Car Lust

Angry Cars--2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution

Car: 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution

Condition: Smoldering rage, with occasional frenzied outbursts.

Possible Motivation: If you were a mild-mannered small family car and some mad scientist shot you full of radioactive steroids that gave you 295 HP, a base sticker price north of thirty large, and a schnozz like that, you'd smolder with rage, too.

Defining Overblown High-Testosterone Action Movie Quote:
"What is best in life? . . . To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."
(Conan the Barbarian)

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

Nissan Cube

Japan seems to be producing a lot of adorably quirky rectangles on wheels these days. Some, like the Honda Element and Scion xB, have become familiar here in the U.S., while others, such as the Suzuki Alto Works, are unknown to these shores.

The most interesting of all is the appropriately-named Nissan Cube. I first learned of the Cube by reading about it in Robert Cumberford's "By Design" column in Automobile magazine. That article focused on the Cube's styling, of course. But while the Cube is interesting for how it looks, that's not the only thing that makes it interesting.

1937 Lincoln Model K

The big black Lincoln Model K pictured here belongs to a car collector friend of mine.

The person he bought the car from claimed that it originally belonged to one of Al Capone's goons bodyguards, but my friend has not been able to either confirm or disprove that tale. Al Capone was serving time in Alcatraz when this car rolled off the assembly line, so even if it did belong to one of his associates, it is unlikely that the infamous mobster ever got a ride in it. Nevertheless, the connection to Capone, however tenuous, makes for a good story.

Regardless, if you were going to be a "Godfather" in the late Thirties, this is probably the big black sedan you'd want to be seen in.

More on the 1970s Stutz

One of the great things about the Car Lust blog is the comments we get from our readers.

My recent "Car Disgust" posting on the Stutz "revival" cars of the 1970s drew some interesting comments from reader Jim Milliken. Several of Jim's photos were used to illustrate my original article.

Jim and I had a very pleasant conversation in the comments thread which continued by e-mail. While we disagree on the merits of the Stutz, we both agree that they are fascinating vehicles.

By the way, Jim isn't just a Stutz fan. He owns five revival-era Stutzes--just like Elvis! (I've linked to photos of his cars in the text below the fold.) Between the Stutz cars he owns and the others he has encountered in his travels, he may well have seen more Stutzes in more places than anyone else now living. 

I thought our readers would enjoy learning a little more about these interesting vehicles from someone who knows them well.

1956 Fargo Truck

In the course of looking up something else, I came upon a reference to "Fargo" trucks built by Chrysler. I had never heard of such a thing before, so I followed the hyperlinks to this article at allpar.com, which tells the story.

The Fargo brand name originated in 1928, and was used on commercial vehicles sold through Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. After Chrysler acquired Dodge, all of its U.S. trucks were branded as Dodges or Plymouths, and the Fargo name was used only on trucks sold through Plymouth dealers in Canada, and in certain other export markets.

On some 1930s Canadian models, Chrysler took a Dodge truck and gave it Plymouth front body panels to make it into a Fargo. However, most Fargos were just Dodges with a few Canada-specific details. As time went on, economic efficiency concerns forced Fargo trucks to become increasingly de-contented, until they were almost indistinguishable from their American cousins. Chrysler finally "rationalized" the Fargo brand name clean out of existence in 1972.

The delightful 1956 Fargo pictured here (in a photo from Wikipedia) is basically a '56 Dodge with Fargo badging and trim and a Canada-only hood that opened from the side. Another example of the distinctive Fargo hood can be seen here. As far as I know, these were the only vehicles being made in North America in the 1950s with a hood that worked this way.

When the Fargos finally got modern "alligator" hoods for the 1957 model year, Chrysler's Canadian ad agency waxed ecstatic over this great engineering advancement. That advancement came at a price. The side-opening hood may have been impractical and anachronistic, but it's unique and it looks cool. Isn't that what really matters?

I'm not a truck person, but for some reason I find the idea of exploring the Great White North in a Fargo with side-opening hood panels very appealing.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner, eh?

1949 Ford

When I was very small, we had a 1949 Ford just like the one in the illustration at right.

