Car Lust

Our Cars Week: "My Car Lust: Mom's 1972 VW Bug"

(Submitted by Car Lust Reader and commenter Kenny Heggem)

I really don't know what it is exactly. It could be a semblance of different reasons... but I have been obsessing over wanting an early 1970's VW Beetle. A standard little Beetle. Not a Super Beetle, just the standard non-McPherson strut style, flat dash "Bug."

It is likely the nostalgia. Mom had divorced recently, when I was 11. She needed a car, and bought an orange and primer 1972 Bug.

Takes me back a to a time of struggles, but keeping our heads up high. Living on spaghetti every night and struggling to buy school clothes, while Dad partied with arm candy and eating expensive sushi power lunches.

Our Cars Week: "My Most Fun Junky Car"

The most fun junky car I ever had was a (originally) gold-colored 1972 Chevy Vega Kammback wagon. Cookie The Dog's Owner's Monza wagon was probably a cream puff compared to this thing, but I had more wrench turnin', parts pickin', shade tree mechanicin' fun on this little car than I ever had on any other vehicle I've owned.

The car was eight years old when I bought it in 1980, so it was tired already. I was a poor college guy, and wanted away from our gas-thirsty, full-size, hard-to-drive (And park!) 1968 Ford Ranger pickup. And hey, what's sexier than the lines of a '72 Vega station wagon?

I had already owned a red '72 Vega Hatchback as my first car, so I kinda already knew my way around these things. We found this Kammback on a used car lot, paid $700 plus tax, tags, title, and license, and immediately went to work. First to go was the cheezy purple rear window tint.

1985: It Was a Very Good Year!

It was "Morning in America," a time when men were real men, women were real women, and hair was real big. Ronald Reagan had just been sworn in for his second term after winning one of the most lopsided Presidential elections in American history. and the "national malaise" of just a few years before had been replaced by a mood of confident optimism. Technology was on the march: personal computers now had floppy drives and 12 MHz processors, fully-functional mobile phones were down to the size of a box of Girl Scout cookies, and used DeLoreans were being retrofitted with aftermarket flux capacitors. On the big screen, besides the one with the time machine, we had Out of Africa and Witness and The Breakfast Club and Rambo: First Blood Part II. On the small screen, you had The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues and MacGyver.

On the radio was Springsteen, Madonna--this was way before Nirvana--there was U2, and Blondie, and music still on MTV. The cars then were old school, and you might think them uncool, but this post will be occupied with cars of Nineteen Eighty-Five.

Great (?) Commercials--Subaru of America's "The New Look" (1969)

In the grand cinematic tradition of the action-packed Corvair in Action!, the romantic Koers Amerika met de Holland-America Line, the harrowing Death to Weeds, the insanely comic Inside Story of Modern Gasoline, and the groundbreaking classic Your Name Here, comes director Malcolm Bricklin's 1969 magnum opus, The New Look:

My comments come after the jump.

Subaru 360

Remember that cute but dorky (or is it "dorky but cute"?) imported subcompact with the air-cooled engine mounted in the rear? Didn't seem like much, slow and Spartan compared to the full-sized Detroit dreadnoughts and fire-breathing musclecars it shared the road with, but they sold enough of them to get a foothold in the US market. It proved to be the humble start to something much bigger: today, the manufacturer is an established player selling well over a quarter million vehicles in North America each year--building a goodly number of them in its ecologically friendly US "trans-plant" factory.

And no, I'm not talking about Volkswagen and its iconic Beetle, though there's a lot of parallel between today's topic and the Bug, in appearance, engineering, and purpose.

The subject of today's lesson is the first car Subaru sold in the US, a car you might think of as the "Japanese Beetle": the Subaru 360.

Repairing a Decade of Neglect: 1991 Honda Civic LX: Part Two

After a year-long hiatus, I’m back to CarLust with a lot of new content.  The first task at hand is to finish the update on my 1991 Civic LX.   In my last post, I hinted at the horrible mechanical condition of the car, but this time I’ll delve into the details, as well as touch on a new form of vehicle modification:  Eco-Modification .

After signing the paperwork, exchanging the money, and driving the vehicle home, I noticed a lot of things that needed immediate attention.  The brakes were pulsating badly due to worn out rotors and pads, the paint was more of a scientific experiment on mold and lichen growth, and the trunk wouldn’t stay shut and reeked of moisture.

The trunk turned out not to latch because the latch itself was pulling out of the chassis.  Luckily, my roommate had a welder handy, and a few minutes later with some white spray-paint, and all was well.  However, it still smelled horrible and was full of moisture, so a complete cleaning was necessary.  After pulling out the carpet, we found worms.  Lots of them.  Apparently, the previous owner was a fishing enthusiast, and never bothered to check how many were escaping his tackle box.  After cleaning that out, the taillights were pulled, a healthy dose of silicone sealant applied to the dried out taillight gaskets, and reinstalled.   Later that night, I ordered a lot of parts; rotors, pads, oil filter, air filter, fuel filter, spark plugs, and a distributor cap and rotor set.

