The Right Pedal

This blew my mind.

2007-05-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sure, we know that Russians love their bizarre 4x4s. They even have 6x6s, and 8x8 isn't rare either. But this.... This is will warp your concept of propulsion.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1uynmApjhWI

ZiL RACING!!!!!

2007-04-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

Never thought I'd say this, but this makes me wish I were standing outside a muddy pit in Russia.

http://englishrussia.com/?p=835#more-835

Scroll below the Mercs to see the ZiLs power-sliding. The bad-assery is off the charts.

And the side-car Urals and machine-gun-toting goons are the icing on the cake.

Overhang 'em high

2007-03-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

Let me illustrate a basic principle of automotive design: Pinocchio is ugly. Don’t make cars look like Pinocchio.

I’m sad to report that the manufacturer which most flagrantly violates this rule is one of my favorites: Citroen. Their new luxury sedan, the C6, has the biggest schnozz ever seen outside a Nazi propaganda poster.

I don’t know why this look (properly called a “long front overhang”) is so offensive. Rather than spout more anthropomorphic twaddle, let us simply agree that it’s a bad idea. Here’s the C6 that should’ve been:

I can tell you this much: long front overhangs are typical of front-wheel drive, compact cars. FWD and compactness are tricks to boost fuel economy. Rather than optimize the experience of driving one’s car, they optimize the experience of PAYING for it. This is ignoble.

While some people (99% of people, more or less) don’t give a rat’s ass about the nobility of their overhang, it’s the sort of thing I obsess over. Just as you might look out your window and feel heartened to see a child planting a tree, I get the same feeling from a tidy little overhang: Nice job, kid, it’s good to see someone has his priorities straight.

Union of Concerned Plagiarists

2007-03-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Union of Concerned Scientists just announced their intention to save the world with an eco-heroic minivan. It would combine a plethora of available technologies to reduce carbon emissions by about 40%. That's all well and good, but my problem is that they totally stole the shell from Renault. The green one is the UCS's van-o-the-future, the silver one is Renault's Espace:

I'm baffled why they would do this. It's dishonest to pretend that they designed this thing. True, the vehicle shell is totally irrelevant to the technologies they're pushing, so perhaps we ought not fuss over the body that they pretend will house all the green goodies. But then why bother with the CAD faux-concept at all?

Ethanol bothers me.

2007-03-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Today, our president is visiting el presidente of Brazil. As presidents typically do, they discussed corn and sugar. Normally, my interest in these foodstuffs would require the addition of butter, because this would yield caramel popcorn.

Interersting historical note: Caramel popcorn was invented in 1893 at the Colombian World Fair in Chicago by Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. (Hence "sweet baby Jesus.") Such a divine creation could only be created by the... well, the divine.

But the theology of caramel popcorn was not, according to the news reports, on today's agenda in Sao Paolo. As you probably know, sugar and corn are the two most popular sources of ethanol--the miracle fuel which will save the towns of the Midwest from economic collapse, save the rest of us from the petro-terrorists, and save our cats from the tragedy and heartache of feline leukemia.

Generally, I favor any fuel source which sends less money to the oil-slicked sheiks, especially if it also strengthens our strategic reserves of caramel popcorn. But Bush's hard-on for ethanol is highly suspicious. Brazilian ethanol is economically competitive; sugar farmers don't receive government subsidies. American ethanol, however, is a surprisingly Communist endeavor. It depends on the expropriation of wealth from our nation's bourgeois coast-dwellers, and transferring said wealth to the Stakhanovite agribusinesses of our nation's corn-filled center. This process is better known as "farm subisidies." (Communists are masters of euphemism.)

And of course, the corn growers want tariffs on Brazilian ethanol, so we probably won't get the economically sensible cheap stuff. This is pretty goddamn outrageous and unpatriotic, because apparently they would prefer that we spend our energy dollars with the above-mentioned greasy sheikhs, rather than the Brazilians. (And no, we shouldn't be spending it on our own corn-based ethanol, because that's Communism, and Communism is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, or something like that.)

So: ethanol isn't going to help. Agribusiness will demand that their subsidies stay, and tariffs grow, and that will be the end of ethanol as a useful alternative fuel. However, it will probably take years and billions of dollars before anyone works up the guts to put a stop to this foolishness.

Oh well. At least it will be cheaper than the Iraq war.

I am a masochist

2007-03-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

My previous entry ennumerates the ways a Passat is wrong for me. Nonetheless, I couldn't resist taking one for a test drive last weekend. It was a base edition (no heated seats) with the time-bomb engine and a stick shift.

Alas, I loved it. I whipped it through Storrow at speeds theoretically impossible for a front-wheel drive, 3,500-lb sedan on squishy tires. It's one of those cars that encourages you to do highly illegal things.

I didn't want to give up the keys. But I did, because the alternative involves parting from many thousands of dollars (or jail time).

Passat, you tease

2007-02-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

My car started making a noise, one which I refer to as the "thousand-dollar squeak." It seems to recur every year or so, and it costs about $1,000 to fix. I'm getting tired of it (the thousand-dollar part, not the squeak), so I might just ignore it and see what happens.

Of course, whenever something is slightly less-than-perfect in my car (or any other part of my life) I start thinking about buying a new vehicle. The new VW Passat has crept up to the top of my list... only to tumble down to the very bottom, leaving me emotionally battered. Let me explain...

I want a car that is big and German. So far, the Passat qualifies. I also want heated leather or vinyl seats. (Cat hair sticks to cloth seats like glue... except when it unsticks all over my clothes. And unheated leather/vinyl will freeze my tuchus.) The Passat continues to qualify.

I also want a reliable car. And this is when the foam starts hitting the fuel tank: the Passat's reliability is a Columbia-scale disaster. But wait! Consumer Reports says that NASA was only in charge of the standard 4-cylinder engine; the optional V6 is actually quite dependable. Whew....

Hold on a sec, is that an o-ring cracking? The V6 starts at $30,000? And heated seats are another $1,000 extra???

And the good engine only comes with an automatic? What the hell kind of German car is this?

To add insult to injury, VW is about to offer a special edition Passat with heated seats and sunroof for under $27,000. That would be perfect, but it's only available with the 4-cylinder engine (the one made from birds' nests and nitroglycerine). And it's only availale with the automatic; a manual would've been about $1,000 cheaper, and more reliable, too.

So, fooey on you, VW product planners. The company that once boasted of fahrvergnugen no longer deigns to offer a V6 + stick shift sedan... let alone at a People's Car price.