It was big and red and Dad drove it to work at the courthouse every morning. (Actually, it wasn't all that big, but when you're two or three, the world is built to a larger scale.) I knew from watching TV commercials that it wasn't a new car, because new cars were lower and wider and more square. I also knew that the letters on the front meant it was made by Ford. Since it was old, and red, and a Ford, that's what I called it: "the Oldredford," all the syllables run together into a single word.

I hadn't thought about the Oldredford in years, until I saw one very much like it at a charity car show on Labor Day weekend. As soon as I realized what it was, a flood of memories came over me. I remembered riding in the Oldredford. I remembered that when you put the key in, you had to push a starter button to crank the engine. Most of all, I remembered my great affection for it. The Oldredford was a happy car that produced happy memories.

Until I sat down to research this article, I had no idea what a milestone automobile the 1949 Ford actually was--Ford's first true postwar design was a critical event in its corporate history.  In fact, no less an authority than the Henry Ford Museum calls it "the Car that Saved Ford."

Stutz Cars of the 1970s

In the mid-'70s, I had a job during Christmas break working in a coin shop. One of my employers, whose name was Don, was very much into leisure suits, fancy watches, and gold jewelry. One afternoon, Don casually mentioned that he's thinking of buying a car. "A Stutz. You probably never heard of 'em."

"A Stutz Bearcat? I know what that is. They're beautiful old cars."

"It's not an antique," he corrected. "These cars are brand new. They only make 25 or 50 a year. Here, let me show you."

He handed me a glossy full-color brochure depicting the vehicle in high-class settings: ambling down a pastoral back road, parked at a country club, in the driveway of a mansion. The male model in the photos was a youngish hipster in a leisure suit, sporting a fancy watch and a lot of gold--could've been Don's twin brother. (Whoever designed the brochure sure knew his target audience!) The "Stutz" in the pictures, though, was no Bearcat.

Bearcats were all business, no nonsense sports cars. This was the exact opposite:  all nonsense, no business even pretending to be a sports car. It had typical mid-70s "personal luxury car" lines, accented with fake side-pipes and an extra helping of maximum-strength Elvis-grade kitsch. It looked like a mutant Oldsmobile Cutlass customized by Liberace.

I was stunned. How could the storied Stutz name have become attached to this ... this ... THING?

The Car Lust Lifestyle--an example

I saw this high-end customized Corvette at a charity car show on Labor Day weekend.

The gentleman who drives this Corvette understands that he doesn't really own his car--it sort of owns him.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

Great Commercials--Volkswagen "1949 Auto Show"

This VW Beetle commercial ran in the early 1970s (1974, I believe) and is one of their most memorable. Filmed in black and white to give it a "period" feel, it features cameos by some lovely old Detroit iron ... and some actors you might recognize.

Frazer Manhattan

UPDATE: Reader Alexander Jason, who makes his living as a forensic photographer, did a little forensics on Mom's photo and improved the image.  The results appear at right.  Thank you, sir!

It  was something of a legend in our family's history, from a time before I was born, spoken of in reverent tones of the sort usually reserved for prewar Bugattis and Rolls Royces.

It was my mother's first car, a brand new 1947 Frazer Manhattan.

The one surviving photo of Mom's Manhattan in the family album reveals that it was painted black and she was quite proud of owning it. My father was said to have wrecked it in 1949, while my parents were still dating. They married in 1950 and stayed married for over fifty years, so it's clear Mom didn't hold a grudge.

For a long time, that was all I knew about Frazer Manhattans. I eventually learned more, courtesy of the "Transportation" section of the Public Library.

Fire-Breathing Fairmont

You remember the Ford Squaremont--er, I mean, Fairmont--don't you? They used to be common as bugs it seemed. Basic mid-sized sedans with squarish styling, mediocre performance, indifferent build quality--typical 1970s domestic cars if ever there were. Car Lust founder Chris Hafner described the Squaremont Fairmont as:

just like a contemporary Volvo 240--except without Volvo's incredible safety record, metronomic reliability, or rock-ribbed safety quality. In terms of boxy styling and a wheezing lack of athleticism, on the other hand, the Fairmont and 240 were near-identical twins.

