Car Lust

1966-1967 Mercury Comet

Okay, you're going to need to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and steel yourselves. I have something shocking to say, and you're going to need every bit of fortitude you can muster just to cope with it. Are you ready?

Okay, here goes: Mercury used to make interesting cars.

Pardon me for blowing your mind. I know we've all become used to seeing a Mercury lineup stocked exclusively with somnolent, chrome-laden, and drearily redundant Ford clones. Mercury is most remarkable for its application of pretty cool names to vehicles that have no particular reason to exist. In an era in which way too many cars are named alphanumerically, Mercury actually bothers to give its cars evocative names. Milan, Mariner, Sable, Mountaineer--these are all great car names, but it's a shame that they are wasted on cars that bring nothing unique to the vehicular world.

1974 AMC Matador Oleg Cassini

The AMC Matador is a particular favorite of mine--I have both sung its praises and defended its honor from those who would impugn it.

After the most recent Matador post, reader Gary Thoreson dropped me an e-mail describing his Matador. It's the prettiest Matador I've ever seen, bar none, and the story behind the car is truly touching.

Here's Gary's story:

Submitted by Gary Thoreson

It was Feb. 19, 1999 in Abbotsford, B.C., and my Dad, Edwin Alberta Thoreson, became the proud owner of a 1974 Oleg Cassini Matador. The past owner, according to the transfer papers, was a man by the name of Henry Edge. The transfer papers had also stated the car was white in color. I believe this was the original color, but since then it had undergone a complete color change and was now green. The original gold vinyl top had been repainted white, but the front grille and base color for the hub caps were still gold--that didn't match too well with the green.

Mercury Marauder

The images that leap to mind when most people hear the words "muscle car" are generally not "business suit" or "family man" or "middle manager". The association is generally more along the lines of "t-shirt" or "gearhead" or "line worker." It makes sense, as the classic muscle car era is usually assigned to the time between the introduction of the GTO in 1964 and somewhere in the early 1970s when the last of the great big block, high compression V-8s rolled off the assembly line.

Like the GTO, most classic muscle cars followed a familiar pattern: take a cheap base model coupe, strip it down to its essentials, squeeze in as big an engine as possible, and make enough aftermarket performance parts to allow the average mechanically inclined 20-something to turn it into a quarter-mile monster.

But when the concept of the muscle car began to take shape in the late '50s (some would argue earlier; these 'origins' discussions can be tricky), it had much different connotations. Power went with luxury, and was only rightfully available to those who could afford both. Before Goats and Judges and Chargers and Super Sports prowled the streets, the kings of the power hill were 300s, Galaxies, and Impalas: big, heavy 4-door sedans with options and comfort galore. To drive one of these meant you'd made it; you could afford not only power but all of the high-end doodads that manufacturers had to offer. Power and prestige went hand in hand. Yes, before those miserable upstarts came along, the Big Cars ruled the power roost and everybody knew it.

But alas, physics being what it is, power-to-weight ratios eventually won the day and the big luxurious muscle cars largely went the way of the dodo. Almost. Throughout the years, at least one manufacturer kept the old concept alive, if only in short bursts. And so I give you the Mercury Marauder: the thinking man's muscle car.

1977 Pontiac Trans Am SE

Sally Field: "Does this thing move?"
Burt Reynolds: "Oh, yeah."

---

Like Smokey and the Bandit, the movie that made it famous, the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am is easy to dismiss as a buffoonish, overblown mockery of a once-great art form. Certainly both the movie and the muscle car are obvious, gauche, and deeply imbued with the cheesiness characteristic of the 1970s. Personally, I think that is at the root of their appeal.

Last year I wrote a series of posts on Poseur Muscle Cars, honoring such punchless extroverts as the Ford Mustang II, Chevy Monte Carlo SS, Dodge Magnum XE, Ford Gran Torino, and Spirit-based AMC AMX. The '77 Trans Am would seem like an obvious candidate for Poseur Muscle Car (dis)honor--after all, as the Trans Am's horsepower ratings sagged in the mid-1970s, the body kits and graphics kept getting flashier and gaudier to compensate.

The difference? The Trans Am was the real thing--the car most of those poseur muscle cars wanted to be when they grew up. Compared to its contemporaries, the Trans Am was still a potent car. Relatively speaking, it still brought the thunder.