Mercedes on TrimSpa

2007-02-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

I love the W140 S-class. It's big, fast, big, and really, really big. It's the most imposing car to come aus Deutschland since the 770k, which was available only to certain Very Bad Men. (Note the flag on the front fender.)

Critics attacked the W140's portliness, and I must agree that the car looks a bit bloated. A car should always be "longer, lower, wider" than its predecessor, and the W140 is indeed longer and wider... but not lower. Big is beautiful, but not when it makes the car look like a Conehead. Bruno Sacco, the designer of the W140, and many other glorious mercs, said exactly that: his only regret from his design career is that the W140 is 4 inches too tall (though to be fair, he did not compare his creation to a Conehead).

Herr Sacco's comment granted me a license to fool around with MS Paint and see if I could improve upon his W140. My results are below. The photochopped W140 is on the left, the actual version is on the right. I just squashed the greenhouse down about 20% (roughly 4 inches). The surgery was obviously performed with a blunt knife, but I think the patient looks better. The rest of the car could use a little squashing too, but my conscience can live with only so much screwing off at work. Yes, even when a Mercedes is involved.

A widow

2006-09-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

First: we are fine.

I saw a dead man. His guts popped out of his belly, glistening dark red. His leg was flayed open, and I could see the moist yellow fat of his calves. His neck twisted his head down low, as if he were trying to hear the ground whispering. But his torso arched away and bent in two places.

His death was quick and gruesome, but I could barely understand that. His life stopped—I comprehend that—but in a way so alien that it’s almost meaningless to me.

His wife sat in the car, touching an oozing gash that showed her skull. I gave Michelle my shirt, and she made a compress to stanch the blood. The wife kept asking about him: where is he, where’s my husband? She couldn’t see through the shattered windshield. But her husband’s corpse was close by, harshly lit by the headlights that were his guides only two minutes ago.

Someone covered his body with a flannel shirt.

Where is he, where’s my husband?

You’re a widow now. You were from Georgia or Florida, here on vacation, your trunk full of luggage. Now your little SUV is facing the wrong way on I-93, the trunk has popped open, your face is covered in blood, and very soon someone will tell you that you’re a widow. I’m glad someone else took care of you in those minutes before the ambulance came, because I don’t know what words to say.

We had lots of company, but little help. Maybe a dozen people had stopped. And someone in this milling, buzzing group drove the other car, the one nose-down in a ditch, the one that made contact with the little SUV that used to contain a husband and wife but now contains only a widow and some luggage.

I wonder about him. Did he hit them? How would he answer the question, where’s my husband? I don’t know what he might say. I didn’t see which car hit the other. I saw tail lights wiggle, fly across the highway, a dead man, a widow.

Some more things happened, but they don’t matter.

Tipping point alert!

2006-09-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

I just saw a headline from WardsAuto, a car industry newspaper:

"Powertrain Forecast: HEVs Fade; Diesels, DIG Take Over"

(HEV = Hybrid Electric Vehicle, such as the Prius and its cronies. DIG = Direct Injection Gasoline, a spiffy new kind of gas engine.)

This is the first time I've seen anyone forecast (even long-term) the death of hybrids... so basically, I'm just wagging my finger and saying "I told you so!"

Hybrids are gonna hit a wall...

The Diesels are coming! THE DIESELS ARE COMING!!!

2006-09-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Honda:

Thank you.

Sincerely,
David

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/09/24/honda_diesel.reut/index.html

It seems that Honda has cracked the code; in three years, they expect to sell Diesel engines as clean as gasoline engines. They developed a new kind of catalytic converter that transforms nitrogen oxide emissions into nitrogen. No urea additives needed, either. They say that they'll probably license the technology, too.

And... that's it. I bet that in 15 years, all of you will be driving Diesel-powered cars.

Bring back retro!

2006-09-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Did any of you tell Chrysler that you want a car that looks like a bloated turtle? One of you must've, because it sure wasn't me. I refuse to believe that the geniuses who created the 300 would intentionally design a humpbacked barfpile like the new Sebring.

Even if you can't avoid making a bulbous sedan with an overbite (pretty common for family cars these days), there's no need to jumble it up with bizarre lines and creases. Look at the cuts and panels above the rear wheel: even a six-year-old wouldn't draw a car so fugly.

I guess Chrysler designers aren't geniuses. The 300 was a copy of old designs, and that's all they're good for. Sad.

By the way, here's the Ford Fusion, one of the best-looking family sedans for sale today:

Et tu, BMW?

2006-09-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

BMW has long poo-poohed fuel economy concerns—for which it deserves our profound respect. BMWs are driven by people who can afford a bigger fuel bill than your typical Camry driver. There is no hybrid BMW 5-series, and I hope there never is. Hybrid systems add complexity without improving the driving experience, the raison d’etre of BMWs. Financially, hybrids are utter nonsense. And with today’s emissions technologies, which are frankly amazing—there are Volvos which leave the air CLEANER after they drive through it—the gasoline engine is perfectly acceptable from an ecological view.

But BMW has offended me yet again. They just announced plans to sell a hydrogen-powered 7-series. It will be an eco-weenie version of their autobahn-busting luxo-bomb. It will be based on the 760Li, normally powered by a 438 hp engine that slings this two-ton pebble to 60 mph in just 5.4 seconds. (For those of you who don’t obsess over such stats, that’s WICKED FAST.)

The hydrogen-filled zeppelin version, by contrast, wheezes out 260 hp and ambles to 60 mph in 9.5 seconds. If grandma in her Chevy Impala guns her engine at a stoplight, you’d better show some restraint… unless you want to eat her dust and swallow your pride. And I hope you’re excited about seeing the tail lights of every minivan in town, ‘cause lots of them can smoke this Bimmer, too.

Did I mention that it will cost $120,000?

I know this is supposed to be a first step toward the hydrogen economy, blah blah blah. But what if BMW had spent those millions of dollars on the less-lofty, less-sexy goal of making Diesel-powered cars that could pass US emissions regulations? I don’t know—do I look like a psychic??? But I’ll go out on a limb and say that we’d probably be driving clean, efficient, powerful Diesel Bimmers right now. That’s a lot more appealing than this ultra-rare, ultra-lame Hindenburg.

You may have noticed that I said BMW offended me “yet again.” Here’s a brief list of the ways I’ve been personally maddened. (Emphasis on “personally”—I haven’t driven an iDrive car, so they get a pass on that one.)

1. Bangle.
2. Unsupportive seats in the 3-series
3. Bangle.
4. Ugly hood seams
5. Bangle.
6. Stiff accelerator pedals in the 3-series
7. Bangle.
8. Incompetent service at BMW Gallery of Norwell
9. I feel like I’m forgetting one more… oh yeah: Bangle.

iPanties in a wad

2006-08-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

BMW of Norwell, you are dead to me.

A month ago, I called a service rep at BMW of Norwell, where I bought my car. In addition to my usual overpriced oil change, I asked about installing an aux audio jack, so I could listen to my iPod. (See earlier rant.) Well, Jared said that he'd order the part and I'd be all set when I brought the car in....

I slogged down to Norwell via our local autobahn, a.k.a., I-95. Which is not as direct as I-93, but shaving 30 minutes off my stereo fix is a crappy reason to spelunk in the Big Dig.

After I dropped off the car, Jared called me with unhappy news: in addition to the oil change, I also needed new window motor thingy, and a stomach-churningly expensive brake job. But whatever. As long as I get the aux jack, my car will be blessed with music and I could accept the molestation of my wallet as part of life with an aging uberwagen.

I returned home, plugged the iPod into the new jack, and discovered that it sounded like... NOTHING. Not a goddamn thing. The stereo didn't even acknowledge the existence of the aux input.

A week later, I said good-bye to my Saturday morning and headed back to scenic Norwell. After the service techs poked at my car for an hour, I learned the following.

1. The aux jack CANNOT be installed in my model car—it’s not compatible.
2. Jared, the original service rep, didn’t check whether it would work in this car.
3. The parts department, who are supposed to double-check this stuff, didn't double-check.
4. The service techs didn't test it after they installed it.

WTF.

To get my refund, they had to remove the equipment, which took another hour out of my Saturday morning.

For my trouble, BMW of Norwell gave me half a tank of gas. A nice gesture, sure. Though I wasn't surprised to see, as I pulled out of the lot, that they left the gas cap open.

Two weeks later, I took the car to Circuit City in Manchester NH. After 60 minutes and less money than BMW charged, the job was done. It sounds awesome, and BMW of Norwell will never touch my car again.

Is it safe to pass?

2006-06-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

Not if that’s a police car in the next lane!

As a service to citizens in a hurry, here are some tips to help you identify unmarked cruisers.

As everybody knows, watch out for Ford Crown Victorias. Almost all unmarked cars are Crown Vics. Keep an eye out for Chevy Impalas and Dodge Intrepids, too, but these are rare in our beloved Commonwealth.

Know the difference between a Crown Vic and its near-twin, the Mercury Grand Marquis. A Mercury is never a cop car, so don’t be afraid to blow right by. From the back, you can spot a Mercury by its full-width red tail light lenses—the newest ones have a garish chrome platter instead. From the front (in your rear-view mirror), you can ID a harmless Merc by its vertical chrome grille.

Grandpa's Mercury: vertical grille, wide tail lights.

OK, so you know the bogey is a Crown Vic. From every angle, there are clues that will help you separate the “unmarked” car from grandpa’s rolling sofa…

From the back, examine the tail lights. Civilian Crown Vics have an orange lens at the bottom of the tail light; nearly all cop cars have a red lens. A red lens means there’s a 90% chance that Smokey has his eye on you.

That’s the best evidence that you’re looking at a Police Interceptor, as the patrol cars are known in Ford-speak. But there are other signs that it's a government-issued car, and probably a cop car… or possibly the official vehicle of the Waltham city sewer inspector.

Look between the tail lights and the license plate. If you see big, dark plastic panels, hit the brakes. Grandpa’s Crown Vic has panels the same color as the rest of the car, so gray plastic a sign that there’s a taser and tire spikes sitting in that trunk.

From the back: Cop tail lights are all red (no orange), and panels are black plastic

Moving to the side of the car, one of the easiest ways to ID a cop car (or at least a government Crown Vic) is by the lack of bling. Cop cars have two beauty marks:
-Ugly black-rimmed wheels … regular Crown Vics have mildly spiffy alloy wheels. But cheesy chromed plastic hubcaps can go either way, so don’t let your guard down!
-Drab plastic door handles and window frames… Grandpa’s Crown Vic has chrome everywhere!

Finally, the front of the car may offer a dead give-away: if the grille is black plastic, it’s almost certain to be a government Crown Vic, and probably a cruiser to boot. But if you’re looking back at the grille, it’s probably too late!

Front and side: cops have black plastic grilles, de-blinged door handles and windows, and ugly whees (cheesy chrome hubcaps shown):

iRony

2006-06-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

How’s this for irony: my brother’s brother-in-law’s 23-year-old car is more iPod-compatible than my five-year old car. Or Michelle’s one-year old car.

The old car—Diesel-powered, by the way—has a cassette player. Just pop an adapter into the slot, and the universe of your music expands to fill the car.

Our new cars were designed in the unfortunate lull between cassettes and the Next Big Thing. These CD-era cars require an FM adapter. If you’re reading this blog, you probably know what I’m talking about, so I won’t waste words describing the crappy sound and endless fussing with frequencies entailed by these electro-nuggets.

I’ve had enough: in one month, my usual oil change will be combined with an order to install an aux audio jack. It costs more than I care to admit, but it’s absurd to have a 10-speaker stereo that can’t talk to the device that contains all my music.

Diesel, dammit

2006-06-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

Enough of this foolishness. I'm sick and tired of hybrids. They're Rube Goldberg machines that, compared to Diesels, give worse fuel economy at a higher price. Here's one single example: Priuses have software glitches that cause them to shut down. Why buy a car that risks the Blue Screen of Death???

There has been a lot of yapping lately about alternative fuels, too. Ethanol, hydrogen, etc. Hey there Moonbeam, did you know that hydrogen comes from water, and the only "pollution" from hydrogen cars is also water? Yeah.... totally eco-awesome!

Guess what. Splitting water molecules to create hydrogen fuel requires energy. From fossil fuel. Or we could use nuclear power. Nothing's free, Moonbeam, so shut up about powertrains and get back to weaving dandelion crowns.

Not that it really matters whether anyone believes hydrogen fuel could work. Hydrogen power is decades away from being used in real cars. (But if you want a million-dollar prototype with a 70-mile cruising range, act now! Supplies are limited!) The biggest proponent of this waste-of-time is everybody's favorite steward of the planet, George Bush. He can say "we're working on hydrogen" to keep us happy while GM and Ford sell 15-mpg SUVs for another 30 years.

It's true that Diesel cars pollute more than gasoline-powered cars. But that's only because of an unfortunate law: catalytic converters, which capture pollutants, are required to work for eight years without maintenance. If car makers were allowed to build converters that required a top-off of a special additive (say, when you get your oil change), clean Diesel would be a snap.

