Big Chris has motor oil running in his veins. This stems from a grandfather who owned a car shop, a father who ran a motorcycle shop, and a relative with a custom Harley modification business. Big Chris has worked as a motorcycle mechanic, and has been on a few Sprint Car pit crews. He grew up in garages and at race tracks, and knows firsthand the pain of inhaling methanol fumes while filling up a race tank. For Big Chris, mid-70's Chevy Impalas are like free crack to an addict. When he's not dreaming about cars, he works as a pastor of small town church and spends ample time repenting for his car lusts.
We interrupt our Saab story to wish you all a happy and safe New Year's! May your 2012 be blessed with fun, interesting and reliable vehicles!
Anyone looking at the new 2012 models? I know I'm interested in the new Honda CRV for my wife, but I'm 99.999% certain we wouldn't buy a new model year car at this point in our lives/finances.
I'll admit I am/was behind the curve on the original (UK) version of Top Gear. My brain sucking electronic device (TV) doesn't get it. Or at least, it didn't until I added NetFlix to my Nintendo Wii that is. Silly me, I owned the Wii for a year before I realized it had wireless internet functionality.
So over the past month I've watched 4 seasons of UK Top Gear. And I like it. A lot. But interestingly, I still like the US version better. I'm sure that'll spur comments.
Jeremy Clarkson makes the UK version go, and there is noo ne filling that role in the US version - or at least Tanner Foust hasn't got to his level yet. Understandable though, Foust has couple hundred fewer episodes under his belt. But in reality, I don't think he'll get to Clarkson's level, and honestly I'm fine with that. But it is Clarkson that makes the UK version tick in my mind.
Where the US version pulls ahead for me is on relatability. The cars they use and sites they visit in the challenges are familiar on some level. I can relate to that far better than a Fiat, a Skoda and a Ford not available in our market. Nothing against those cars (particularly the Skoda) but when I see Adam Ferrara get an early 70's Cadillac Coupe DeVille airborn it is a perfect example of why I like the US version better. I've been in that Cadillac. Sat on the back seat where there is room for a basketball team. Floated down the road with zero sensation from the outside world. And that is where I think the US version works - it connects.
That doesn't mean the US version is perfect, I just prefer it warts and all. Sure I'd like to see the banter between hosts be natural rather than forced. That will hopefully come with time. Yes, I'd like to see them come up with their own more unique production style, but that might be limited/controlled by the parent company. But without question I'd like to see more of them. Thankfully the US version was was given another season.
Which version do you like best? Have a favorite episode of either? And as usual, post anything else you want in here that's vaguely car-related.
I grew up in the video game world. We played Oregon Trail on the early green screen Commodore PET's in my elementary school. I think I started out with Pole Position as my first racing/car game. I played Spy Hunter at the roller skating rink, and eventually moved on to Out Run.
As time passed the games continued to improve along with the technology behind them. In the late 90's I was almost addicted to Need for Speed II. In the early 2000's it was The Simpson's: Hit & Run. My roommate at the time & I spent every free waking moment the first week we got Hit & Run trying to get new cars in the game. To the point we had blisters on our fingers. Soooo not kidding.
New games now are so realistic in graphics and game play that after playing for a while it is almost hard to go back to driving my slow old beater of a van. Have you SEEN Forza Motorsport 4? They've even included the Tesla Roadster! Play this thing on a big screen in HD & you'll want to fall over from the motion graphics if you try standing while playing (...so I've "heard").
What car games have you played and really enjoyed over the years? Still play any of them today? I've given up playing video games for the most part, I guess for me it was part of growing up & having a family. But don't for a second doubt that I'm looking foward to Mario Kart when he gets just a little bit older!
As it is every week, this is the lint bin to collect your thoughts on things that might not fit in other threads.
Today I want to take you back in the way-back machine we keep in the corner of the garage. For some of you it might have to be the way-way-back machine!
