Now This Is Funny...

I started a post where I thought that one cool thing Buick could do to change their image would be to come out with a new Grand National. Drop a turbocharged V6 onto the Camaro frame, change the bodywork, and BOOM! New Grand National.

Lo and behold!

Buick Avista.

It's in the concept phase, so GM still has plenty of time to kill this idea and come out with *another* crossover SUV that no one will buy. But yes, a 400-horsepower, rear-drive Buick? Kill the "Avista" tag, call it the Grand National, and retire on the profits.

Heck, even *I* would consider a GM product for the first time in 20 years...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #122

Getting back to "Jay's Mythical Garage" and "what Jay would do if he won crazy stupid money in the lottery to fill said mythical garage," here's another in a series of cars that I would love to pick up and/or make *better*...

 [Pic from actual, honest-to-goodness DMC website...]

Here's the kicker: Low-mileage variants are selling, used, for insane amounts of money. Cars that, quite frankly, were never that great to begin with are selling for 2-3 times the original price. Base price was around $25K, which was comparable to a new Corvette. Interestingly enough, used Deloreans are *still* the price of a new Corvette. I blame Back to the Future and/or The Wedding Singer...

Obviously, the Renault 2.8L V6 would have to go, but what in its place? As a recent Mopar fan, the Hellcat V8 would be amazing to stuff into the DMC - 700+ horsepower might cause those gullwings to take flight, though... Going back to the Corvette, the stock 6.2L V8 in the new 'Vettes puts out 455 HP to start; might be a place to look as well. Of course, we could get all kinds of crazy retro and stuff a Grand National turbocharged 3.8L V6 under the hood, if we wanted power that stayed relatively true to the original...

I think whatever was chosen would have to be an American engine, most likely an 8 cylinder. It would be wrong to have the DMC making Ferrari-like rumblings or ultra-quiet Mercedes AMG madness, as would one of the twin-turbo Japanese 6s like the Supra or Skyline GT-R. Maybe go with a Chevy 350 like would have been done in the '80s?

It's a fun hypothetical, isn't it?

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #121

Woo. Been a while since I posted anything. I've been trying to wrap my head around political and other stuff, and haven't been able to say much without incoherent sputtering. With that said, here's the latest in the car pics. Continuing with a trend, here's another car that would find its way into the other Jay's Garage...

Third generation Toyota Celica. Learned to drive standard on one of these. Liftback, not coupe. Dunno why I loved the car so much, other than it was a 5-speed and rear wheel drive and just a stupid fun car at a time when cars really weren't all that much fun. Growing up as a child of the 1980s, I watched the Thunderbird go from the bloated '70s land yacht to the neutered six-banger in the '80s. Dodge eschewed pretty much all V8s in favor of 4-cylinder turbos. And GM? Putting the Iron Duke 2.5L I4 in the third generation Camaro is an abomination unto Nuggan.

When gas economy forced out the big V8, pure raw power was out. Cars like the Celica, Nissan 280 ZX, Volkswagen GTI and others started to fill the niche. They weren't as powerful as the generation of muscle cars that preceded them, but they could be made to corner pretty well; if you couldn't pin your buddy to the passenger seat through raw acceleration, you could make him grab blindly for the oh s**t handle as you tore around corners.

And I'm not telling whether or not I got the inside rear wheel of my '86 GTI off the ground in a tight corner...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #120

Been a hectic week, so car pr0n is all we get, sorry...

One of my personal favorites when it comes to automobiles in general are the sleepers. You know, the cars that look perfectly normal but have a ridiculously oversize engine stuffed under the hood. Or a redonkulous blower/turbo/supercharger. Nitrous. JATO. That sort of thing. With that said, here's one similar to a car a friend owned:

1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S. His was tan, with a black vinyl top. Rather than the stock Olds mag wheels, it had plain aluminum hubcaps and whitewall tires, too. Under the hood, though, was an Olds Rocket 350. A respectable 325 horsepower (remember, the holy grail for muscle cars at the time was a 1:1 cubic inch to horsepower rating) gave the "S" way more power than it needed.

And the power hit the rear wheels by way of a Hurst Dual Gate shifter, sometimes called the "His and Hers". Park, Reverse and Neutral were standard, but then the shifter split. On one side (the "Hers", remember this was still the 1960s when it rolled out) was the standard D-2-1 configuration that required no input from the driver. On the other side, pre-dating "autostick" type transmissions by several decades, was a 1-2-3 configuration that required the car be placed in "1" at a stop, then manually shifted into second and third.

We were out one night and my buddy had had a couple too many, so he let me drive his Cutlass. It had transmission problems and wouldn't shift right, so he advised me to take it out on the highway and floor it - this often solved the problem. I hit 90 MPH (the statute of limitations on speeding should be up, right?) and backed off, thinking that the car had finally shifted out of second and into third.

He chided me, because the car had only shifted into second gear at that point...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #119

Okay, so the mythical parking garage I'm going to build when I hit the SuperMegaPowerAwesomeBall is going to have a generous section for oversize vehicles. Like this Roadtrek:

Oh, sure, there'd be a larger motorhome no doubt, either a diesel pusher or a larger Class C, but one of the sleek Class B's like the RoadTrek would be an awesome road trip machine. Consider, too, that there would most likely be multiple homes involved, I could see spending quite a bit of time on the road. The size of the Class B makes it *much* easier to maneuver on the highway and even in small cities, but it still has enough comfort to stay overnight in a campground, WalMart parking lot or truck stop/rest area.

Sure, for longer exploration or week-long stays I'd want a larger motorhome with bump-out sections for the bed and couch/dinette and a lift on the back for the Harley. But to travel between the cabin in Montana and the ranch in Texas? Take the family out to California to visit their cousins and see the U.S. at the same time? I think the Class B would be just the thing. The true appeal is that it's just large enough to sleep 2-4 of us, but small enough to navigate most anywhere smaller than NYC/Boston/DC.

No worries, other options will appear as well...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #118

So, we're onto the next "lottery" car for me. This one's one of the odder ducks in the mythical G. garage:

1970s Lincoln Mark V. One of my aunts had a mid-'70s Mark V, in the deep burgundy red color. She watched my sister and I occasionally when we were growing up, and I loved hearing that Aunt Mary would be watching us, because there was a chance she'd need to run errands. Running errands meant that we got to ride in the Lincoln.

It was such a treat, I would often go whole minutes without teasing my sister...

I don't know exactly what it was about the car that just struck me. It might have been the wide white walls, or the continental kit on the trunk, or maybe just the super plush seats. I remember it riding like a cloud; given the poor road conditions in New England from snow and ice, the car must have had one heck of a suspension. While Cadillacs are my first love for luxury cars, a Mark V would have to be part of the motor pool just for Aunt Mary...

It's one of the few non-muscle Ford's I'd be interested in, actually...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #117

Okay, so I took a week off last week. I was on vacation. I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!

Okay, that may have been Jake Blues, now that I think about it...

So, the next car series. I've done my favorites. I've done the year-matched variants. I've been trying to think of what interesting spin I could put on the weekly car pic. Obviously, it's gotta be something unique, right?

And then it came to me. Lottery cars. If I hit the $300 million Powerball, one of the things I'd do would be to build a massive house on several hundred acres. Attached to that house would be a multi-story parking garage. I'd have several dozen cars, easy, and a mechanic on retainer to care for them all. With that said, what would make up this garage?

1959 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz convertible. It would cost me dearly, but I would have one restored from the ground up, as close to original as possible. I'd also have a second one built using a modern donor frame, engine, transmission, etc. I'd wager with the Dodge supercharged 6.2L Hemi V8 under the hood, fiberglass body panels, etc. it would move pretty well. Or go old-school and drop a GM 454 big block in it. Hard to say what color I'd want - the salmon color is more rare, but damn that red looks good.

It'd be a great car to drive in parades and such. And the fins. Oh, the fins. The late, great Harley Earl -  the man we can thank for the Corvette - designed this beauty, and it shows. It's a reminder of a different time in America, when you could be the first on your block to have a car the size of your block...

There's something about a Cadillac, there really is. I briefly owned a 1983 Coupe DeVille, at a time when people seemed incapable of driving around me without crashing into me. After two bad wrecks (one totaled my Toyota van, the other came close to totaling my Plymouth Sundance) in 8 months, I went out and bought the biggest, heaviest chunk of Detroit iron I could find.

One summer, going up to a friend's cabin in Maine, we brought up a full complement of camping gear - tent, air mattress, sleeping bags, camp chairs, etc. on top of clothes, food, and other necessities for the long weekend. There was plenty of room in the trunk - despite four snow tires already being there. Oh, and believe it or not, the car got low 20s for gas mileage, and with a 25-gallon tank had a range well in excess of 500 miles.

Sadly, it was 14 years old at the time and took more time and effort to keep running than it was worth...

That is all.

Reunited...

So, I got the Toyota back. Looks pretty good, too...

Also got the final tally on the damage: $6,300. Yeah. While the initial damage didn't look too bad, apparently once the body shop took the old hatch off (they replaced with a new one rather than try to hammer the dent out) and started digging into it, the damage was far more extensive than it looked on the outside. Of course, I had an inkling that was the case, which is why I didn't drive the car after the wreck except for the appraisal...

And when I dropped the RAV4 off at the shop to be fixed, a pile of plastic parts fell out of the bumper...

Next step is trying to recover my losses. There's the deductible, for starters. $500 out of my pocket to get the car fixed in a reasonable time period. Medical bills and lost wages are next, and then what I hear is the hardest loss to recover: diminished value. My car will be worth less when I trade it in or sell it because it has been in an accident; depending on how long I hold onto it, it could be a significant amount of money. Where the 'Yota is only 6 months old, this might be worth pursuing.

Of course, if my back doesn't stop hurting that might be a moot point...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #116

Well, we reached the end of the numerical car posts. I'll have to come up with something new starting next week, I guess. I have an idea what I'm going to do, so stay tuned! For now, here's the last numerical car pic:

2016 Lamborghini Centenario. So-called because 2016 is the year Ferruccio Lamborghini would have turned 100. 760 horsepower V12. Functional hood scoops. Based loosely on the Aventador, the latest Lambo is pretty much the super car di tutti supercars (see what I did there, with the Italian?)

Yeah, it's kinda cheating going with another Lamborghini, but there weren't a lot of new models introduced in 2016. Most were concept cars, new generations of existing models, or limited-market vehicles (meaning non-US). Besides, Lamborghini. Having grown up as a teenager in the 1980s, the name "Lamborghini" conjures up images of scissor doors and cheesy racing movies.

And in the 1980s, we had Ronald Reagan as president, so excuse me for reliving that period...

That is all.

Diminishing Returns...

Six months ago I drove a Dodge Ram. 

I went to a RAV4 for better gas mileage. 

I've been driving a PT Cruiser since the accident.

(this is TheBoy's car. More on that later...)

Now I have a Versa for a rental.

If *anything* else happens, they're going to have to issue me a clown car or an MG Midget...

I really hope nothing else happens...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #115

Next week's the last in this series. Then it's onto *something* different for my Friday car pr0n. I'll figure something out soon, I guess...

2015 Acura NSX. While there was previously an NSX, there was a decade between models, so I'll count this as a new model. It's my list, I can do that...

Besides, the Acura NSX. Vehicular conveyance to Mr. Wolf. How could you possibly get any cooler? Well, a twin-turbo, 3.5L V6 certainly helps. Automobiles are getting better and better, seemingly by the year - the 1986 Chevrolet Blazer came with a 305 cubic inch V8 (5.0L) that made an anemic 170 HP (a friend had one, we looked it up). My 2015 Toyota Rav4 has a 2.5L inline 4-cylinder engine that puts out 174 HP.What a difference 30 years makes, no?

The new NSX puts out 500 HP. That's more than the Corvette Stingray (460 HP). It's less than the Z06 Corvette, though - 650 HP is hard to beat. Of course, the Challenger Hellcat has them both beat, hands down, at 707 HP. Imagine that. Over 700 horsepower in a factory car (also available as a sedan) that costs about double the price of the "standard" model. To put things in perspective, the 1990 Corvette ZR1 had 375 HP and cost $60K - also double the cost of the standard 'Vette.

Think about that. If you bought a 2015 Dodge Charger Hellcat for $60K (in 2016 dollars), it would stop a mudhole in the rear end of the 1990 Corvette ZR1 (hailed as a Ferrari-beater when it rolled out) and drive it dry. For the same price (although adjusted for inflation it's not even close).

Oh, and you could do it with the whole family on board...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #114

After this one, only two left. And this week's selection was hard to make - it's hard to pull a truly exceptional new release from such recent cars...

"Jeep Renegade 1.6 MultiJet 2WD Longitude – Frontansicht, 9. November 2014, Düsseldorf" by M 93. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Commons.

2014 Jeep Renegade. Going all the way back to 1987, when the first Jeeps rolled off the assembly line under the auspices of Mopar, folks were skeptical of the pairing. Gone were the iconic round headlights, replaced with soulless square lights (that would be mercifully retired a mere 10 years later to restore the prominent Jeep grill). Would Chrysler maintain Jeep's rich heritage, or would they use the marque to hype an ever-increasing number of mediocre vehicles?

Yeah. It was a foregone conclusion...

Fast-forward to the 'teens, when pretty much every Jeep nameplate is a rebadged Fiat or Dodge. The vaunted Grand Cherokee is a Durango with a different body; the Cherokee itself is no longer a capable off-road machine but a sad little micro-SUV; even the Wrangler is starting to show signs of bloat with the four-door version and assorted extras.

But this? Yeech. 

That is all.

So, This Happened...

I would have had this posted for Friday's car pr0n, but I was still pretty much in shock. Last Thursday, the new car had a baptism by fire...

Yeah. The plate means exactly what you think it means...

That's the result of being the last car hit in a four-car pileup on Route 66, the main east-west corridor feeding Northern VA into DC. It's been the bane of my existence for more than two years now, except now it has started escalating the stakes... Basically, a truck didn't see that traffic had stopped and rear-ended another vehicle, pushing it into the car in front of it that then hit me.

Yeah, it's a mess.

VA does things differently than in MA, and in this case, better. Back in MA, what I would have had to do in this case is file a claim against the guy behind me for damages. He, in turn, would file a claim against the person who hit him for both his damages and my damages he was responsible for. Repeat for the person behind him, until the vehicle that caused the wreck gets a claim filed against it for the vehicle it hit, plus the two vehicles in front.

There's a lot of paperwork involved. Here in VA, all three vehicles ahead of the truck go directly after the guy who started the mess. Oh, and to make things even better? A VA State Trooper was on scene as it happened - he even mentioned to me that he caught the initial impact on his dash camera...

Oh, there's another difference. Immediately after the accident, the trooper came over to my car and got my license and registration so he could fill out the paperwork. When he came back to give my info back, I started to hand him my CHP just in case. He stops me, says, "I saw it when you got your license out." and then - miracle of miracles - didn't freak out or anything. But I digress...

So now, my time is filled with appraisals, body shops and insurance companies. So far, everyone appears to be competent, but I'll reserve judgement until the car is fixed. My wife commented that I was remarkably calm about the whole thing, considering that my car is less than 6 months old and all. I guess it's a sign of age - combined with it being a very sensible RAV4 and not the Hemi Challenger in bright green that I really wanted...

Life is always interesting, if nothing else...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #113

Only three more weeks after today, then it's onto a new schtick. I'm open to ideas on what cars to showcase...

2014 Cadillac ELR (introduced in 2013). I honestly don't know what to make of this. On the one hand, it's a Government Motors. Additionally, while it's considered an "electric" car, it has a range under 50 miles - that's not a range, that's a novelty. Once depleted, there's a 1.4L I-4 that keeps it going (as an on-board generator). For nearly $60K.

Is it surprising GM is killing it in 2017?

The single biggest problem I have with these types of vehicles is expressly that they make the entire genre look bad. The stated electric-only mileage on the Cadillac page is a whopping 40 miles. Adding in the generator brings the range to 340 - less than my RAV4 gets. At more than twice the MSRP of the RAV4. Oh, and charging time is 5 hours if you have a 240V service - and from 12 - 18 hours if it's standard 120. So, basically, you can drive to and from work - providing you're close - then spend all night charging back up.

File under "not ready for prime time," please.

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #112

Four weeks left...

2012 Subaru BRZ. Subaru's joint venture with Toyota (Scion) to produce a lightweight, rear-drive quasi-sports car. It made the short list of non-SUVs that interested me when I was replacing the Earthf**ker, so I've checked the BRZ out a little bit. There were two reasons why it didn't make the cut: First, I have two human-sized children. The "back seat" is not suitable. Second, I drive an hour each way in bumper-to-bumper traffic every day. There's no way I'd do that with a manual transmission.

And getting a BRZ with an automatic is just wrong...

For slightly more than $25K, you get a 200 HP motor and a 6-speed transmission in a rear-wheel drive car that'll hit 0-60 in just a little over 6 seconds. Damn. If they come out with a convertible version, the folks at Mazda are going to be scared. As it is, it's an economical, reliable alternative to the Camaro/Mustang/Challenger. It's smaller, easier to handle, gets WAY better gas mileage, and handles better. It's a half-a-tick slower than the V8 counterpart, but at $10K less and with Subaru reliability.

There's a LOT to like about that...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #111

Five more and we're onto a new schtick...

2011 Fisker Karma. Another boutique electric-only vehicle that costs more than a modest house. And catches fire if it gets wet...

The Karma was plagued by problems throughout its short life. Pre-orders for the car were taken as early as 2008, yet the car wasn't delivered until 2011. It was sold for two years, at which point financial difficulties pushed the electric manufacturer into bankruptcy. Allegedly it's making a comeback through a Chinese company, but time will tell.

The big problem, of course, were the fire reports. An initial recall focused on potential fire from battery leaks. Later, individual fires were reported, some stemming from cars not even plugged in. Hurricane Sandy and intensive flooding saw even more fires, and the Karma never really recovered - not to mention getting sued by Tesla over design elements...

Other than that, it was a fine automobile...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #110

Only five six more weeks until we're done with this series...