But personally, I don't give a rat's ass about this eco-crap when the Saudis have our nuts in a vise. First priority: stop sending money to the people trying to kill us.

Second priority: help the penguins and Australians, who might be getting a bit crispy from UV rays.

Once we stop worrying about whether we can get another hit of the sweet, dark stuff from Sheikh Pusher al-BoomBoom, we can leave him and his buddies alone. They won't hate us anymore, and they'll remember how much they hate each other.

So what?

I'm not saying we should trade in our cars for a Diesel-powered VW McNuggets. (Why McNugget? Because they're small and awful.) That sort of grass-roots action is for people who get a hard-on from flaunting their moral superiority. And Shiekh Pusher Al-BoomBoom doesn't care if all the eco-weenies buy Diesel McNuggets (or Priuses), as long as the rest of us are buying normal cars and SUVs by the millions.

Diesel has a politcal policy problem, and we need a policy solution. Liberate Diesel cars from the catalytic converter maintenance regulation. (Such an obscure thing holds us back!) Or just relax pollution rules for Diesels. Whatever. It will take about 8 years to make a big impact on national fuel consumption... but we've been dicking around in the Middle East for 60 years, and there's no end in sight as long we need their oil.

Just imagine: if we had done this 25 years ago, we might have avoided TWO Gulf Wars, which would've already saved about $150 billion dollars. Imagine if the government spent even a tenth of that on initiatives to preserve the environment. I bet it would still be a net ecological gain, even if the entire national fleet switched to Diesel.

And oh yeah, we might have spared the lives of about 2,000 soldiers--and counting--who gave their lives for this country. It's painful to acknowledge that they might have died for a cause less honorable than the one for which soldiers died in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. But it's just oil. If it weren't for the oil, the Middle East wouldn't deserve any more attention than Africa. Should more American soldiers die for emissions regulations? Yeah, I know it's not that simple, and that it's not a direct link.

But shouldn't we exhaust every reasonable option before going to war? Shouldn't we make a little more effort to cut our fuel consumption before sending soldiers to die? I'm not saying we should give up our SUVs (blasphemy!) or take the bus to work. Just let Diesel have its place at the pump.

Passat Pokemon

2006-06-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

BEWARE! The new VW Passat has a diabolical combination of brake lights, tail lights, and turn signals that may induce seizures if the driver hits the brakes and signals a turn in the wrong (right?) way.

I wish I had a video to post here to make my point. So you'll just have to imagine the tail lights blinking, flashing, alternating, and generally freaking out. Then imagine yourself going all spazzy and biting off your tongue.

As it should be

2006-05-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

What a perfect day. A lunch overloaded with smelly cheese and rich chocolate… followed by a 100-mile blast through the back roads of NH. 80 degrees, windows open, downshifting into the turns and roaring out the apex.

Every day, we have good reason to like our cars. But it’s for days like this one that we love them.

Feh. Just feh.

2006-05-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago, I had the good fortune to go car shopping with a friend of mine. She’s looking for a small, cheap car. And I’m pleased to say that she found two excellent candidates: the Mazda3 and the Honda Fit.

At first, I was going to use this blog entry to sing the praises of these two vehicles. But I’m a Puritanical Yankee at heart, so offering praise would be emotionally draining. I’m much more comfortable unleashing fire and brimstone against sinners. Luckily, our series of test drives included one such sinner: the Mini Cooper.

I could rant about how obnoxious the ads are. I could spit venom at their self-satisfied anti-SUV slogans. I could lob grenades at the Mini culture which is so fake that you can smell the Axe bodywash of the advertising hack who invented it.

But none of those things bother me as much as the cars themselves: they are frauds. What kind of person spends $20,000 on a rattling, cramped, unreliable, tinny, creaky blob of pretension? The second-dumbest kind of person on earth, that’s what kind.

I bet you’re wondering what the absolute dumbest person on earth does. Fear not, I’ll enlighten you: the dumbest person on earth spends an extra $10,000 to buy a convertible Mini. The one we tested—brand new, mind you—had a leaky canvas roof that whistled even at 20 mph.

My friend expressed her doubts to the salesman. And can you believe his response....

“I don’t know what else to say to you, these cars usually sell themselves!”

High crimes & misdemeanors

2006-04-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I overheard a conversation between my cubemate and a friend of hers. (Let’s call her Rhonda.) Rhonda ranted about her landlord, who somehow pissed her off. I was rocking out to the drone of a hurdy-gurdy for the first part of the conversation, so I don’t know the precise nature of the landlord’s crimes. But I did hear the additional proof Rhonda offered that her landlord is an asshole: “He seems rich. He’s always well dressed. You know, he seems like he might be gay. And he drives a BMW.”

Rhonda’s panties were totally in a wad over the BMW: she mentioned it twice.

This shocked me. I know that BMW drivers have, shall we say, a reputation. Heck, I even mentioned it on this very blog a couple weeks ago. But Rhonda wasn’t trying to be funny. Should BMW owners be branded as sociopaths, even when not on the open road? Does this car impugn the driver’s character?

Well, Rhonda thinks so. And in fact, I don’t want to debate the question: the more interesting point is that Rhonda has settled on her answer. Not only is BMW ownership a bad thing, but we know what other activities lead to the same circle of Hell in Rhonda’s view: wealth, snappy style, and homosexuality.

Obviously, Rhonda’s preconceptions about the moral qualities of BMW owners aren’t the real problem.

But I didn’t call her on any of it. If I tried to lecture her about BMW drivers without mentioning her other prejudices, I’d be implicitly supporting those prejudices. But I’m not so keen to pick a fight about this stuff with some random chick at my office. (Which, I admit, is not a particularly brave stance.) So I kept quiet and cranked up the hurdy-gurdy.

2006-03-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

These things I belive:

Six cylinders are just barely enough.

Eight cylinders guarantee happiness.

Turbos are manic-depressive. Sometimes they're a hoot, but the rest of the time they're just sad.

Every wheel should have power.

But if you can't send power to all four wheels, send it to the rear wheels.

The distance from the front axle to the base of the windshield should be greater than the distance from the front axle to the front bumper. (Think about it.)

More buttons are more fun.

LED brakelights should be mandatory.

People who hate HIDs are just jealous.

Every additional cupholder takes a year off your life.

Anyone who walks into a Pontiac dealership should automatically lose their license.

The left lane is for passing. FOR CHRISSAKE, THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING.

Respect pedestrians in crosswalks. Screw the rest of them.

