Automotive Hell

2010 Ford Taurus S(umo wrestler)HO

2009-06-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

So here's the latest American interpretation of the Sports Sedan. $38K Base price, which is within a few dollars of it's kin over at Lincoln (The MKS) and Volvo (S80), 350 HP Twin Turbo Eco-Boost V6, All Wheel Drive....and...ehem....4400lbs....

Like I know cars are like hella safer and like their own rolling brookyln bridges of structural rigidity these days, but can we really ever consider an American Car 203 inches long and 4400lbs a "performance car" and, like Nixon just didn't get elected.....

Then again, performance "personal" sedan, now? That's soo...2005 and Chrysler 300ish....Sorry Pontiac G8...

At least this Bull, looks, like...something...

Buh Bye Fun In the Sun

2009-06-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

So after many years, Karmann is ceasing to exist. Many memories and smiles of fun in the sun (because after all they beautiful creations, most often, in the case of the Beetle and Karmann Ghia, were slow as pancake syrup out of the fridge) that went on for hours (need I remind you the cars were slow).

As we drive around in our air conditioned hybrid douchey cocoons....let's remember the good days of the automotive sunburn...

Buhbye Planets and Indians as Cars...

2009-02-18T15:12:00.000-08:00

So, as part of the bailout plan GM released hoping that it wouldn't be forced into bankruptcy and get more loan money to keep them afloat, they've decided, in addition to try and sell Saab back to the swedes and take away every small-dicked mans fantasy of the Hummer off the showroom floors, to take Saturn and Pontiac (somewhat) off the scene.

To be honest, really....it feels like...and? Do they stop there? Do they really need two lines of Pick-ups and SUVs (Hello?!?! Who actually gives a shit about the difference in grilles between a GMC Sierra and a Chevrolet Silverado. Note, every other Pick-Up truck comes basically as one brand, unless it's something horrid like the Suzuki Equator).

And of all things My heart goes out to Saturn. It's basically General Motors Edsel, but allowed to be on life Support for 20 years. What seemed like a good concept in the mid 80s, in the reality of the 1991 launch didn't make sense, in reality Saturn's would have made more sense if they were rolled into either Oldsmobile or Pontiac at the time, and allowed to fail there, instead of creating a unique dealer network, with, a set of people that will be laid off over the next 2 years.

But of course. I've said it before that General Motors problems are not 20, or 30 years old. When you look at a 1964 Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85/Cutlass, or Buick Special/Skylark they aren't all that different. At least they did hold unique V8 engines and spring rates, but, these differences would disappear in the next 15 years. Eventually little differences that made those cars drive differently melted into sameness...so all of the brands became pointless.

The root cause of the problem started almost 50 years ago. The problem isn't General Motors itself but it's more the product of 20th Century Capitalism, and the need for things to compete outside their niche. Note that American Motors failed when it tried to compete with The Big 3 offering cars equivalent to every Dodge, Pontiac and Mercury in the 1960s....and was only kept alive until Chrysler's takeover in 1987 by Jeep and rebadged Renaults (Renaults you can thank your LH with a failing transmission for).

It's hard for me as a die-hard car nut to see the death of Car Culture (trust me, hybrids just force Cars into the field of an more efficient appliance. A Prius is ugly. It doesn't inspire fantasy in a way even the most mundane economic offering did 50 years ago. A Prius is a toaster on wheels that doesn't occasionally burn your toast). But in the case of General Motors, it's that they wanted too much.....and you can't keep growing without nuturing what you have.

Think of it. As revoluntionary as most auto critics said the 1980 Chevrolet Citation was, what did it really do that a 1968 Audi 100 didn't do? besides offer a V6 option (that was substantially weaker, and notoriously asthmatic in comparison to Audi's Turbo options of the same vintage). When your Big Hope is no more technologically advanced than a car that had been on the market more than a decade ago, what are you doing? How are you innovating?

You're just selling death.

In an Alternate Universe.....

2009-02-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

These two lovely Coupes would be typical models in the Buick Motor Division line up. Sleek, Curvy, with excellent panel gaps and style leading cars.

