It would be disingenuous of me to say, in the wake of your announcement this week that Saab, the once proud marque you've spent the last two decades running into the ground, would be "wound down," that I will never buy a GM vehicle so long as I live, when in fact there was nigh unto zero chance that I would ever buy one of your shitty cars anyway. So instead, on behalf of Saab drivers the world over, I simply say: May you all drive Buick Enclaves in hell for a hundred thousand eternities, you worthless fucking piece-of-shit motherfucking assholes, each and every last one of you. Or how about this:...
Cars I Don't Give a Shit About, an Ongoing Series: Mercedes SLS AMG Gullwing
Fifty years and this is what you come up with? Seriously?Apologies to Andrew Hime, not that he gives a shit either I'm guess...
Spotted: Dwight!
It doesn't get much more Firebird Man than this.Click on the pic if you can't read the ...
My Favorite Things: Watkins Glen Festival 2009
You hear about Monterey, you hear about Goodwood. You never really hear about Watkins Glen, and that's just fine. This ain't about megabucks jetsetters and multinational corporate sponsorships. It is instead an annual pilgrimage to the ancestral home of sports car racing in the United States, and something sacred would be lost if it were opened up to nonbelievers.Every September, on the Friday before the vintage races at the track proper, the tiny lakeside hamlet of Watkins Glen is overrun by an unparalleled gathering of automotive awesomeness, the city streets and country lanes that made up the...
Scene Report: El Salvador, C.A.
I just got back from two weeks in Central America, in girlfriend Patricia's native El Salvador to be specific. For all the traveling I've done, it was my first time venturing outside the safe, comfortable, privileged bubble of the first world, and I fully expected to have my mind blown in all sorts of ways. I did not, however, expect to have my mind blown by cars.That's what happened, though. It's a fascinating and beautiful place, El Salvador. Largely rural and undeveloped through most of the last century, it spent the duration of the 1980s immersed in civil war and in the twenty years since...
America, Fuck Yeah! 2009 Syracuse Nationals
As far as car shows go, this weekend's Syracuse Nationals offer a distinctly different experience from June's Victor outing. For one thing, it genuinely is huge, with six thousand-plus cars (in non-numerical terms: more than one can realistically see in a day) arrayed upon the sprawling New York State Fairgrounds. For another, this is a hot rod show. Which means, one, you won't find a lotta furrin' autos here (I counted one exceptionally maintained P1800ES and two horrifyingly modded '70s Rollers on display and that was it), and two, you will find a whole lot of really, really, really bad taste....
In Bloom: Victor Car Show 2009
One thing about the long winters here in western New York is that the landscape turns into an automotive wasteland. Unless you're really into '90s shitbox beaters (the '80s ones all returned to the earth some time ago) or Outbacks, Quattros and X5s, for about five months there's precious little of interest to be seen on the roads. Right around the time you've forgotten that there ever was, spring arrives, and with it, the pleasant realization that among this region's many splendors are an intractable group of eccentrics who can't wait another day to bring the Daimler Dart out of storage, and so...
Dear Six Months From Now: This Is What A Pontiac Dealership Looked Like
A eulogy in photos to the division that gave this blog its name. Let the record reflect that the end was an ignominious one. Nevertheless, a world without Pontiac is a poorer world, if only infinitesimally so. Star Chief to Sunbird, Grand Prix to Grand Am, GTO to G8, Fiero to Solstice, Firebird to Firebird to Firebird Man. You will be missed.Click on the pics for a closer l...
Adventures In Incredulity: New Car Shoppin', 2009
Or, No Wonder All You Dumbass Motherfuckers Are Going Out of BusinessIt's one of those things the undeniability of which forces me to acknowledge, however grudgingly, the fact that my personal world view does not extend to the entire universe: Not everybody wants an old car. Not everybody wants an interesting car. Not everybody wants a two-thousand-dollar car they then have to spend two thousand dollars annually to keep on the road. Despite a veritable cosmos of ebaymotors awesomeness at their fingertips, many people want nothing more than a car that is economical, runs dependably, and provides...