As the father to a 2 year old son, I have had the opportunity to renew my love for Matchbox and Hot Wheel cars. You remember these right? I bet some of you have a sock drawer with a few gems in reserve. Little die-cast cars that bring an amount of joy that far exceeds their size!
My son is a car nut, especially when it comes to these little things. He can spend hours (literally!) parking and reorganizing his cars. He even has a garage and race track for his rides. He even sleeps with a couple of his cars most nights - the most likely bed buddies are Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater.
So each evening when I get home I get to return back to my childhood and surround myself with cars and play with vehicles I could never afford and imagine what life might just be like with car lust and an unlimited budget.
Do you have an all time favorite Matchbox or Hot Wheels car? Any great memories like me of waking up Christmas morning and finding dozens of new cars awaiting under the tree?
As always, this is also the thread for any other more random talk that seems to be found in every garage I've ever been in.
(Photo taken from Amazon.com)
As I’ve mentioned before, my family is a Honda motorcycle family. My parents own 2 Honda cars, a Honda mower, and about a half dozen Honda motorcycles. My brother rides a Honda ST1100 cycle and about a year ago sold his Honda Accord, and he's a CRX nut. I own a Honda Civic and mower along with my cycle. You can't get into my family's garages and not help but notice we are fond of Honda's.
This all stems fromt he fact that my dad is a Honda Gold Certified mechanic, though he only works on cycles now as a hobby. So a few years ago when my dad called and offered me a 1982 Honda Goldwing, I didn’t think twice about saying yes. I bummed a ride for the 3 hour trip to my hometown and then got to experience the wind in hair, sun on my back, and the thrill of the ride on my way back to my quiet Southern Minnesota home.
So what is a Goldwing you might be asking? It is the 2 wheel equivalent of a Lincoln Towncar. The Goldwing is Honda’s large touring motorcycle. Introduced originally in late 1974, over time it became the benchmark for touring motorcycles in the United States. Since the start of production, over 1 million Wings have hit the road.
Continue reading "Great Rides of Summer Week: 1982 Honda Goldwing GL1100" »
No, this isn't about that Weiner.
I live in a small, rural, farming community in Southern, Minnesota. That means many of the locals talk a lot about $300,000+ vehicles with great regularlity - but most of those are made by John Deere or Case IH. We don't have a lot of exciting vehciles here, most everything is functional, and most of it isn't all that remarkable on a day to day basis.
So when the Wienermobile was spotted in town a while back, it caused quite a stir. Facebook
exploded with conversation (and photos!) of the famed Wienermobile.
Not familiar with the Wienermobile? Imagine a motorhome sized vehicle shaped like an Oscar Meyer hot dog on a mustard colored base. You can't miss the thing, it's HUGE! The Wienermobile measures 27 feet long and 11 feet high!
The original Wienermobile was created in 1936 by Carl G. Mayer - Oscar Mayer's nephew. There have been ten total variants of the Wienermobile created over the years using various models and brands as the base chassis. In the 50's a Wienermobile was constructed with a Willys Jeep chassis providing the support. In the late 60's the Wienermobile platform moved to a Chevy motorhome base with Ford Thunderbird tailights. Most recently the Wienermobile has found its motivation on top of a GMC-W platform. As you read through the list of the transformation of the Wienermobile, there are parts from all sorts of vehicles over the year that have been grafted onto these sweet rides.
It is Monday again, and this is your open thread for the week. Everything that doesn't fit elsewhere goes into this box.
Question - what is the worst vehicle you've ever had the displeasure of working on? I'll allow you to define worst. My nightmare(s) after the jump.
The reason this is on my mind today is that I am heading out the door after typing this to do a tune-up on a friends 2001 Kia Sedona.
Continue reading "March 28 Open Thread - Throw a wrench at it?" »
Welcome to the open thread. This is the place for all of the discussion that doesn't fit elsewhere.