You don't see them anymore--they've pretty much all gone to the Great Salvage Yard in the Sky. You'd never expect to see one at a car show.

Even if you saw one at a car show, well, you couldn't imagine anyone actually restoring a Squaremont Fairmont.

Even if someone were crazy enough to restore a Squaremont Fairmont, they'd never consider turning it into a fire-breathing terror-of-the-dragstrip musclecar. That would be madness! It would be blasphemy!

4WRD-LK

The 1959 Plymouth Belvedere you see here was photographed at the Wednesday night "cruise-in" at a local ice cream store.

With its low silhouette and large tail fins, the '59 Belvedere is a prime example of Chrysler stylist Virgil Exner's "Forward Look."  This particular car has been lovingly restored. Other than the alloy wheels, its external appearance is just about exactly stock.

That's not quite the case under the hood.

Great Commercials--VW Fastback

Before he landed his breakout role in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman appeared in a 1966 television spot as a highly caffeinated spokesman for the Volkswagen Type 3 Fastback:

Great Commercials--1984 GTI

UPDATE: We now have a full English translation of the jingle, courtesy of commenter "Bobster." Thank you!

In 1964, when California-style surf rock songs about hot cars were at their peak in popularity, Ronny & the Daytonas released "G.T.O.", a lively ode to the Pontiac musclecar that became a #1 hit. Twenty years later, Volkswagen "translated" the song into German for a spot advertising the Mk. I GTI:

Lark Wagonaire

Imagine a family "crossover" with third-row seating, an optional high-horsepower supercharged engine, and the load-carrying ability of a small pickup truck--and on top of all that, it's got the world's biggest sunroof! Impossible, you say? Well ...

Here's something for you to see, it's the swingingest wagon that'll ever be. You've never seen any car to compare with the brand new Lark Daytona Wagonaire!

Great Commercials--1963 Studebaker Lark & Avanti

As our story opens, ace salesman "Sharpie McDeal" (not his name, but that's what I'm calling him) spies a customer entering his Studebaker dealership's swank modern showroom. My comments are below the fold.

Stutz Bearcat

One of my earliest objects of Car Lust was the co-star of one of my favorite TV shows.

There's a recurring character in American television which might be called "the free-lance troubleshooter." He (it's usually, but not always, a "he") may be a private detective, gunslinger, nomadic gambler, international man of mystery, reformed cat-burglar, itinerant martial arts instructor, laid-off secret agent, fugitive soldier of fortune, genetically-enhanced escapee from a mad scientist's lab, amnesia victim, or just some guy in a Corvette with lots of gas money. We follow this character (or group of characters) week after week as he solves people's problems with a combination of thrilling chase sequences, dramatic confrontations, clever improvised weapons, witty repartee, gunfire, fisticuffs, and/or large explosions. He may do it for the money, or out of generosity, or because he's chasing a long-term story arc, or just because he has nothing better to do.

My all-time favorite show of this type featured two stalwart men of action and their hot sports car, roaming the back roads of the great American West in search of problems to solve and things to blow up. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire ... the Bearcats!

The who?

Teenmobile Challenge -- Results

Thanks to all who participated in the discussion at the Teenmobile Challenge, our query of the Car Lust brain trust to find the optimal car for a new driver. We had a lively discussion involving members of the Car Lust "old guard" as well as some first-timers. In this post, I'm going to attempt to distill the various comments down to a consensus, and then (cue breathless anticipation) reveal what my own teen's first-car-on-which-he'll-be-the-primary-driver will be.

Fasten your seatbelt, make sure your seat and mirrors are correctly adjusted, let off the parking brake, put it in gear, and let's go.

 

1964 Plymouth Belvedere Wagon

Dad got our 1964 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon in 1965 or '66--he never bought new cars, always used. He and Mom drove the wheels off it until it disintegrated from rust in 1973 or '74.