Nissan Cube Officially Awesome
Not like I'm gonna go out and buy one or anything, but I saw one on the street for the first time the other day and it made me smile. Anything that strikes this kind of blow for automotive heterogeneity gets my vo...
Spotted: Alfa Romeo Pepto Bismol Edition
"Right ... yeah, I'm in the Alfa Spider ... no, the pink one ... no, the pink one with flowers on it ...."Click on the pic for a closer l...
Spotted: Intense Rims
There is no denying the commitment of this Brooklyn 318ti driver. A commitment to rims that are fully intense. These rims bespeak full commitment. Indeed, there can be no ambivalence where these rims are concerned.Click on the pic for a closer l...
El Camino, El Ranchero, El... ¡Volvo!
Shame about the '90s rims (and crap pics) but there is no denying the genius at work here. And rare was the original Camino fortunate enough to benefit from a fully functional rear wiper. Bonus points for multiple P1800s and Swedish flag in background, too. If only it were a turbo....Click on the pic to check out the auct...
Jacked Up: 199X Ford Probe
No comment, except that I always thought this was one of the more elegant and underrated designs of the nineties. Jacked-up Probe stal...
What's Swedish for Deus Ex Machina?
Honestly? I was fine with Saab going the way of all things. Because the Saab of the last fifteen years was an embarrassment, plain and simple. And it made it so I couldn't even go on Saab boards because they were full of people who seemed not to notice and to point it out is just being a dick.It's like the music genre fan. The guy who just likes Brit-pop or whatever. Never mind that eighty-five percent of Brit-pop is garbage, just like eighty-five percent of anything is garbage. That's what he's into, and his enthusiasm doesn't discriminate. Pulp? Awesome. Ned's Atomic Dustbin? Equally awesome....
Revisionist History: The DaimlerChrysler That Could've Been
Remember when Chrysler and Mercedes merged in the early '90s and they plastered a Spirit grill across the front of a W124 to make the Dodge 300E? These guys do!Click on the pic for a closer lo...
Coolest Car Ever in the World, 22,500 Miles, $12,500
How is this shit even possible? People are still paying six figures for dumb old muscle cars and you can buy one of these for the price of a used Kia? Not only would I argue that this is the coolest car ever, it might actually represent the purest and most extreme form of anachronism extant in the world. Think about it: what other fifty-year-old object seems so bafflingly like something returned from fifty years in the future?Maybe this is truly the onset of pussed-out middle age talking, but seriously: Testa Rossa? GT40? XJR-5? Aston Martin Lagonda? As of this moment I take this over all of them....
Not Hummer Too! Nooooo!
To quote this blog's best-ever comment: "What are assholes going to drive now?" Sad times indeed.Click on the pic for the story from U.S. News & World Rep...
A Perfect Six: 1993 Lexus SC 300
Other engine layouts may claim prizes for ubiquity (inline-4), durability (V-8), sexiness (V-12) or eccentricity (V-4, inline-5, flat-anything), but to my mind at least, none of them can compare with the essential, Fibonacci-like rightness of the straight six. There are sound, physics-based explanations for this, but more importantly, just pause for a moment and meditate on this: how many of the coolest cars ever had straight sixes? The coolest Jags. The coolest Astons. The coolest Benzes. The coolest BMWs. The coolest Maseratis. The coolest Datsuns, coolest Toyotas, and about a billion of the...
Lap' Dance: 1966 Volvo L3314
"The purchaser has options to leave the Puppy as is or design and restore it in any way to his or her dream." What other vehicle can you say that about? What do you mean, "all of them"? Psssh. Well, look here then: "It has undercoating, is mobile and suitable for any kind of travel." Did you hear that? It's mobile! Okay, I'm not going to argue with you. I'm also not sure that this is worth $8000 to me. It'd still be fun.Click on the pic to check out the auct...
Damn It!
How did I not know about the J. Mascis Edition Toyota Yaris auction?Click on the pic to see what you mis...