The original reason for purchasing this car was to save money on my commute, which totaled about 150 miles daily, so I immediately began commuting in it.  Gas was peaking at $3.89 a gallon, so I calculated the mileage and discovered it was only getting about 29mpg at a steady 80mph.   Not good.  Once the new parts arrived, I started installing them and found the car’s mechanical condition matched the stunning exterior:  absolutely ignored for years.  When I climbed under the car, I noticed a blue Honda OEM oil filter.  Uh oh.  This car hasn’t seen a dealership for years.  When was the last time the oil was even changed?   Once I pulled the plug, things got worse.  Instead of a golden honey color and even consistency, instead I was met with a black, lumpy liquid filled with a mix of golden and silver specks and shavings.  Ignoring that and hoping for the best, I installed the rest of the parts, with an end result of 33mpg.

The interior was vacuumed, wiped down, and sprayed with an odor neutralizer.  As an industrial designer I really appreciate a basic, useful interior with intuitive controls that last not only mechanically, but also cosmetically.  Unlike many supposedly “better” and more modern vehicles, Hondas of this vintage have interiors that are a great example of honest use of materials, which means that once they’re cleaned, they basically look new.   The paint, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well.

It seems like the car was left outside and never washed, as the paint looked dry, and felt rough and porous to the touch.   Since it wasn’t sealed, moisture sat on the finish in a big film, eventually leading to mold and mildew that etched its way further into the paint.   No amount of mere soap and water could remove this film; it called for something far more aggressive.   Using 3m’s most abrasive compound, the car was attacked with a buffing wheel, and even then, you had to go against every sane piece of buffing advice.  You had to push down hard, and dig into the paint, to remove all the damaged, mildew stained paint.

The roof was even worse.  On top of the paint damage, it looked as if someone had thrown a dance party on top of the car.  The roof was caved in to the point where the headliner inside the looked as if it didn’t fit right.   We ran to the fabric store, spent $13 on some very retro 1960’s diamondseye print, and a can of 3M Super77 Spray adhesive.  Lacking a decent area to work on the car due to high winds, I drove downtown into an empty parking lot, and headed for the basement.   The sun visors, lights, “Oh Sh*t” handles, and dome light were quickly stripped, and the headliner was removed.   After putting a very liberal amount of adhesive on the headliner, we then applied the fabric.  Before reinstalling, we laid in the backseat and used out legs to smash the roof and support beams back into shape.

Lastly, the hour long commute was painful with the rotted-out, 20 year old speakers and tape deck.   After picking up a few sets of the cheapest 6.5” speakers I could find and throwing in a spare CD player, the car was reborn.  With glossy white paint, a respectable interior, a decent sound system and achieving 33mpg, the car was once again a fantastic commuter vehicle.  Stay tuned for Part 3; Eco-Modification.

Studebaker Week: An Exaltation* of Larks

There were probably more Larks at last Saturday's SDC Ohio Chapter meet than anything else (though the Hawks and Avantis were giving them a run for their money). That should come as no surprise.

The Lark was built in large numbers--for a Stude, at least. There were nearly 440,000 units sold from 1959 through 1963. While the 1964 cars (total production about 40,000 or so) were significantly restyled, and Studebaker de-emphasized the "Lark" name in its '64 model year advertising, the '64s are mechanically identical to the '59-'63 models, and Studebaker people still count them as Larks. (That's also true for the 1965-66 "Chevybakers.") They're relatively plentiful, relatively modern (12v electrical systems, etc.), relatively affordable--and NOS parts are available (a large stock was left over from the '63 and '64 model years when Studebaker closed its South Bend plant) for most things that might need attention in a restoration.

Plus, let's face it, they're cute little fellas!

BMW Isetta 300

At the complete opposite end of the automotive spectrum from the 1939 Packard Touring Sedan discussed yesterday, the Lincoln Highway Car Show served up this little McNugget on wheels, a BMW Isetta 300.

The 2011 "FIAT FreakOut" in Nashville, Tennessee

Loyal Car Lust readers may remember the 2010 Nashville British Car Club Show post from last October. Now it's July 23rd, 2011, and I'm back in the shadow of the Parthenon at Centennial Park here in Nashville. But this time it's the Italians who get center stage... presenting the 2011 "FIAT FreakOut," or "FFO" for short.

This was an all-weekend event, four days actually, and the first time Music City USA hosted these friendly folks. They had four days of sightseeing, scheduled driving tours, pool parties, and a car movie. But I don't have an Italian car, so I only wanted to see the car show. And what a show it was!

This was also an international event, as I saw Canadian license plates there. The local TV station said some folks came from England. And from nearby, Jeff Lane of the Lane Motor Museum here in Nashville also brought over a few prized Tuscan beauties.

All-American Week: The "Spirit of America" Chevrolets

If anybody remembers our Nation's Bicentennial Year, then they remember these limited edition cars. 1976 seemed to start out like most any other year, except we had "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" to suffer through. "Charlie's Angels" gave us some great models to gaze at, and the cars weren't bad either.

But in 1974, a couple of years ahead of schedule and maybe to boost sales, Chevrolet sold a really nice trim package on their El Camino, Impala, Nova, and Vega models. Some dealers may have added this trim to other Chevy car and truck models as well.

The outsides were painted white with red and blue stripes, and sported "Spirit of America" emblems; the insides had white seats, red carpeting, and black dashboards. Looks like they had some nice wheels, too. They were not featured in the sales brochures that year, and getting detailed information on all of them is a bit tricky.

So let's just look at a few images of these cars: