Car Lust

Just A Little Neighborhood Car Show

It's the dead of winter here on the North American continent, and most of us are stuck indoors for at least a few more weeks. So what do we do to keep our automotive sanities until the buttercups bloom? How about a very short trip down Memory Lane when the days were longer and warmer?

Bellevue, Tennessee is a friendly suburb of Nashville and once a month in warm weather some local folks assemble at the Bellevue Mall parking lot to display the vehicles they've been waxing and/or working on. I had been wanting to see this car show for a few years, but never seemed to catch it. But as Fate finally dictated, I got the location, time, and date for the event together, and this show just happened to be the last one of the season, held on October 1, 2011.

There was taped music from the '50s, and a live band was making cool sounds. Somebody was cooking hot dogs and selling cold drinks, which greatly added to the spirit. Cars of many nationalities and ages were presented, and there wasn't a bad one in the bunch.

The Original Mach 5 from Speed Racer: Mach GoGoGo

(Submitted by Car Lust reader and commenter Tigerstrypes)

Who of us born in the last 50 years doesn’t know who Speed Racer is? And who didn’t want a Mach 5?

Throughout any continuity of your choice that portrays the original silhouette of the trident-nosed homage to hypersonic speeds, the Mach 5 has been raced hard, stolen, sabotaged, shot at, imitated, damaged, crashed, rebuilt, has been in turbulent waters, crashed again, rebuilt hours before a big race, and traded paint with the best and the worst that international automotive racing and shady organizations and individuals could throw at it, among many other things. This two-tone (as it should be) machine is the embodiment of the never-give-up/never-say-die attitude of the Mifune/Racer family.

Car Lust Classic--1986 Saab 900 SPG

Originally published by Chris Hafner on August 28, 2008.

This is the big one, the big Kahuna, the lustiest of my Car Lusts. One year and nearly 300 posts into this blog, we've finally reached my favorite car. I've made a point of only writing about cars that genuinely inspire my passion, and in the process I've repeatedly bared my various automotive psychoses. Well, this car cuts right to the quick of everything I am. It is an inseparable part of my very soul.

Yes, it's a Saab 900--best-known for its center console-mounted ignition key switch, and slightly lesser-known for its quirky unreliability. To unbiased observers, the Saab 900 has a weak chin and a truly curious hunchback profile that looks oddly lumpen and mollusk-like. Like a stranger Renault Fuego, if that's possible. Sure, Saabs of this era were known for their durability and winter traction, but what makes them even remotely lust-worthy?

To read about what made the 900 SPG Lust-worthy, and to comment, please visit the original post.

Car Lust Classic--Saab 99

Originally published by Chris Hafner on September 6, 2007.

... Back in the 1960s, when huge, rear-wheel-drive American cars ruled with their blunt-object V-8s, Saab was serving its miniscule cult of fans with tiny front-wheel-drive cars powered by two-stroke engines (envision the smoky, ZING-ZING-ZING engine in your weed whacker). Even once Saab decided to go conventional, the company replaced the two-stroke with a V-4--a design so odd that virtually no other semi-modern manufacturer has dared to use it....

Everything changed for Saab with the 99--the car that launched the company into its own modern era....

Click here to read the rest of the original post, and to leave your comments.

Car Lust Classic--Saab Sonett III

Originally published by That Car Guy (Chuck) on February 24, 2010.

... I'd like to pay tribute to the Saab that I hold dear and true. From my high school days of wanting a true "image" sports car, as well as getting away from all the same cars my friends had, I chased after the Saab Sonnet III more than once.

Its styling has been called Italian-inspired, and for good reason. These cars were, and still are, stunningly beautiful to the eyes. What other car could wear this shade of lime green and get away with it? In fact, the color and the car seem to compliment each other, in my opinion. This is the Euro version; after 1972, we got some really nasty bumpers on them ...

Click here to read the rest of the original post, and to leave your comments.

"A little driving on a Saturday night..."

Not too long ago, I was driving along at night listening to the radio when the oldies station played one of my favorite one-hit wonders, "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'N' the Tears. Suddenly, it was once again a May evening in 1988...

The 2011 Nashville British Car Club Show

It's déjà vu all over again... 366 days have elapsed, but the time passed feels like it's been about an hour. Even the weather is the same as last year--sunny and 82 degrees.

I'm back at the Parthenon in Nashville to see the 2011 Nashville British Car Club Show, and I'm even looking at some of the same cars from 2010.

You may remember last year's 2010 Nashville British Car Club Show also here on Car Lust. The biggest difference between these two classic car shows was that there seemed to be a lot more cars last year. Or, were these entries just spread farther apart? Either way, there was plenty of room to roam between these amazingly preserved automotive specimens from the British Empire.

The Silver Bullet

This design for an electric-powered car was my submission to the League of Retired Automobile Designers' show at the Studebaker National Museum last year.

1989-1994 BNR-32 Nissan Skyline GT-R

Submitted by Tigerstrypes

Ladies and gentlemen, meet "Godzilla," as coined by the Australian motoring press (allegedly Wheels magazine). Overhyped?

• Nurburging record-shattering  performance (8'20" by Nissan; Best Motoring magazine managed was 8'22"38)

• Japan Touring Car Championship dominator from the get-go (29 wins out of 29 races!)

• 1991-’92 Bathurst 1000 winner (with a turbocharged 2.6 I-6 vs V8 equipped competition)

• First Japanese car to win Spa 24 hours in France in 1991.

• The Heat Treatments Drag R32 Skyline GT-R, driven by Reece McGregor of New Zealand, broke the world record for the fastest AWD over a 1/4 mile with a 7.57 at 305.96 km/h (190.11 mph) at the Willowbank Dragway in Australia in 2007.

Goggomobil Dart

If Elroy Jetson had built a go-kart, it probably would have looked a lot like this.

This is not a prop from a forthcoming live-action remake of The Jetsons, it's a real-world production sports car: the Goggomobil Dart, assembled in Sydney, Australia, and sold from 1959 to 1961.