that had gone before, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The advent of the machine gun and heavy artillery turned infantry into cannon fodder and completely rewrote the book on how to conduct modern warfare. True, the Crimean War and the American Civil War had hinted at what 'total war' looked like, but the concept reached its full fruition in WWI.

And it all started with a few young hotheads hell bent on killing someone for the glory of Greater Serbia. 

September 24 Weekly Open Thread: Non-Muscle Muscle Car Edition

Submitted for your approval. . . .or ridicule or amusement or whatever: Popular Mechanics' Ten Wimpiest Muscle Cars Ever:

There's a dead zone in the history of performance cars between the hairy-chested muscle cars of the 1960s and the rebirth of power in the mid-1980s: the 1972–82 "malaise era," when machines were so strangled by new emissions rules that their performance levels were an embarrassment to even today's compact cars. Automakers slathered flashy paint and taped racy stripes and stickers to the hoods of the cars, but these 10 just couldn't get'er done at the dragstrip.

Regular readers will recognize some of these that have had starring(?) roles here at Car Lust.

Yeah, yeah, it's hard to argue that any of these are really "muscle cars" so I suppose you might wonder why I'm bothering even linking this. Well, that's the point: Virtually none of them were muscle cars. So why call attention to them being wimpy muscle cars? Look, the muscle car era ended in 1974 or thereabouts. Between insurance costs and emissions and mileage requirements, it didn't make financial sense to build muscle cars anymore. The technology just wasn't there to satisfy enviro requirements at any kind of reasonable cost. Besides, tastes had started to change by then, with customers moving more toward smaller and sportier (and better made) imports. So they quit making them.

The Mustang II, for instance, simply wasn't meant to be a muscle car from the beginning: it was. . .well, it ended up being pulled in a dozen different directions, from traditional pony car to sporty compact to personal luxury car. . .but never a muscle car. Yeah, they dressed it up some with paint-on performance, but that was more marketing concept than design.

Like we say here, judge many of these cars by what they were, not by what we thought they should be.

As always, feel free to discuss anything else vaguely car-related. Image taken from the article.

Car Lust Culture: Gille's Frozen Custard Drive-In

Ah, the drive-in. . . .a magnificent piece of Americana, highlighted in movies and TV shows as the place to be on a Saturday night. Driving up in the family station wagon or cruising in with your best girl seated next to you in your first car. A friendly carhop taking your order for burgers, fries, shakes, and sodas, good old American fast food and delivered with speed and efficiency -- sometimes even on roller skates. Chowing down, meeting friends, and making plans for later that night, all from the familiar confines of your car. Good times, good times. . . . .

Well, not for me anyway. You might think that this brief reminiscence of a recent trip back to my ancestral homeland of Wisconsin will be another bit of musing on some nostalgic aspect of my childhood when, in fact, that’s not really the case at all: I never visited the establishment in question until about 10-15 years ago. On the other hand, the subject does go back to my childhood years and presents something of a case study in the right way to either “do retro” or at least maintain it.

There's been a lot of retro-styling of restaurants the last few years. Up here in the Pacific NW we (used to) have Ruby's Diner, and nationally there's Johnny Rockets, both capitalizing on the nostalgia of old-timey diners. We also have a place called Burgermasters with some drive-ins, although our favorite is the non-drive-in University location, made somewhat famous by the fact that Bill Gates used to hang out there. Dick's (a rather unfortunate name if you ask me) is the Top Dog in drive-ins for this neck of the woods, but there's also the Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-In (another rather snigger-producing name, no doubt) which features a lot of classic car cruise-ins as well. And we have a smattering of A&W's in the region as well.

The trouble with all of them -- diners or drive-ins -- is that I have hardly any nostalgia for them, at least not directly. Diners were mostly after my time and, while we had drive-ins while I was growing up, my family rarely went to them for some reason. So, no warm fuzzy memories of either one for me.

There is one, however, which fills me with joy just thinking about it, a true drive-in restaurant straight from the 1940s and largely unchanged since its inception, a staple of my hometown in Wisconsin, a true midwest heartland if there ever was one. And I was just there this past summer.

2007-2012: They Were Very Good Years (or Chevy Vegas & Other Delights)

Okay, so this won't be yer traditional (if a few posts over a five year span can even be considered 'traditional') Very Good Year™ post since A) I won't really be reviewing the various automotive-themed events that occurred during that time (save this one, obviously), and B) I've been mostly too busy with Cars Gone By to pay all that much attention to what's been going on, and C) This is all about Us! Us! Us! anyway.

But heck, this is as good a time as any to look back on those ancient times and see where we've been and what I thought about them (after all, this post is just as much about Me! Me! Me! as Us! Us! Us!). Henceforth, this slight missive will mostly be just me bloviating on what I see as the best and brightest, perhaps not of our generation entirely, but at least of the lesser appreciated cars of our generation.