2010 Mini Countryman. Yet another in a series, similar to the Porsche Panamera, of "Cars I really don't understand." The entire idea behind the Mini was to capture some of the nostalgia made most famous by the Volkswagen Beetle revival in 1997, bringing back the iconic British micro-car in more modern guise. And then they took and made it bigger, and gave it four doors, and pretty much turned it into yet another small hatchback...

I actually looked at a Mini many years ago as a possible commuter car. Problem I found with it was two-fold: first, the gas mileage really wasn't all that great. I think it got mid-20s around town and low 30s on the highway. The second problem was the price: to get the features I wanted, it was coming perilously close to $30K. Um, no.

I still don't get why they'd bloat up the Mini like this, except as in the same case as the Porsche to expand the line. However, the Mini is a niche vehicle; those looking for something larger have, well, pretty much the entire automotive world to choose from. I guess it's a chance to get into a car made by BMW without spending $40K; other than that I can't see the appeal. Once you get away from the nostalgia angle, it's a box like pretty much every other hatchback.

To each his or her own, I guess...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #109

Okay, so this week kinda got away from me. Looks like the weekly car pr0n is the only post this week, sorry...

2009 Porsche Panamera. I really, really, REALLY hate this car. It's not just that it's a four-door Porsche (which is an abomination unto Nuggan in and of itself), but that it's just so poorly done. I mean, look at it. It looks like a Nissan Maxima -- which is a perfectly decent car, but it's not a Porsche, plain and simple.

The Cayenne was bad enough, but at least there was precedent for a supercar company making an SUV. In fact, I mentioned it before - the Lamborghini LM. There's no Lambo sedan. Or Ferarri, for that matter. The closest you get is the Maserati Quattroporte, but that's starting to get into the lower tiers.

Look, I understand what Porsche was doing branching out. For the longest time, they had two, maybe three vehicles in their line at any given moment. There was an "entry level" vehicle (that cost double what a comparable Japanese car would cost at 1/10th the reliability), a 911 variant, and some form of supercar. If you weren't in the market for a two door sportscar, you looked elsewhere. It's smart business to branch out into the super-hot SUV market, and once the line expanded, to move it to sedans.

Doesn't mean we have to like it...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #108

One thing I've noticed as we get closer to current day cars is that fewer and fewer new models seem to be introduced. Part of it has to do with the number of manufacturers dwindling, with Pontiac/Saturn/Hummer/Plymouth/Saab and others falling by the wayside.

2008 Ford Fiesta. Although it had a three year run in the late 1970s, I'm counting this as a new vehicle. I figure 28 years between U.S. models is good enough. The Fiesta, interestingly enough, has been sold continuously outside of the U.S.; there was a brief stint where the Festiva (not to be confused with the Fiesta, mind you) was Ford's subcompact.

The Fiesta is of note mainly because it followed a trend of using previous marques to launch a new vehicle. Notably, General Motors did it (BADLY) with the LeMans, taking what had been a decent rear-wheel-drive automobile and slapping the nameplate on a Korean FWD POS. They also did it with the Nova, although at least in that case they rebranded a Toyota Corolla. It's easier to take a rebrand if it's going on a decent donor vehicle...


I've considered very few Ford vehicles in my driving life, and never owned a single one. Much of it comes from a bad experience I had in the 1990s when I was looking for a 4WD pickup. The bone-stripped Ranger that I *barely* fit in (seriously, I was banging elbows with the salesweasel, and there was NO other room in the cab) was selling for more than a significantly-better-equipped Ram 4X4. I was decidedly unimpressed.

Now, though, I do have to admit I'd consider the Mustang...

That is all.

Friday Car Pr0n #107

Sorry about last week. Just couldn't rouse myself out of the turkey coma to post car pr0n...

2007 Fiat 500. Long after most auto manufacturers had stopped doing the "retro" thing, Fiat decided the way to re-enter the American market after a nearly three-decade absense. They accomplished this with a re-imagining of one of the more iconic Fiats, the 500. Based on the original 500 (named after the 479 cc engine that powered it), the new 500 was updated with all sorts of safety features and - like the VW Beetle - changed from rear-engine to front.

I (very briefly) looked at the 500 in the Great Car Search of 2015. It got good gas mileage and was suitable for city driving, true, but upon closer inspection just wasn't a good fit. The gas mileage was good, but not great, especially for the size - my comfortable mini-SUV gets 24 MPG around town compared to the 500's 27. And price? With all the options I wanted, the 500 was over $25K. For a 4-seater, micro car. Um, no thanks.

At least it gives us the option of pulling out the old "Fix It Again, Tony" gag...

That is all.