Insufferable Blasphemy!

Since I have already set the precedent of responding to online articles in a completely un-timely way, I may as well respond to the Vehix.com article "Prepare to Get Scared: Top Ten Ugliest Cars in American History." The article ran more than a month ago, so I obviously have my finger firmly on the pulse of the automotive blogosphere.

Author Nathan Adlen does a nice job in producing a well-written riff on pretty familiar theme. Bashing ugly, terrible, and generally unpopular cars is fertile ground for a writer. I have read a bunch of articles on the subject over the years, and I own a few books that do the same--despite my bias towards defending bad cars, these books and articles are usually good for a few good chuckles. And, of course, if taking easy potshots at bad cars is a crime, I'm guilty. Adlen's piece is little different from that standpoint. It's witty, and he gets in some well-turned phrases. No, my beef is with his choice of cars.

Dodge Li'l Red Express

As we've said many times in this space, the mid-1970s were a fallow period for automotive performance. Emissions concerns robbed the all-conquering muscle cars of their horsepower; spiraling insurance rates made them too expensive to own; and fuel shortages forced customers to consider lighter, less powerful, more economical cars.

Trucks, however, were another story. Less fettered by governmental regulations than their automotive brothers, many full-size trucks sported bigger, easier-breathing engines that helped make them a performance match for the fastest cars around--at least up to 80-100 mph, where the trucks' brick-like aerodynamics put a stop to the party. For example, the late-1970s Chevy full-size pickup was available with a 454 cubic-inch big-block V-8 that hadn't been as strangled by pollution controls as automotive engines. That certainly didn't help clear the L.A. air, but it did make the pickup as quick as the Corvette and Trans-Am of the era.

Pontiac GTO Judge

Has there ever been a badder, more intimidating, more colorful name for a car than "Judge?" With apologies to Boss Mustangs and Plymouth Road Runners, I think "GTO Judge" is the unquestioned champion in this category.

Pontiac's dead-serious GTO had kick-started the muscle car revolution in 1964. Big, fast cars were around before the GTO--the Chrysler 300 letter-series cars were among the most famous--but the combination of the 389-cubic-inch Pontiac V-8 with the attractive intermediate-size Tempest body proved irresistible. The Ford Mustang sparked the pony car class later that year, and suddenly performance cars were hot. Nearly every carmaker had a muscle car in its lineup--even AMC got into the game with the S/CRambler--but in a sea of Cyclones, Chevelles, and Chargers, the GTO stood out as the first, the most famous, and one of the best-selling.

1970-1974 Dodge Challenger

The new Dodge Challenger is an undeniably nice piece of equipment. With a stiff rear-wheel-drive platform and two powerful Hemi engines shared with the Dodge Charger, Chrysler 300, and the late, lamented Dodge Magnum, the Challenger brings burly and belligerent American muscle to the performance car table. It is faster and more comfortable than the legendary original--and can actually change directions from time to time.

And yet ... and yet, it still doesn't hold a candle to the original.

Born in 1970 as Dodge's incredibly late entry to the pony car market dominated by the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro, and populated by the Plymouth Barracuda, AMC Marlin, Pontiac Firebird, and Mercury Cougar, the Challenger made up for its lateness with raw power and what passed at the time for luxury.

GMC Syclone/GMC Typhoon

Dropping a hot engine into an everyday vehicle is a time-honored method of creating a hero car. The original Pontiac GTO is one such example, as is virtually every other 1960s muscle car. We've seen this practice continue today; for example, turbocharged rally-inspired engines have transformed humble Mitsubishi and Subaru compact cars into performance legends.

But of all the possible foundations for a world-beating performance car, where would the compact Chevy S-10 pickup rank? Certainly the cringing little S-10, the replacement for the unloved Luv, was a useful little truck, but it doesn't strike me as a vehicle with a great deal of untapped performance potential. I mean, really--what's a more unlikely base for a world-class performer? An Isuzu I-Mark? Perhaps a Chrysler Town & Country minivan? An Amphicar?

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

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.

1970 Chevrolet Camaro

Is it really possible that not a single Camaro has appeared in Car Lust up to this point? That's hard to believe since I've lusted after virtually every Camaro made since the model's debut in 1967. Yes, I briefly had a mullet in the early 1990s. I wore it proudly, thank you.