We're slowly, but surely pondering upgrading some vehicles in my family. Currently a family of 3 with a 2001 Dodge Caravan with 230K (and on its 3rd transmission) and a 1996 Honda Civic also with 230K on it. Both vehicles have seen better days. I'm inclined to find a 3-4 year old Honda or Toyota for my wife, and barring catestrophic failure of the Van she'll get a new vehicle first. She definitely wants something bigger than the Civic (understandable, so do I!) but gas mileage is very important since she puts on at minimum 60 miles a day commuting to work, and probably another 150 throughout the rest of the week. We live in Minnesota so good in the winter is an important consideration. This vehicle won't tow, will never be off-road and won't ever be raced. Comfort & reliability will trump performance in this vehicle. What do you think should be on our list? I'm guessing we wouldn't go over $20K and would really like to be at about $15K.
If you are a local, you know the routine for our weekly open threads. Coffee's over there, make yourself at home.
If you are new here, welcome! And know that this is the place for "everything else" that doesn't fit under our more traditional posts.
When you think of "muscle car" what pops into your head? Mine is after the break.
Best car commercial during the Super Bowl? Go.
(or best commercial featuring a car)
(note from Chris Hafner - let's go ahead and use this as our Weekly Open Thread as well).
The US version to Top Gear is growing on me. Tonight I found myself with tears in my eyes laughing at the Moonshiner Challenge. I could literally see some of our Car Lust contributors doing this very challenge if we all had $1000 and a weekend with nothing to do. Anyone want to sugar daddy this riotous event?!? I promise I'd video tape it!
But for real, I see some definite improvement as Top Gear is moving from episode to episode. Are they the Brits? No, and they may never be, and I'm OK with that.
Are you watching the series? What do you think?
On a steamy July night I decided it was time to fix the headlight lenses on my 2001 Dodge Caravan. As you will see in the videos, over time they have gotten very dingy and yellowed. My solution to the problem was to use 3M Headlight Lens Restoration System which is available through our hosts here on Amazon.com and for my final step I used Meguiar's #10 Clear Plastic Polish.
I used the Meguiar's #10 because I have that on hand from polishing the windshield on my motorcycle. Another final step option is Meguiar's PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner and Polish which might have a wider application of uses, but I didn't have any on hand.
The 3M system is awesome in that it uses a drill to do all the work. I had previously attempted this project on my wife's car by hand with other products (a hand sanding kit with multiple grits and polishing compound) and halfway through the first lens my arms were shot, and the lens was only about 20% better, not nearly totally clear like they are with this 3M setup.
The first video is an overview of the project. You'll see in it that it was about 95F and 75% humidity on the night I chose to do this project. And my garage is NOT air conditioned.
The second video shows the stage by stage progress as I clean the second lens. I am very satisfied with the final product, and will soon be doing this for my wife's 1996 Honda Civic.
--Big Chris
On July 9, 2010, the last Chrysler PT Cruiser rolled off the production line. With the problems the car manufacturing industry has faced over the past few years, this comes as no surprise. Truth be told, I thought Chrysler quit making them a while ago.
I remember when I saw my first PT Cruiser--I had such great hopes, but the vehicle never lived up to the hype. While I was never really taken by the styling, I did appreciate the attempt to at least try to style it as something other than a brick or a bubble. It had hints visually of the old skool (yes that is the correct spelling) milk trucks that would bring milk in glass bottles to every home. It had a tinge of flair from a bygone era, but it wasn't enough.
Why did the PT Cruiser die? Well, last year Chrysler sold only 18,000. The peak sales came in 2001--145,000 units. I don't know any industry in which a decline of that size would be endured for that long.
Chrysler pushed the envelope a bit, but not enough in my opinion. The first PT Cruiser was on the right path and when there was a positive response from the public, rather than build on that success, Chrysler chose to stay stagnant. That was as good as signing the death warrant on the PT; it was the vehicle that time forgot, and not in a good way. And while there were the beginnings of some unique visual cues, the underlying mechanicals were still bland Chrysler.