If you notice anything, these cars aren't conecpts of what Buick actually has in store, or has even designed. From what I gather this is just the work of some rabid Design Students that created a website and "designed" (really photoshopped) a couple of brilliant proposals for the General Motors line up, that are far more appealing to the eye than anything beyond the Current CTS and Chevrolet Malibu.

I should forward this To Barack Obama. If the Automotive Bailout is to go through, seriously, General Motors has to fire it's current design department and hire these PhotoShopping GM Nerds to design cars that will actually make people want to buy cars again. Cars as fashion statements (for every pocketbook).

Or we can just work on coming up with a transporter beam service like Star Trek and move completely into the future. Talk about a future less dependant on Foreign Oil.....

Minor Mistakes That Collapse An Empire: Edition 1

2008-12-19T16:07:00.000-08:00

So, It's around 1989, and Ford has the Taurus to compete with average decent Family sedans (and eventually will let the car wither into a rental fleet special by the turn of the Century) and Chrysler, pre-Daimler Benz hook up has the only realistically useful minivans on the Market! (let's ignore the hell that would become any V6 equipped Chrysler product with the Ultradrive Automatic Transmission, and it's "brain" that deranged brain, with a personality of Naomi Campbell and Sybil, buried between the firewall and the engine).

General Motors (after quite a few blunders and really, just the Buick LeSabre, Olds 88 and Pontiac Bonneville (C&D ten Best!) as a shining point in their lineup around this time) decides that people want something that vaguely looks like a cordless Vacuum Cleaner as family transport....with a wheezing 120hp V6 to pull around nearly 2 tons of car, 4 people and camping gear....

And we wonder why General Motors is in such a shitter these days. Because for a good 40 or some years they offered possibly 5 great cars, 4 good enough cars, 9 average cars 10 bad cars and about 5 WTF cars.

even now, GM really onle has 2 Great Cars (CTS, Malibu) 4 Overlapping Good Enough cars (, The Lambda Crossovers like Enclave) a large number of Average cars (G6, Aura, Lucerne, STS)

and more than it's fair share of cars that torture us at O'Haire, LaGuardia and other large Enterprise and Hertz lots (like The Impala).

So, umm, yeah....how about just stop building the shitty cars until you come up with some winners GM, I know it keeps the unions happy to be putting together Impalas and Suburbans at $35 an hour plus benefits, but fuck, everyone else is hurting....and a Tahoe LT Hybrid isn't making the world a better place.....

Halfway back from Death:Cadillac

2008-12-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

Thank you Cadillac, for Daring to try to be hip, cool and optimistic again. Like th world isn't gonna blow up in 2012 like the Mayan Calander says it will. For some odd reason your 2008 Car of the year CTS makes it seem that, really, given the effort, American Manufacturers can actually make cars people want! But, alas....that's just one range of Automobiles....

You Still have Escalades on the lot, you have to admit that the XLR was a hideous mistake (It's really a sports car equivalent of what you did with the Cimarron). The STS doesn't really have a point anymore...and face it Buick Dealers are hunting around funeral homes for old biddies to put into Lucernces, which takes away the point of the DTS until you really like, make a flagship.

The Work is half done Cadillac. The faith in the American dream really rests on your shoulders. Point, how often do you see Cadillac driven by any subset of the population that are DINKs? (Straight People with Money under 34, Gays and Lesbians? Black people that don't put 22s on their cars?). Somehow, in the future you have to become acceptable with these people....it's possible...Suburu somehow made inroads in two of those marketing focus groups....

I'm counting on you.

Oh Hai Hybrid Douchebags!

2008-12-16T17:40:00.000-08:00

So, you know what? You guys are really a pain in the ass, and don't realize that about 15 years ago a Geo Metro got the same mileage of your beloved Prius. Without Batteries, Just 3 cylinders and like the same 0-60 times. What makes your 1,000lb heavier Prius or Civic Hybrid better? Absolutely nothing. If people really wanted to save the world we'd just all go on Craigslist and buy up all the $500 Metros left....