The 1970 Camaro, though, in my mind is not a mullet car. At least it doesn't have to be a mullet car; to me, the 1970 Camaro is desirable because of its graceful, understated, almost European lines that stood in stark contrast to the aggressively blocky and testosterone-filled styling and graphics that characterized its Detroit stablemates at the time.

1974 Dodge Monaco

The title of this post is a bit of a misnomer, since nobody actually remembers or lusts after the 1974 Dodge Monaco for its own merits. No, the '74 Monaco is most famous for its role as the Bluesmobile in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, in which the humble Mopar full-size sedan became one of the most famous movie cars of all time and easily the most influential car in molding my questionable automotive tastes.

My love for huge American sedans, my passion for beaters, my odd predilection for 1970s Mopars, my belief that "Hold On, I'm Coming" by Sam & Dave is the best driving song of all time--these are all thanks to my early exposure to the Bluesmobile.

". . . 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

1973-1977 Chevrolet Malibu

The mid-1970s Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu lived in a no-man's land for Malibus, coming as it did after the legendary muscle-car Chevelles and Malibus of the late 1960s, and just before the popular ground-breaking Malibus that debuted in 1978. In that context, it's difficult to argue that the mid-1970s Malibus were anything other than gutless, tawdry, disappointing (and, to me, stunningly desirable) dinosaurs so typical of the era. In fact, I made that very point a few months ago in excoriating the Malibu's fancypants sibling, the adorably atrocious Chevelle Laguna Type S-3 454.

It is true that the mid-1970s Malibus were vastly less powerful and purposeful in line than their predecessors, yet bulkier, more wasteful, and more bloated than their successors. Big on the outside, small on the inside, and slow and floaty regardless of trim choice, even a fresh-off-the-showroom-floor 1973 Malibu would be a hopeless anachronism today.

Car Lust--Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1

When Chevrolet first showed off its "King of the Hill" Corvette, the giant-killing Corvette ZR-1, in the late 1980s I went completely slack-jawed. The C4 Corvette was the prettiest Corvette since the early 1970s, a world-class handler, and an excellent sports cars. It was already an object of my lust; but the ZR-1 took things to the next level.

General Motors had acquired Lotus in 1986, amid fears that GM would dilute the Lotus flavor. On the contrary, GM used Lotus' expertise to fortify the Corvette. With the ZR-1, Chevy tossed out the trusty but antediluvian pushrod, two-valve-per-cylinder L98 V-8 with something just a tiny bit less primitive. The replacement LT5 engine shared the basic dimensions of the three-decade-old Chevy small-block V-8, but featured modern technology in the form of four valves per cylinder and a four overhead cams. At the time, four-valve-per-cylinder DOHC engines were typically small four-cylinders that needed the technology to help offset their diminutive displacement. Only the most exotic six- and eight-cylinder engines could boast those upgrades. Combining the fierce top-end power of 32 valves and four overhead cams with the low-end grunt of a 5.7-liter V-8 yielded a legendary result--massive output, excellent tractability, and bulletproof refinement.

Car Lust--Ford Mustang Boss 302

I've been doing a little bit of introspection lately, and in the course of that introspection I've realized I've done a really poor job of representing muscle cars. Okay, I started off with a few bona fide muscle cars, but after that most of the muscle car-related Car Lusts have been poseur muscle cars, or cars like the Chevy Cavalier Z24 or Shelby Charger. Don't get me wrong--I love those cars--but frankly my inattention to true, glorious muscle cars is scandalous and unrepresentative.

I've also realized that the only love I've thrown the Ford Mustang's way, in the form of dubbing the Mustang II a poseur muscle car, was pretty backhanded. Happily, Anthony Cagle responded with a post extolling the virtues of his Mustang II. Well, no more of this shabby treatment.

Random Dodge Magnum XE Love

While I was looking up the commercials for the Shelby Charger Car Lust, I stumbled across this for-sale walkaround of a 1978 Dodge Magnum XE--a previous featured car here.

These walkaround videos always hypnotize me with their silent, languid movement, and in this case I was especially entranced. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous Magnum XE. Not many people seem to care for these, so I doubt anybody (including potential sellers) really cares, but this is a beautiful car.

--Chris H.