So, as a result, another car falls out of production. I don't think these will have a lot of collector's value, so don't go buying one to mothball in hopes it will be your grandchild's Bugatti in the barn.
With the recent spate of cars that have or will be ceasing to exist, which one do you lament the most? I'll go with the Pontiac G8.
--Big Chris
Minivans--for manly men only. What says virility better than pulling up in your ride filled with your offspring?
0:22--He nails the look of fear.
0:30--"I roll hard through the streets and the cul de sacs..."
0:58--Pegged the cute meter
1:13--Keep the pinkie up!
1:53--PB&J just keepin' it real.
2:27--Nothing quite like spiking a child's toy to emphasize your level of cool.
Don't hate the playa, hate the game...where my mother-fathers at?
--Big Chris
Part of Car Lust is living with vehicles that have seen better days. Sure it would be nice to drive the newest and latest and greatest, but the reality is for me, and many others, that we drive the wheels off what we have, and what we have is rarely all that good.
Late last week I ordered a radiator online for our 2001 Dodge Caravan with the 3.3-liter V-6. The original radiator with 212,000 miles had sprung a leak and was losing fluid; it had me worried it might rupture in an inopportune time. I live in a small town in southern Minnesota, so I called around locally and discovered there wasn't a radiator shop in town, with the closest being 15 miles away. Radiator replacement is usually pretty straightforward, so as I have more time and skills than money, I decided to do it myself.
Mechanically, I can hold my own. I grew up in my grandfather's car shop watching my grandpa and my dad work on our cars. I also spent many years working alongside my father in his motorcycle shop, where I really learned to be competent with a wrench. Add to that the fact that, with money tight, I have spent my whole life working on my own vehicles, and on the surface this seemed like a no-brainer job for me.
So what is the very first thing you would improve on your new vehicle? (New, of course, meaning a broad range of things to a group like us Car Lust folk.) For me, it is the sound system. There are many varied ways in which you can modify and personalize your ride these days. While the sound system may not be my personal favorite mod if money isn’t a concern, the reality is, for me at least, that money is always a concern.
Every vehicle I have had since my very first 1979 Toyota Corolla has received a stereo upgrade shortly after I have acquired the vehicle. In the early days it was a cassette player so I could plug my Discman in to listen to tunes. Then, shortly thereafter, I installed some new speakers. But these weren’t just any speakers, these were home speakers, still in the box. I was broke and looking for more volume, and honestly, I didn’t know any better I had no clue about impedance and ohms and wire gauge, I just wanted more bump. Of course having speaker boxes sitting in your back seat is inconvenient for carrying passengers; since the speakers weren’t affixed to anything, stopping fast became an adventure in dodge-speaker, the cousin to dodge-ball.
My Frankensteining of vehicles with audio components didn’t stop there.
Continue reading "The greatest car modification--Car Audio?" »
Not wanting to miss out on the big car nostalgia, I'll wow you with tales of one of the greatest beasts to ever cruise the open road. I first received my 4-door 1975 Chevy Impala when I was still in high school, but it had always been in the family. The car originally was my great grandmother's, but she had wanted a smaller and newer car (a Ford Taurus was her choice), and my family needed something to replace our dying Pontiac Ventura.
When we got the car, I was not yet of driving age, but I had already begun to love cars. The first week we got it, my dad and I took it to my grandfather's automotive shop and proceeded to give it a tune-up, some top-end work (head work, rings, pistons etc.), removal of all things limiting horsepower, and then added air shocks to the rear-end. It also got new brakes and a free-flowing exhaust. It went from Granny's grocery-getter to a pretty wicked towing machine in just one short weekend. We figured that 350 V-8 put out roughly 275 horsepower when we were all done with it. Not a ton of power, but a huge upgrade over the estimated 145 horsepower it sported when stock, and enough to get the barge really moving when you wanted it to.