2006-03-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

No didacticism or introspection today. Instead... the WICKED AWESOME cars I saw in NYC this weekend!

-Rolls Royce Silver Spur (x2)
-Bentley Continental (x2)
-Maybach 62
-Ferrari F50
-1979 Mercedes 300 SD
-Porsche Cayenne 20-ft stretch limo. Actually, not wicked awesome. I believe the right word is "abomination." Is there a word that means "double abomination"?

The Mercedes might seem out of place. But this is my blog and I love those cars.

The Cayenne limo is vile. Even the non-limo Cayenne insults the whole idea of Porsche. Imagine if the next Miss America were a chunky, dumpy wad of a human being. Even if she sings like an angel and juggles like nobody's business, she shouldn't be called "Miss America."

And then the Cayenne limo. It's as if a plastic surgeon took a look at the aforementioned chunky, dumpy wad and decided, "Gee, this patient of mine is a little flabby. Let's get the liposuction needle in her AND THROW IT IN REVERSE."

2006-03-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

I know that I, and my friends, have a miniscule chance of being killed in a car accident. We’re more likely to breathe our last breath as a tumor squeezes our vital organs, or perhaps our hearts will beat psychotically until they explode.

But breaking our necks in a high-speed impact? Not too likely. It could happen, but probably not.

Yet nothing matters more to me when buying a car.

Cars are what I know, just like a cardiologist knows how to take care of a heart, or an oncologist knows how to keep his cells from mutating into microscopic murderers. Is the cardiologist justified in eating nothing but tofu and jogging three hours a day? Or the oncologist when he consumes cod liver oil garnished with vitamin pills? Or me… when I pressure everyone I know to buy the safest cars they can afford?

Our perception of danger has less to do with its real probability and more with how much we know about it. When I’m in a car that I know is unsafe, I’m nervous. At every intersection, I assess my chance of survival if the approaching car ignores the stoplight and slams into me—because unlike most people, I know enough about safety to make that assessment. Though the chance of a crash is miniscule, the possibility distracts me. And when it’s time to shop for a car for myself (or my girlfriend), I treat the possibility as a certainty.

But you know something? It actually happened. A twit in a Jeep wrecked Michelle’s car—a car we had chosen because we knew it was safe. And now, we can’t imagine buying an unsafe car. Maybe I’m like a guy who survived a lightening strike and has decided to wear 12-inch rubber soles. People’s brains are easily scrambled by experience.

http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/video/mercedes_safety.mpeg

It’s not crazy, though. It’s just how we work.

2006-03-02T17:42:00.000-08:00

Time for sterotypes!

Saturn = pussy
Pontiac = asshole
Mercedes = snob
BMW = snob + asshole
Volvo = wimp (unless driving a T5-R, in which case you have my respect)
Saab = wimp + snob
Buick = assisted living
Oldsmobile = R.I.P.

2006-02-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

Some vehicles scare me. Even a picture gives me a chill.

They are military vehicles, of course. But not all military vehicles are created equal.

I can imagine a situation in which I’d be happy, even thrilled, to see an M1 tank trundling toward me. (There are thousands of American soldiers, not to mention Kuwaitis, Bosnians, and others for whom this tank is a symbol of strength and safety.)

But other vehicles radiate malevolence. If one is heading in my direction, I am surely suffering, and about to suffer more. And if I am driving one, it is because I am going to do something bad. Not necessarily painful, but morally wrong.

Look at this one. I don’t know what it’s called, so “pusher” will have to do. It’s a normal military truck—this one is an East German troop carrier—with a red and white fence attached to the front. The pusher is used to control large crowds, particularly protestors.

The pusher drives into the crowd and shoves them back. Imagine what kind of government needs such a thing so frequently that it’s part of the military fleet: a government which is hated by its people and must use force to stay in power.

If a government is using a pusher, that means it’s afraid to kill protestors. It could be worse: sometimes a government is not afraid to kill its people.

Cast your eye on a Humvee, and you might sense evil there, too. But its glowering grill and muscle-bound stance will deceive you: my cat is a greater threat. This galumphing, overgrown jeep has tin-can doors and floors, and sometimes even a cloth roof. A Humvee is so weak that anyone can overpower it, even a bunch of ratty rebels who never learned about toilet paper. It’s not a tool of oppression or evil: it’s just a military verison of, well, an SUV: good for toting around a few people and their stuff, but basically a station wagon with ‘roid rage.

Compare the Humvee to the Casspir—Satan’s own limousine. A couple decades ago, South Africa combined the worst features of antebellum Virginia and Charleton Heston’s gun-soaked wet dreams. The white government had a serious problem with land mines: planted by black rebels, they ripped apart convoys of government troops. (They also shredded many black civilians, but that’s another story.) Faced with a determined rebellion, the government ensconced its soldiers in these mine-proof vaults. Every design element of the Casspir protects soldiers as they scurry across roads that have slipped beyond their control: The V-shaped hull deflects blasts, the exposed mechanicals are easy to fix, and the narrow windows are explosion-resistant. The pathologies of the Casspir's creators led to this frightening vehicle. It is the car of choice for hated occupiers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I consider it a sign of trouble that Casspirs would be tremendously useful in Iraq. Onward....

I want to add one one more mug-shot to the gallery: the Pookie. It’s actually a cousin of the Casspir, another member of a family where all the kids torture dogs and torch the yard. Rhodesians created it. If South Africa harkened back to Virginia, Rhodesia was an dank corner of Mississippi. Like South Africa, Rhodesia faced a mine-wielding black insurgency. But Rhodesia’s whites didn’t have access to gold and diamond mines like the South Africans. So when the world told them to go to hell and embargoed their country, they had to cobble together a mine-detecting vehicle with whatever they had around.

A mine-proof troop carrier like the Casspir wasn’t needed: the black insurgency in Rhodesia penetrated every part of the country. Ordinary white farmers needed something to let them get to the market without being blown up. The lightweight Pookie, with its soft tires, would travel at the front of a civilian convoy and beep if it detected a mine. The cars would stop, the mine would be defused, and then the convoy would proceed.

The immoral battle fought by the Rhodesian army dictated the Pookie’s design. It was jerry-rigged because the world wanted no part of the Rhodesian’s crusade. And it was a mine-detector because mines are used by insurgencies—the kind of war that gets fought when people oppose a powerful government.

Now don’t take all this the wrong way. It’s unfortunate that our problems in Iraq have parallels to the lost battles fought by evil, racist governments. Our situation is much more complicated than theirs.... but this blog is about cars, and about cars it shall remain.

2006-02-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Certain things are true about humans: we will never all love each other, women will never be fully equal to men, market forces always win, and we will never be satisfied with our station in life.

Hopefully something in that statement has pissed you off a little. That’s good, because it will put you in my mindset this morning as I ponder the vehicles that have graced my driveways through the last decade.

Don’t get me wrong: maybe there are some zen masters who have blotted out their desire to better their material lives. They are satisfied with their station in life. However, few of us have the power to excise our need to CONSUME. We can fight it, channel it, or defer it. But we will die before it does.

Between me and Michelle, our past & present cars cover nearly the entire spectrum of economy and luxury. A couple cars stand out, because they are better than what 90% of Americans will ever drive. Others stand out because they are more modest than what 90% of Americans drive. And the others? The shapeless mass of normal cars extruded them, mere pseudopods of the blob of middle-American transportation.

They all shared one trait, though: all were ALMOST perfect, and if we just had a little more cash to spend, we could’ve found the perfect car.

I did not shop for my first car: I hunted it. Like a silent Iroquois, I stalked car dealerships in search of a big old Acura Legend— preferably black, but I could cope with dark blue. For three weeks I combed the dealer lots of southern New Hampshire. But I didn’t have enough arrows in my quiver to take down the big game: they were all just a little too pricey.

Dejected and starving (for a car), I waved a white flag at Fort Autofair and made my mark on the treaty they offered me: a four-year old Subaru Legacy. It was perfectly tidy, but it was baby blue and not even all-wheel drive. At least my 17-year-old mind understood that it was better than being consigned to a pestilent reservation—barely.

Fast forward several years: a new Subaru Legacy came into our lives. It was almost perfect—but we kinda wanted the Limited edition, which had a few extra toys. But lucky us, we suffered for less than a year without leather upholstery: a twit in a Jeep wrecked our genuinely beloved Subaru by fiddling with her radio instead of paying attention to a red light.

I won’t numb you with niggling complaints about each of the eight cars we owned over the last ten years. That would be boring and ungrateful. But even my current vehicle, which clearly falls into the “better than 90%” category, sometimes leads to a twinge of regret: maybe I should’ve ponied up a little extra cash for one with a bigger engine.

Here we are, back at my first point: When I had my old baby-blue Subaru, I wanted a car that was just a bit better. It seemed like a black Acura Legend would fulfill my automotive dreams. Today, that Acura would be a pretty big step back. Yet when I look at my current, awesome car, the little needle-stick of desire feels the same as it did back in 1996: perfection dangled in front of me, and I couldn’t reach it for want of a few bucks.

I won’t apologize for this unseemly grasping: that’s the whole point of today’s blog. I may not give a crap about fancy clothes, granite counter tops, boats, iPods, or other accoutrements of the good life. But everyone, including me, desires something a little better than what they have.

I'm not saying that we all want to look good in the eyes of our fellow man. It isn’t about keeping up with the Joneses—though many cars are bought for that reason. Not mine though. I don’t want a Mercedes star to show the neighbors how much better I am than they are. I want cars that my Honda-and-Saab-loving neighbors never heard of, or would even hate: Citroen CX, ZiL 41047, 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood.

Even if I did manage to snag a low-mileage 1976 Fleetwood—and that would rank among the best days of my life—I would surely find myself saying, “Too bad I couldn’t get one with the ultra-rare moonroof, or the fabulous Talisman edition.”

So there you have it: the human condition as it manifests itself in a car nut. I wish I could be satisfied with my cars—make no mistake, they are excellent cars. But no one on this earth gets to skip regret. So I’ll just be grateful that my regrets are small: half a liter, to be precise. That’s difference between the engine in my car and perfection. Or at least the version of perfection I’m grasping for today.

2006-02-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

“What kind of limousine will you have for your wedding?” a good friend asked me.

To me, this matter is of penultimate importance, second only to the choice of the bride herself. This question carries as much weight most brides would find in “What kind of dress/cake/location/season do you want?”

None of you, dear readers, will be surprised to know that I gave my friend a rapid and detailed reply. Nor will you be shocked to know that the top spot in my list is occupied by a Soviet limousine, the ZiL 41047.

The point of today’s entry is not to bask in the ZiL’s glory—but I’ll get to that someday. No: today I want to tell you how this question sent me on what can only be described as a “ZiL bender,” a trip through space and time, to an age of Cold War euphoria, and, oddly enough, Nazi collectibles.

I qualified my limo-choice answer by saying, “But I can’t actually get a ZiL, because there aren’t any in this country.” My friend’s response sent a chill down my spine: “Are you sure?”

No, I wasn’t sure. I probably know as much about ZiLs as any non-Russian American, but I can’t say for certain that not a single one of these hearse-like limousines ever found a home in the land of the free.

[Btw, ZiL did make an actual hearse. It is the ur-hearse, so hearse-y that it could be a hearse for hearses.]

Making good use of company resources, I searched a mega-database of news sources for any mention of ZiL importation schemes. Lo and behold, in 1991 an American collector by the name of Ralph Engelstad told a two-bit county rag that the collapse of the Soviet Union opened up a new world of autos for him to add to his collection. He kept his cars in a hotel he owned, the Imperial Casino in Las Vegas.

Now, Ralph was an interesting character. He liked Nazis. Well, maybe he didn’t like Nazis. But he did amass a “collection of Nazi memorabilia in the casino, including a painting of himself dressed in Nazi uniform (captioned "to Adolf from Ralphie"), a painting of Hitler with the reverse caption, and the cars of Nazi leaders.” He also got slammed for hosting Hitler-themed parties on the birthday of said Fuhrer.

It must be admitted that the t-shirts he handed out for these parties had a rather witty slogan, “Adolf Hitler—European Tour 1939-1945”

(This is from wikipedia, so it must be true.)

So Ralph had a hard-on for evil, including evil’s cars. He owned one of Hitler’s Mercedes parade cars. And, according to a two-bit country rag, he wanted to acquire one of Stalin’s limousines. Alas, Stalin predated the ZiL 41047 by a few decades. So Ralph’s taste in evil didn’t synch with my taste in squared-off 1970’s behemoths. Even if he did manage to acquire one of Stalin’s swoopy old jalopies (sometimes called “Black Marias”), it’s not the sort of thing I’d want at my wedding.

Interesting fact: Stalin’s cars were sometimes borrowed by Lavrenti Beria, his chief secret policeman, to prowl the streets of Moscow for very underage girls. Does this add collectible value to his limousines? If only Ralph were still around to enlighten us. He died in 2002, though his car collection remains on display, and on sale, in Las Vegas.

Ralph Engelstad turned out to be a dead end, albeit a fascinating one. I switched over to google, and hit one of my usual ZiL sites. I reread it and found an interesting comment: When Gorbachev visited the US, he brought his ZiL, and this piqued the interest of Americans. Apparently, some newspapers wrote articles about it….

Back to the mega-database, this time searching for “ZiL and Gorbachev” 1987-1991. I didn’t find much except passing mentions of Gorby’s mysterious black pseudo-Cadillac. But I did spend a pleasant hour transported back to the late 1980’s, reading accounts of Gorbachev’s visit.

In 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev were trying to figure out how not incinerate each other’s countries. Americans were thrilled at the prospect of living to a ripe old age, unencumbered by fear of fallout or marauding bands of radioactive mutants. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably too young to remember much of this. In theory, so was I—except my social skills had decided to take a decade-long nap, leaving the rest of my brain free to worry about things like arms control and nuclear holocaust….

So Gorby came to Washington for a Big Summit. And you know what he did? He told the driver of his gleaming black ZiL to stop in the middle of the city. And Gorby got out of the car.

A crowd gathered ‘round the man who had the power to broil us in our beds. He told a bunch of average Americans, in full view of reporters, that he had come to ensure peace for us and our children. The crowd cheered, and a timid woman approached the Soviet premier and asked to shake his hand.

He grasped her hand, and this man, whom most Americans suspected was a cousin of Darth Vader, was transformed into a rock star. The crowd went wild, and Gorby Fever swept the country.

We felt like we had just woken up from a 40-year nightmare, that everything would finally be OK. Gorby didn’t want to kill us, he wanted to be our friend!

After about 10 minutes, he got back into the ZiL and went to dinner with Ronald Reagan.

Another cluster of ZiL + Gorbachev articles appeared four years later. In 1991, he came back to visit us, this time trying to negotiate the liberation of Eastern Europe. He later learned that there wasn’t much to negotiate: once you announce that you’re not going to nuke the countries you’re oppressing, they’re not going to stick around for the rest of your speech.

But Gorby (and his oft-noted ZiL) was welcomed back in the US like an old friend. He was mobbed when he appeared in public, though he seemed a little less ecstatic than last time. He had a lot on his mind, particularly the rise of a popular alcoholic named Boris Yeltsin.

I could say a lot about Boris, but there’s only one thing that really matters: he didn’t like ZiLs. He preferred respectable, German-made Mercedes limousines. ZiL nearly abandoned the limo business, until Vladimir Putin took over.

Putin, a former KGB man, likes things done the old way. The army should be strong, the people should be weak, and the limousines should be ZiLs.

Maybe ZiL’s return to favor will mean that a 41047 will some day grace our roads. It would be pretty spiffy if I could get one for my wedding. But it won't happen, unless I become the Great Leader of Russia in the next year or so.

David Stanleyovich for President!!!

2006-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Traction.

It is the vehicular equivalent of oxygen: without it, one quickly finds oneself in a ditch, useless to the world at large. And owing several thousand dollars to men whose services border on extortion.

Or, one may find oneself sliding backwards downhill at alarming speed toward a four-ton pick-up truck crowded with a dozen bermuda-shorted tourists.

The Caribbean paradise of St. John has an unfortunate combination of 45-degree switchbacks, intense rains, and rental cars with bald tires. However, if you want an object lesson in traction, you couldn't ask for a better demonstration. It's even better than spinning one's tires in a futile attempt to climb an ice-slicked New England hill, because in St. John the rain will soon pass and you'll be on the beach before you can say "Where's the goddam snowplow when you need it?"

If you don't crash into the tourist taxi, that is.

Cars were once known as "horseless carriages." But one major difference between the car and the carriage is the source of traction. Carriages are tugged by horses, each with four hooves capable of finding a safe piece of earth from which to push off. But cars push themselves with their wheels. Think about the size of a tire's contact patch (where it touches the pavement) versus the size of a horse's hoof: a horse's hoof is slightly smaller than a tire's contact patch. But each horse is distributing one measly horsepower through its hooves.

A modern car with a typical engine has between 130-200 horepower. And it's sending that power to only two wheels, with a total contact patch smaller than four horse hooves. Trouble MUST ensue.

Even in the earliest days of the automobile, car makers struggled to increase traction: instead of steel-rimmed, wood-spoke wheels (like carriages), car makers used rubber-coated wheels. They replaced the steel band around the wooden wheel with a layer of the blessed sticky stuff. These wheels were the same shape as the old ones: the contact patch was tiny, but at least it was made of rubber. Cars tottered around in high heels with sticky soles. It was better than nothing, but you still wouldn't want to sprint down a country road

The next innovation--possibly the greatest advance in traction ever made--was the switch to air-filled tires in the 1910s and 1920s. Now the tire could flatten on the bottom, increasing the contact patch from a few fingers-widths to a couple hands. The tires were still pretty narrow, but it's a lot easier to run in Converse All-Stars than stilettos.

By this time, cars could easily have 30 or 40 horsepower. Power still outpaced the contact patch by a factor of 10. Over the next three decades, tire technology stagnated. But engines got bigger.

Then, one glorious day, the sun rose faster and brighter in the sky. The birds sang “Halleluljah,” but no one could hear them over the roar of Hemis and big-block Chevys: it was the dawn of the muscle car. Even a Chevy Impala, the Camry of its day, could put in a decent show at the drag strip before toting the kids down to the diner for burgers and chocolate shakes.

In the now-desperate quest to double or triple the contact patch, car makers adopted the tubeless tire (a.k.a, "steel-belted radial"). No longer donught-shaped like bicycle tires, they gained their now-familiar rectangular cross-section in the 1960's. They also lost their endearing habit of exploding in sharp turns.

I always thought the term "classic" was a misnomer for old cars, but that's another subject....

Alas, the steel-belted radial seems to be a plateau for tire technology. The only major improvements have been in size: tires have gotten taller and wider, helping to increase the contact patch. A 14-inch tire used to be high-performance, but today not even a Civic would be caught dead in the automotive equivalent of moonboots.

This plateau in tire technology left manufacturers in a bind: where to go from here to increase the contact patch? The answer was simple: more tires! In fact, an egocentric genius named Ettore Bugatti pioneered four-wheel drive back in the 1910s. He wanted his racing cars to wear Nikes while his competitors still wobbled in five-inch heels. This idea didn't catch on, due to its mind-blowing expense and unreliability. But the appeal of doubling the contact patch remained strong. Like computers and bathyspheres, the technology needed some time to catch up to the concept.

The first wide-scale use was, of course, the WWII Jeep. Now we'll have to get a little technical, but this will help explain why I nearly sent a dozen happy tourists off a rain-slicked cliff and into the ocean: the system in these Jeeps (and still in use on the modern Jeep Wrangler) has a big flaw. It lacks a front differential. A differential is a complicated doohickey that sits in the middle of an axle and allows the left and right wheels to spin at different speeds. (First invented, btw, by the Chinese who thought that the emperor's cabin on his carriage should always point south. But that's another story...)

In normal mode, only the Jeep’s rear wheels receive power. If you engage the front wheels, they receive power, but must always spin at an identical speed due to the lack of a differential. When you're going straight, all is well. Alas, this system does not cope well with that other element of driving: the turn. As you turn, the outside wheel has to cover a larger distance, so it needs to spin faster. But it’s stuck rotating at the same speed as the inside wheel. So it gets yanked along by the inside wheel, skipping over the pavement. This causes stress on the axle and damage to the tire, and the car literally hops.

So if you’re driving a rented Jeep Wrangler on a nice asphalt road, perhaps in the Caribbean paradise of St. John, you would not have the front wheels engaged. If you come upon a steep, wet hill, you have to decide: do I stop traffic to put the Jeep in neutral and engage the front wheels? Or do I assume that being on-road means that 4wd would be overkill, and just keep going up the hill?

If you said keep going, you’re wrong.

After nearly knocking the tourist taxi off the road, I halted the Jeep, engaged the front wheels and made it up the hill.

If the Jeep had a front differential, I could have just left the front wheels engaged the whole time, doubling my contact patch and avoiding a minor heart attack.

[A note, should this blog ever be read by Jeep enthusiasts: yes, it does actually have a front differential. But it’s so limited that the car still suffers from serious hopping and skipping in corners.]

Now, I’ll spare you a lot of the drama of how we got from nasty old Jeeps to modern Subarus, where all the tires receive power all the time. The short story is that the Japanese added a simple type of front differential, and made the whole thing fairly cheap and reliable. (To be fair, Audi led the way, but the importance of “cheap and reliable” never sank in with them.)

Back to the contact patch: nearly all of today’s high-performance cars have big steel-belted radial tires and some type of four-wheel drive. But the contact patch is still too small, because their engines push out 300 or 400 horsepower. It’s all-too-easy to overwhelm their little patches of rubber, spin the tires, and slide around.

But it is FUN.

I have acquired a blog

2006-02-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

Let's get this out of the way: you won't find this blog as entertaining as I do. Not because my writing tends to the baroque, nor because my life is boring. (Though neither of these will help.)

Here is the source of your discontent:

The phrase "hydropneumatic spheres" make you think of Pamela Anderson
You are not sure why a Honda Civic is like a Hobbit.
You probably never even wasted brain cycles pondering what a Honda Civic "is like"

My brain, on the other hand, is overflowing with this stuff. Some people--I admit they may have been humoring me--have commented that this overflow can be interesting, occasionally even amusing.

So, even though I will not entertain you as much as I entertain myself, I hope that you, dear readers, find some amusement in what is essentially a pressure-release valve for my strongest and least explicable obsession.

My purpose is to write about cars. But where to begin? Cadillacs? Citroens? The aforementioned Civic? Perhaps I should address a socially-pressing issue, like the evils of SUVs.

Civics. Definitely Civics.

There are some people who are obsessed with certain cars. You have surely met men or boys for whom Corvettes are meaningful and beautiful objects. Some people's hearts flutter at the sight of a more obscure vehicle, such as the Isetta. (That's the motorized hard-boiled egg once driven by Mr. Urkel.) There are even polytheists who worship the many-faced "Ford," while cursing the devil "Chevy."

There are others who find that the Honda Civic speaks to them. Not in the Fast-and-Furious-slam-it-low-pump-it-up-fly-through-the-tire-spikes-and-crash-in-a-blaze-of-glory sense. No, for them, even the mild-tempered, fuel-efficient, socially-responsible dark-green Civic tells a story worth hearing....

Everyone knows that the Honda Civic is one of the most boring cars ever built. It's slow, physically forgettable, and technologically bland.

But it is also a righteous warrior.

Every Civic that you see screams "I AM THE GREATEST FIGHTER IN THE WORLD! I HAVE CONQUERED EMPIRES! EVERLASTING GLORY UNTO ME!"

Once upon a time, in the dark days before the Civic, Americans could only buy three kinds of cars: Big cars, bigger cars, and VW Beetles. Did you want one that was cheap, efficient, and pleasant? Tough shit for you, because you're a fucking Communist, and General Motors doesn't build cars for Communists.

I believe it was the early 1960's when a GM executive said, "An American who wants cheap transportation should buy a good used car." These were the days when GM execs' pontification actually mattered. GM was the biggest company in the world. People aspired to work for GM, and those who didn't, aspired to run their companies like GM.

But a very small company, one whose primary business wasn't even cars, did not aspire to produce products like GM. They thought that their success in making cheap, efficient, and pleasant motorcycles might apply to cars, too.

So the first Honda Civic came to America in 1972. It left the verdant hills and scenic shores of its native Japan, where all things were small and pleasant and friendly. It came to fight a battle in a land of giants, where other vehicles weighed literally twice or thrice its size. And the makers of those vehicles were so many times larger than Honda that a Hobbit doesn't have enough fingers and toes to count so high.

This unassuming car was even slower, uglier, and more boring than today's Civic. But it was cheap to buy, cheap to run, and the inside was not at all like Nazi prison cell.

Over the next 30 years, the Civic slew dragon after dragon. It brought immense riches and glory to its homeland. It was still small and boring. If one passed you by, you might not even notice it. But its enemies certainly did. They tried to defend themselves by building strong and thick walls of import tariffs. But the virtue and purity of the little Civic continued to win hearts.

And now.... look outside your window, up and down your street. If you can see any cars at all, I'll wager one of them is a Honda Civic. You probably can't even see a Chevy Cavalier.

So this is what you can expect from my blog. I'll try to share with you the thrill of exotic cars: those powerful enough to yank Texas from its moorings, or those bedecked in gewgaws conceived by teams of feverish German engineers. Or perhaps French vehicles so alien that we must assume they were designed by non-carbon-based life forms. But I also want to share the wonder of the mundane cars. Every single car has a story. Some of the most boring cars have the best stories. So even if you and I have different ideas about hydropneumatic spheres, I hope you'll still enjoy the stories--and rants, there will definitely be rants--I post here.