The Belvedere wagon was about seventeen feet long. That's not hyperbole--it really was seventeen feet long. It was light brown (officially, "Medium Beige"), with a matching interior. The styling was nothing striking, but the straight lines and restrained trim did give it a certain blue-collar honesty, and I always liked how the rear quarter windows wrapped around to the tailgate.

It had an automatic transmission operated by a set of push-buttons on the far left end of the dashboard, which gave it a little touch of that mid-century Drive-the-Car-Of-Tomorrow-Today! vibe. Otherwise, it was a dead-conventional Detroit battleship: big V-8 (probably a 318), power steering, power brakes, leaf-spring live-axle rear end, vinyl bench seats, AM radio. It was comfortable, with a soft ride, but not flashy. No air conditioning, but it had triangular vent windows in the front doors--more of that blue-collar honesty, I suppose.

1978 Chevrolet Monza Wagon

At the end of the 1977 model year, GM discontinued the Chevrolet Vega. For 1978, the General would depend on the Vega-derived Monza to occupy the "compact" spot in the Chevy lineup. Needing a station wagon version to have a complete line, GM fitted leftover Vega wagon bodies with the "Monza S" front clip to produce the Monza Wagon.

I had one, and it was the worst car anyone in my family ever owned.

My father acquired it in 1980 from someone who worked at the Lordstown Assembly plant where it was built. The day Dad brought it home, we found an ice scraper in the glove box, an artifact of the previous owner. It was red, with a GM Assembly Division logo, and had a mysterious inscription: "GM LORDSTOWN MANAGEMENT TEAM - LET'S GET 150!"

It looked harmless enough. As late-1970s domestic cars go, the Monza Wagon was actually rather attractive.

Teenmobile Challenge

On Wednesday, July 23, my oldest son took the test for his learner's permit. It's a multiple-choice test, and this kid eats multiple-choice tests for lunch. Not much suspense--he passed. 

If all goes well, in late January he will take his license exam.

My son's impending licensure has raised the issue of what car to get a newly-minted teenage driver. Actually, we have a car already picked out for him. Still, I think it an interesting topic for discussion: what car would you give a new driver, and why?

Leave your answers in the comments. I'll collect them into a follow-up post in a few days, and give you my comments and my own answer at that time.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

"Wouldn't you really rather have a ... Maserati???"

There was an interesting comment the other day at the website of Professor Glenn Reynolds, who is better known on the Internet as "the Instapundit":

"Today, coming out from lunch, the Insta-Daughter and I saw a Maserati Quattroporte parked next to my Mazda. I thought it looked very nice, especially the interior, but the Insta-Daughter pronounced it 'ugly' and added 'I thought it was a Buick until you pointed it out.' "

Could this possibly be true? Let's look at the evidence.

Avanti

I saw my first Avanti one summer in the mid-1970s when I was 12 or 13. It must have belonged to someone who liked to golf, because it showed up at the local par-3 course at least once or twice a week. Standing out from the rococo "personal luxury" cars surrounding it, the clean-lined Avanti was a jet-age marvel that belonged in the driveway of the House of the Future.

I immediately wanted it.

In 1961, Studebaker's energetic new president, Sherwood Egbert, was working hard to turn the fading car-maker's fortunes around. He retained legendary designer Raymond Loewy to style a new "halo car" that would attract attention. Forty days later, Loewy’s team finished their design. They called it "Avanti," an Italian word meaning "forward," and what they had designed was certainly going to attract attention.

". . . Tastefully Overdone."

I saw this ride in a restaurant parking lot a couple weekends ago. It's a 1955 Buick Special that has been, shall we say, aggressively customized into a hot rod.

Every square inch of the vehicle has been pinstriped--by hand. The patterns are intricate and complex. As you can tell from the closeup of the hood below, it took some serious time and a lot of talent to do this. (The swooping Spirograph raptor is cool enough, but it's the little golfer hitting a cartoon bomb with a 1 wood that really sets it off!)

The owner of this machine clearly has a sense of humor.  Along the bottom of the left rear quarter window is an inscription: “Nothing Is Too Much . . . If It’s Tastefully Overdone.”

Words to live by.

- Cookie the Dog's Owner