When we got the Impala, it didn't have a ton of miles on it, something like 45K, in spite of it being 13 years old at that point. It had always lived in a garage and had always been well-maintained. And it was an awesome color--burnt orange. You couldn't miss this thing going down the road; it was huge and orange. And it didn't have a ding, dent, or rust spot on it. By the time I got it in 1991, there were a few surface rust spots; and when we got rid of it in 1995 we were thankful the car was burnt orange so it was less obvious that the rust spots outnumbered the paint spots.
And when I say this car was huge, I'm not kidding. I used to tell my friends it was as large as a Suburban. They didn't believe me. So I parked next to one one day, and we got out and measured. My car was a mere 1/2 inch shorter. And as Rob wrote in the Mercury article, when people saw it coming, they got out of the way.
It has been a while since we here at Car Lust have covered a supercar. Let the record show that the following is the greatest production supercar ever created--so far, at least. Additionally, in a world filled with excess, few vehicles exhibit their excess in as beautiful a fashion as the Bugatti Veyron.
The greatest supercar ever created? Yes. Yes indeed. For starters, the Bugatti Veyron is powered by a 8.0-liter turbocharged W-16 cylinder motor with four-wheel-drive. At peak capacity these cylinders pump out 1001 horsepower and 920 ft-lbs of torque. No, that is not a typo. The motor configuration is a "W"--so think of two narrow V-8s grafted together. It has four turbochargers. To get that power to the ground, the Veyron utilizes the same launch control technology as Formula 1 race cars, which allows it to keep maximum traction as you work your way through all seven gears.
Sounds fast doesn't it? How about a top speed of more than 408 kilometers per hour – that's 253 mph. So fast I don't need an exclamation point. That is 1/3 the speed of sound, for those keeping score at home. The video at the end of this post provides evidence of this capability.
Thirty years ago, my father brought home a new baby. This one didn't eat and fill diapers; it drank fuel and breathed fire. This baby could make you leave brown stains in your tighty-whities but still leave you smiling. It was first vehicle I ever fell in love with, and it only had two wheels.
Growing up, my dad ran a motorcycle shop and spun wrenches as needed, so that probably explains a lot about me. Most kids went to amusement parks to ride the fast rides. I, on the other hand, hopped on behind my dad and held on for dear life as he fired the rocket I came to know as the Honda CBX 1000. In the late 70's superbike war, it was like showing up to a rock/paper/scissors contest and pulling out the nuke.
The CBX was the first Honda motorcycle with 6 cylinders--a 1047cc, 24-valve, twin-cam air-cooled inline-6 with six carburetors. It conservatively produced 105 horsepower out of the box, and it's not hard to get more power out of this engine. The bike covered the quarter-mile in 11.36 seconds when stock. The one drawback to the bike was its heavy 680-pound weight, meaning it didn't corner as well as some of its vintage competitors such as the Suzuki GS1100.
Hi, I'm Big Chris. I'm the last of the current contributors to crawl out of his cave and post something. I'll continue on with this week's unintentional GM theme, but will go a bit of a different direction with my first post.
A while back I hatched an idea for a new ongoing series of posts that everyone will be contributing to--Everyday Iron. The idea behind these posts is to showcase the cars we encounter in our everyday lives. They don't have to be special cars; rather they are cars that are special to someone. These are the cars we see driving our local streets, the work horses of life.
To kick things off I'll offer up the 1985 Chevrolet Sprint parked across the street from where I work. Because it is a three-door hatchback I do expect our drooling leader to pine on in the comments about how he lusts for one of these for his own! Towels at the ready!
The first-gen Sprint had a curb weight of 1,565 pounds and a wheelbase of 88.4 inches. For comparison, a Honda Goldwing GL1800 motorcycle has a wheelbase of 66.4 inches! But as the commercial below says, it's a four passenger car! And how it likes to run! It comes equipped with a 3-cylinder, 1.0-liter engine. So while you can get 50 miles to a gallon, you'll struggle to get over 50 miles per hour. Its window stickers listed 47 mpg in town and 53 mpg on the highway, which beats the referenced Honda Goldwing by a large margin.