By the way, I looked it up and this is technically our Wooden anniversary blogiversary so make of that what you will.

And hey, go us.

Everyday Iron: 1983 Chevette

Cars are kind of like people. Some seem to have been born with various health problems, others drink or eat themselves into an early grave; some are overly cautious and don't take any unnecessary risks to life and limb while others jump out of planes or off of buildings all for the thrill of looking death in the face and living to tell about it -- or not. And still others seem to do everything right but still die before their time.

And then there's that really annoying group, the ones who smoke and drink and carouse till all hours, eat whatever they want in whatever quantity, never exercise, and otherwise engage in all manner of bad habits. . . . .and still live to a ripe old age. I recall an interview with one centenarian from some years ago who attributed her long life to "cigarettes and black coffee." You know the type. And probably hate them as much as I do.

For this edition of Everyday Iron we have a seemingly indestructible car that by all rights shouldn't still be on the road.....and yet it soldiers on some 30 years after it was produced: a 1983 Chevette. It's owned by a neighbor of my mom's from a smallish 'burgh in south central Wisconsin -- you know, the place with harsh winters and abundant road salt. I don't know all that much about it, but I'm pretty certain it didn't reside in a garage its entire life. The owner isn't particularly assiduous in terms of caring for it, but she hasn't ignored maintenance either. It's got some rust but not nearly what one might expect, and the rear quarter panel there has been repaired (poorly) at least once.

Still, it's got no major accident damage, hasn't been extensively repaired or restored, and still runs at least marginally well. The owner has put only 61,000 miles on it in all that time (no long road trips) and reported that it's recently developed a small oil leak. It's a little slow starting in the morning (*ahem*) and doesn't exactly sound like a Ferarri, but it gets her where she wants to go with a minimum of fuss and bother. Not bad for $3,000.

I have to say, this car just tickles me to no end. There's something plainly adorable about it and its kin. The lines seem simple and functional, saying "I am a compact utility car" and little else. And who doesn't love a trooper?

--Anthony Cagle

America's Car Museum: Car Lust Edition

Yesterday I popped in to see the newly-opened LeMay Car Museum -- technically the LeMay - America's Car Museum -- for a much-too-short hour and a half (I snuck out of a niece-in-law's high school graduation ceremony at the adjacent Tacoma Dome. . .don't tell!). I've never actually been to a car museum so it was an entirely new experience for me. The Museum just opened this month and it's really quite a wonder for these parts given that we have no domestic automotive industry to garner history from, at least directly. But we are home to Harold and Nancy LeMay who acquired a truly astounding collection of automobiles. From the above-linked web site:

Harold and Nancy LeMay amassed the largest privately owned collection of automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, other vehicles and related memorabilia in the world.

At its peak, the LeMay Collection numbered in excess of 3,000 vehicles and thousands of artifacts and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest privately owned collection in the world; impressive if accomplished by a King, but jaw dropping, awesome when accomplished by a local businessman from Tacoma, Washington.

As with most high-end collectors, most of the cars are, well, high end collector cars: gleaming jewels of spotless chrome and deep, rich paint, shined to mirror-like perfection and lit to enhance their beauty. They're not all owned by the LeMays; there's a permanent collection and several 'galleries', if you will, of donated collections and sets of related cars on loan from individuals. Definitely worth a trip for the auto history enthusiast.

Sadly, no mint-condition Pacers I'm afraid.

Still, there were a few specimens that we've covered here and a couple that will no doubt be covered in the future. Here are a few snapshots for some of the more Lustable items.

4th of July Week Open Thread

Inspired by this article from Reuters (h/t Insty), and also derived from our earlier discussion on the potential death of the Great American Road Trip, I submit for your edification and contemplation the Great American Highway:

Route 66 was completed in the mid-1920s and gained fame in the 1930s when it was described in the John Steinbeck novel "The Grapes of Wrath" as the "mother road" from the Dust Bowl to the promise of California. It later became the family vacation route to the Southwest and was romanticized in movies, music and on television.

"It wasn't the only highway, or the first or the longest, but through the quirks of pop culture it became famous," said Mark Spangler, curator of the Route 66 Museum in Lebanon, Missouri.

I'm too young to really remember the heyday of Route 66 or even the TV show it inspired, but I'm quite fond of the song (both the Nat King Cole version and the more recent Depeche Mode cover) and the thought of driving on the fabled highway through. . .The West. . . just tickles me to death. And it's something I'd like to do one day before I die. Preferably in a classic car from the early '60s, but whatever, it'd still be fun. The only other automotive-related item on my list is to take the Pacific Coast Highway all the way from Washington to LA.

And so, for this Great American Holiday Week, I submit the following questions: Do you have any memories of traveling Route 66 or any other American-imbued highway? What trip or other automotive experience is on your bucket list?

--Anthony Cagle

Credit: the Route 66 image is from the Route 66 Chamber of Commerce page.