You douchebags are for more "Smug" that the Bio-Diesel people...which to be honest is far more cool because, at least their cars make us hungry, smelling like fry and Dougnut grease, and tend to be like classy cars like old Mercedes benzes that never seem to die (just take up the slow lane barely going 55mph...but any car that encourages theft of cooking grease before it's sold for profit is a good car to me).

So hey, can you like stop making us people that are in normal v6 powered Mid-sized sedans and not in gargantuan worthless Escalades and Hummers (those who really deserve the scorn) a break. We have enough douchebag issues that we don't want to tip the scales be self aggrandizing ourselves on our motor vehicle choices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rQM_HAcfA

Here....even the folks at South Park think you suck ass.....

Hey Baby Gay, There's other cars besides a 3 Series...

2008-12-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

So I know young homosexuals can be a rather uppity, siddity population, and when their parents try to hand them the family Ford Explorer or Toyota Camry XLE to go off to University of Illinois or UC Berkeley, they take the keys, and in between cruising Craigslist M4M because they can't afford manhunt or gaydar yet, they keep their eyes out on the one used car of Gay Ghetto respectibility out there, The BMW 3 Series....

Long a yuppie classic (ever since I've been alive), there is a certain appeal of DINK I'm better than you, and eventually I'll be able to afford a new one of these someday aura that escapes comparable European cars from the late 80s (notably the Mercedes Benz 190 and Audi 100 to think of two often on Craigslist, with the same issues of high maintainance costs for a 20 year old car).

So my rational would be, if you're food budget only allows you ramen and cans of tuna, and every two weeks maybe a hostess pie, why would you dump a perfectly cheap to fix 1992 Camry for a car that'll average you all of your textbook money to get the clutch replaced?

Think about it......the DILF you meet 3 weeks after you get on campus isn't gonna loan you money to get you transportation to his place, he'll probably just end up picking you up...

and eventually you'll be a houseboy, pledging antique furniture in the nude, wondering whatever happened to your independence......

Trust me....keep the Camry....

Do I really have to look......

2008-12-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

So Theoretically if the Bailout passes the House and The Senate General Motors will have enough of our tax dollars to flush down the toilet on a new, $40K Chevrolet that looks like a deformed child of a Prius and a 1989 Buick Skylark.

At least Tax Credits will knock around $7-10K off the sticker price (and then on top of everything there's always a "redtag" incentive on GM cars) and you can get this thing that's uglier than anything you've shitted out your ass for probably $25 in about 3 years, that's if it doesn't stall, burn, flip over or any of the other host of sins that revoluntionary Chevrolets have been accused (Corvair) and sued (Citation) about.

How about working on the current Malibu Hybrid so it doesn't seem like such a total loser prospect compared to a Camry Hybrid (34mpg Combined Cycle) or hell, the new low sulphur Jetta Diesel (33 Combined Cycle, no batteries to worry about in 7-10 years!).

At least The Malibu isn't something I'd be embarrased to park in my driveway, it looks like a normal, decent, non offensive, pleasant to the eye American Sedan...

This shit for bricks thing makes the Prius look as hot as Anderson Cooper....

Danger, SVU Case Dead Ahead!

2008-12-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

So In every neighborhood throughout the US, and I assume most of Canada and a good portion of Mexico, since really, that's where all panel vans are converted in to creepy sinister Ice Cream Trucks selling LSD laced candy to unsuspecting minors with 8 quarters and 13 pennies. Shouldn't we be forwarned about the sexual predatory nature of cars that have no windows over a large passenger/storage area?

Hearses hide the truth of death from us (and a subfamily of the stalker van, the Coroner Van). So what seedy truths do 25-40 year old Vans with no windows, or god forbid, curtains under the windows have to hide?

Do we really want to know?

Hell NO...

So if your motor vehicle choices have been limited to a Panel Van, you seriously might wanna consider selling it for scrap metal and getting a local bus pass. Chances are some worry wart mother whoms home you park out in front of will be calling the police on you for just being a creep. The Bus Pass is so much cheaper than being hauled off to jail....

save up and get a VW Bus or a used 1984 Caravan......be a hippie or a modern carpenter...it's a little less creepy....