Car Lust--Shelby Charger GLH-S

I was all prepared to write a suitably mournful and shamed intro to this Car Lust. After all, I'm writing to honor the Shelby Charger GLH-S and, by association, its less acclaimed Dodge Omni 024, Plymouth Horizon TC3, Dodge Rampage, and Dodge Charger brethren. These are all based on the late 1970s Chrysler subcompact Omni/Horizon series, which were average bare-bones economy cars for the time--which is to say, awful by any objective standard. The early L-body Chryslers, especially, were simply Omni/Horizons with swoopy bodywork--matching unexciting mechanicals with looks that, according to mainstream motorheads, were not particularly pleasing.

But you know what? I'm not ashamed of this guilty pleasure. Anybody who has read this blog for more than a week or so knows that I like bad cars, and the Charger isn't even in the top 10 of most embarrassing car lusts I've revealed in this space. I've already shown off the closely related Omni GLH-S and (inappropriately-named) Dodge Rampage (RAMPAGE!), so none of this should come as a particular surprise.

Car Lust--Buick GNX

Sorry, all, for the slow posting this week--I'll make it up to you with a two-pack today, with one Car Lust this morning and one this afternoon.

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I'm a fan of turbochargers. It's easy to be seduced by the thrust of horsepower they provide, of course, but I'm even fond of aspects of turbocharging that other people don't care for.

Turbo lag, for instance--it's not great at a race track when you're trying to time your power application coming out of a corner, but for me that split-second delay before the wall of power hits is a delicious bit of suspense. The car feels as if it's gathering itself for a sprint; and the short delay only makes the strong pull that follows even more entertaining. The characteristic whistle of a turbocharger spinning up also annoys some, but for me it's the auditory signal that something special is going on under the hood. That whistle activates a Pavlovian response in me; but fortunately rather than a craving for dog food, it triggers a craving for horsepower.

Car Lust--1971-1974 Dodge Charger

  I'm featuring the 1971-1974 Dodge Charger today, but, after a lot of thought, I'm not dubbing it a poseur muscle car. This edition of the Charger, with its macho looks and fading power, would seem like a perfect companion for overstuffed luminaries such as the Ford Gran Torino and the Chevy Monte Carlo SS. But at the risk of offending those who are concerned with trivial concepts such as "consistency," "fairness," and "rational thinking" I'm going to hold up the Charger and laud it on its own merits. Heck, everybody already knows I'm inconsistent, unfair, and irrational.

So, let's break down the Charger's qualifications for poseur muscle car status.

Our Cars--1983 Pontiac Trans-Am

Submitted by Tass Sontag

I love the Trans-Am's looks, and now with a stroked 383 cubic-inch V-8 and other goodies, my Garmin GPS system clocked it doing 161 MPH before I got afraid to do more. It's a real testament to the body design.

Most of the interior pieces came from junkyard Camaros. Yes, it's badly in need of a paint job. It's all go, no show!

--Tass Sontag

1978 Ford Mustang II

Submitted by Anthony J. Cagle

I acquired this car back in 1990 while on my way from Seattle to northern California for some archaeological fieldwork. My month-and-a-half old 1984 Bronco II's engine seized up in central Oregon and, not being able to afford an on-the-spot engine rebuild, I swapped the dealer for something off their lot.

Up until that point I'd not paid much attention to Mustang II's--like many others, I thought of them as "glorified Pintos" and "that thing that Farrah-Fawcett drove"--but this one was in mint condition with only 43k miles on it. It really was owned by the proverbial little old lady who drove it to church on Sundays. And it had a V8! So the deal went down and I drove off with a 1978 Mustang II.

Dodge Magnum SRT-8

Since I poked so much fun at Chrysler recently with the Inappropriately Named Chrysler Products series, I figure I'm overdue to feature an Appropriately Named Chrysler Product--the Dodge Magnum SRT-8.

Because full throttle easily transforms the Magnum into an explosive projective--one that in certain hands could be used in an anti-social fashion--I think the name is well-deserved.

Such was not the case with the previous Dodge Magnum covered in this space.

Despite Chrysler's recent upheaval, the automaker has been widely hailed for its leadership in returning traditional front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, V-8-powered large cars to the market. The focus of that attention has been the flashy gangster-ready Chrysler 300, the beefy Dodge Charger, or the upcoming muscle-car-revival Dodge Challenger.