Car Lust

May 13 Weekly Open Thread

During the May Days Blowout Sales Spectacular here at Car Lust Cars-R-Us, every customer is entitled to complimentary coffee, root beer, and sugar cookies--no purchase necessary--and our friendly and knowledgable sales staff dosen't wear hideous lesiure suits or use high pressure sales tactics.

Found something you like? Excellent! Lets sit and chat a spell while the service department finishes the dealer prep on your new R3 Avanti. The topic of the day is whatever you want it to be.

If you're anywhere within semi-reasonable driving distance of Seattle, we hope you'll join Chris Hafner, Anthony Cagle, and your fellow readers for the "First Annual Car Lust Drive-In Meetup" at the Greenwood Car Show on June 29.

Finally, a brief tech note: a couple of months ago, TypePad upgraded the blog's comment spam filter. The new software does a much better job of keeping out the counterfeit watches and Nigerian investment bankers, but it also occasionally gets overenthusiastic and blocks legitimate comments. If you leave a brilliant, insightful comment on one of our posts only to have it vanish without a trace--and your screen name isn't something obviously bogus like "CheapPlymouthCricketLamboDoorKit"--don't worry, we check the spam comments for "false positives" and will eventually rescue it from the dumpster.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

(Photo obtained from the Station Wagon Forum.)

The First Annual Car Lust Drive-In Meetup and May 6 Weekly Open Thread

We here at Car Lust are a far-flung bunch, typing in our missives from various points in the continental US (and elsewhere), but despite our common devotion to all these Lustable vehicles, most of us have never actually met in person.

And this event probably won't change that.

But I thought I'd toss this out there and see if there's any interest from the hordes of Car Lust aficionados out there who might be in the mood for a road trip of whatever length in order to indulge in our little habit and meet some of the other folks who frequent this blog. Thus, I give you the Greenwood Car Show, coming to a neighborhood near, well, me, this June 29. Yes, it's here in Seattle, far up in the northwest corner of the country, so I don't hold much hope that many of you will drop what you're doing in late June and drive up to our rainy little corner just to see a bunch of cars and meet a couple of the Car Lust staff. But who knows, maybe some of the more local people might take a day out for a little Car Lust interaction.

Feel free to drive your Lustable car and present it; the GCS isn't a terribly formal event and we plan to be showing a couple of our rides, none of them particularly valuable. But if we get at least 10 people to show up we can all park together. So, if you have a mind to come up for a little meet and greet, email the Car Lust staff (contact info off to the right there===>) and perhaps we can arrange out own Car Lust grouping.

And, of course, feel free to discuss anything else auto-related.

Credit: Got the photo from the West Seattle Blog.

April 22 Weekly Open Thread: The "New Car" Blues

Our recent $100,000 Fantasy Garage Challenge has inspired me to seek out and find a new vehicle. I won't say the brand so that nobody gets offended or sued, but I will say that so far, the experience has been a borderline nightmare.

On my first visit to the dealer, they said they can't discount any new ones at all. Then I got on the internet, and saw that they are advertising a $1,500 discount or more on all of them (after a "Dealer Fee" of $598 is added).

Now I'm getting the usual runarounds... "There's no markup to work with," and "It's the time of the year where everybody wants one."

There was the perennial favorite, "There aren't any incentives on them right now." Then I got hammered with, "What are you going to trade in?" (I never trade.) Also, "Who do you have your financing with?" (It's a cash deal, folks.) Seems they're exploring every other opportunity to stick me as well. At this point, I'm seriously thinking about forgetting the whole thing.

But the biggest "pisser" has been when I have twice placed a vehicle request all over the Middle Tennessee region, and the local dealer sees it. They saw the requests and quickly called me back to say, "You won't get a better deal than we will give you," and, "You need to come back in so we can toss some numbers around."

April 15 Weekly Open Thread: "'Leisure Suits and Avocado Ovens' Theme Week"

April 15 is a very historic day. The Titanic sank, Abraham Lincoln passed, and our federal income taxes are due. So to cheer things up a bit today, we're announcing a time travel "Theme Week" back to the 1970s.

We're taking some light looks at a few automotive subjects, staying silent about that little thing that happened in Washington, and we'll totally avoid the dreaded "D" word as well.

Plus you won't even see the word "Vega."

Now get out your CB radios, squeeze into that blue leisure suit, and climb into the Gremlin for a few days.

Oh and today, this is also the place where we can talk about anything even remotely concerning cars, trucks, bikes, station wagons, convertibles, and stuff.

--That Car Guy (Chuck)

Image Credit: Our totally hip cruising van image is from WIUX.org.

April 8 Weekly Open Thread: The More Things Change... (Episode 1, Part 2)

Yesterday we showed three similar views from recent-model cars, and everybody was invited to decipher what was what. Today, we reveal which is which.

The first image is from a Subaru Imprezza.

April 8 Weekly Open Thread: The More Things Change... (Episode 1, Part 1)

I'd like to start a comment series on car design, if I may. That's because people are saying that lots of today's cars look the same. We're not talking rebadging here, but makes and models from just about everybody.

This series will focus on parts and pieces of cars, and you get to guess who made them. On Mondays the images will be presented, and participation is encouraged. On Tuesdays, the answers (and image credits) will be revealed, and any more discussion is welcome. This won't be a weekly feature like our Carspotters' Challenges, it will just pop up from time to time.

In fair disclosure, I had to reverse two of these images (The third and fourth) so that they all faced the same way. But since both sides of these cars should be mirrored, the reversed images should accurately depict the passengers' side.

Our first post will focus on C Pillars, that area where the rear door meets the roofline. Lately, I've noticed many "hockey stick" looking designs that all look the same in this area. So if you can, please look at these images and see if you can tell what 2012 or 2013 model cars they are from:

April 1 Weekly Open Thread: Don't Open That Door!

We've all seen it played over and over in hundreds of movies and TV shows: The hero or heroine is trying to escape from the bad guy, monster, zombie, alien, TV critic, etc. They rush to a car -- either theirs or any random car sitting nearby which miraculously almost always has the key left in the ignition -- and start it up. . . .only to find it won't start! After thumping the steering wheel and looking at the approaching fiend a couple of times, the car miraculously starts just as the bad guy reaches it! Saved! (loud clip, btw)

I'm not entirely certain when this particular cliché got started. Some have argued that it all began with Double Indemnity when the director, after his personal car didn't start on the set, decided that a little more drama was required and had the actors pretend to have difficulty starting the car a couple of times before really turning it over for real and speeding away. This made sense to me growing up because, let's face it, anyone over the age of 30 or so remembers when cars quite often did have trouble starting. This scenario has gradually changed as cars have become far more reliable and the idea of, say, a Honda not starting up is kind of unthinkable.

David Drucker 1949-2013

In 1971 an automotive journalist described David Drucker to an editor/publisher as having "a debilitating passion for cars."

Alas, nothing came of that recommendation. Still during a 30+ year career in consumer electronics journalism Drucker seized the occasional opportunity to contribute to Automobile Magazine, Autoweek, American Iron, and other publications.

Blogging for Car Lust allows him to fulfill a lifelong dream of writing about cars for no money, and with no deadline.

That is David Drucker's biography here at Car Lust. Last Friday came the sad news that David had passed away. 

His friend Todd Stuart Phillips wrote on Facebook, "This morning my friend, David Drucker, exited the bus and passed away from this circle of the world, but not from the hearts and souls who were enriched by his friendship, warmth, and frequent examples of how to be a good, kind, musical, funny, loyal person, increasing the happiness around him and making the most out of the simple but priceless pleasures. This long, strange trip will never be the same without him. So we shall sing the songs he sang, and try to be as peaceful and loving with our fellows, as so effortlessly was David."

Car Lust will be paying homage to David this week and remembering him by featuring some of his excellent posts--maybe even writing a comment or two along the way.

Rest in Peace.

--The Car Lust Contributors

(Photo by Cliff Monges, used with permission.)

March 18th Weekly Open Thread: The Borg Edition

With this entry, we continue (sort of) our series of Star Trek Cars, although this one may actually be more deliberately Trekkian in origin than those others. For those unfamiliar with this whole "Borg" thing, I direct readers to the relevant Wikipedia page:

Borg is a collective proper noun for a fictional alien race that appears in various incarnations of the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones of the collective or the hive. A pseudo-race, dwelling in the Star Trek universe, the Borg force other species into their collective and connect them to "the hive mind"; the act is called assimilation and entails violence, abductions, and injections of cybernetic implants. The Borg's ultimate goal is "achieving perfection".

I actually find this to be a fascinating concept, something of a melding of different science fiction end-of-the-world scenarios. Instead of a purely biological (e.g., Invasion of the Body Snatchers) or machine (e.g., The Terminator, The Matrix) entity or collective taking over humanity, with the Borg we have a combination of the two. I should also point out, however, that this isn't an entirely new concept. Among probably others with which I am unfamiliar, the Dr. Who series also had a species of cyborg -- the Cybermen -- attempting to absorb other species into their collective, although the Borg took the concept to a higher level, being possessed of a 'hive mind" rather than justa large collection of autonomous beings with a common goal.

Admittedly, this is all just a nerdy prologue to the car of the week provided here. I have no idea what the story behind this car is; the photos were sent to me by a colleague from the University of North Dakota. I've not even determined what make/model/year it originally was. Apparently, this "Borg car" has often been seen parked near the engineering building, and she decided to snap a couple of photos. An engineering student's project car? A Trekkie's project car?

Or could it be. . . .

Ranking priorities in buying a car

I'm going to inturrupt our onging $100,000 challenge for a moment with a somewhat related thought.

When you are looking for a new vehicle (new or used, new to you), how do you prioritize what is important to you in selecting the vehicle? 

What is most important in making your decision - gas mileage, safety, cargo capacity, reliability, weather considerations, style, cost, size etc?

Feel free to pile on other considerations as well.

 

And since we didn't have an open thread on Monday, toss that here in the comments if you have something else worth discussing.