Now for those of you who are still interested, I will start by saying that no, the Honda Element is not the least selling car in the country, but just: with just 3 models sold in the last 3 months and down 99.8% year-on-year it ranks #261 out of 265 models accounted for…That would be because the model has been discontinued and is no longer produced.
Why did I focus on the Honda Element? Just because.
We’ve seen a few NUMMI-built Junkyard Finds in recent weeks, including this ’87 Nova and this ’87 Corolla FX16 GT-S. However, the car that really comes to mind when you think of NUMMI is the Geo Prizm. Here’s an example of GM’s rebadged Corolla that I found at a self-service junkyard about 20 miles from the car’s birthplace. It’s the circle of automotive life! Read More >
The last two Vellum Venom editorials discussed the differences between 1980s and 2000s automotive design aesthetics, for two vehicles with similar missions for their respective brands. The point? We’ve gone silly in our proportions and we need way more ATD (attention to detail) from the auto makers. Behold, my point coming to life: the 1991-ish Toyota Camry.
The discussion of yesterday’s Junkyard Find, a 1973 Ford LTD, got a bit heated at times. Some felt that the ’73 LTD was an abomination too horrific to contemplate, while others (including most who had actually driven one back in the day) opined that it was a pretty comfy pseudo-luxo-chariot and no worse than its contemporary rivals. Both sides have valid points, which got me to thinking about what I would do if a time machine were to drop me off at Auto Row in 1973 with the money to buy a new LTD (assuming I was required to spend the money on a new car, instead of giving it to my 7-year-old 1973 self with instructions to buy Microsoft stock a few years hence). Would I get the LTD… or something else? If something else, what? Read More >
After 15 years of sales in the United States, the Corolla had become as familiar to Americans as the Nova or Dart. By 1981, Toyota had confused matters by badging the unrelated Tercel as the “Corolla Tercel,” but the actual Corolla was still selling well. With the gas lines of the 1979 energy crisis— by some measures more painful that its 1973 precursor— still fresh in car shoppers’ memories, the stingy Corolla made a lot of sense. The Corolla was getting sportier-looking as the 1980s dawned, too; compare this car to the smaller and frumpier Corollas of just five years earlier. Here’s a nice example of the Celica-influenced fourth-gen Corolla liftback, spotted last month in a California self-service yard. Read More >
Every time I see a junked Ford LTD of this era, I recall my early-childhood memories of my grandfather’s ’69 LTD hardtop. My parents had a ’67 Ford Custom and a ’49 Cadillac sedan at the time, and I thought Grandpa’s super-clean LTD was the most luxurious transportation imaginable. Nowadays, of course, most big Fords of the 1965-75 period that one encounters are total hoopties… but even a junked Early Malaise Era LTD still retains a bit of its original class.Read More >
Looking for some advice on a “to sell or not to sell” situation. A little background: I’ve been a fairly faithful Blue Oval guy for most of my driving years, with a few brief forays into cheap, reliable imports for college duty, and a recent contract gig that required me to drive The General’s products (GMC Sierra 4×4, Saab 9-5 Aero and Chevy Cobalt SS). We also own a trouble free Monterey minivan and a perfect ’93 5.0 notchback. My new job has no such requirement, so I made the decision to pay cash for a unique, fun, safe daily driver.
I’m outside of Chicago, and with the exception of this year, am usually subjected to significant snowfall and slow-to-react city
plowing service. A friend left his WRX wagon with me last winter so that a local body shop buddy could do a quick bumper respray in order to sell it. We had a blizzard during this time, and the WRX had Blizzaks, so I drove it around and was *hooked*. This car had too many miles and had been subjected to his car-guy wrath, so I searched for the Holy Grail of Subarus: the 2005 Legacy GT 5-speed wagon. Read More >
A funny thing happened while reading the comments on Monday’s CTS-V coupe design study: I recalled that car design students are brands unto themselves, complete with perception gaps. I was certainly a Yugo, no “gap” needed. Others were solid BMWs, most of the time. We had a few Ferraris, even if they performed like every other Corvette in class. And there’s the rub: just because a “Ferrari” makes something great looking, did they make the best concept in the class? Is a flashy rendering really that great, if it will never make production without a truckload of compromise?
With that in mind, walk about 100 yards with me from our last case study. Behold: another radical GM coupe on the same lot.
As much as we all like the CTS-V coupe for merely existing, it is sorely lacking in ATD. (Attention To Detail) If you want to rally around the General for making a coupe with brass balls and brilliant ATD, well, you could do much worse than the 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Read More >
The first car I owned wasn’t very exciting – it was a 1988 Ford Aerostar that I bought from the guy down the street for $250. The paint was peeling, it was missing a seat, the air conditioning had to be re-charged every 6 months and the transmission overheated four times on my way from California to Texas. When I completed my educational sentence, I treated myself to a lightly used 1997 Eagle Vision TSi. In 2000, I was probably the youngest person to ever lease a Chrysler LHS. A few years down the road, I married into a GMC Envoy (that’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ to it.) In 2006, flush with cash from investments and a perfectly timed real estate sale, I decided it was time for a “grown-up car”.
Before I moved to Colorado from California, two years ago this June, I became accustomed to seeing Saab 900s in large quantities in every self-service junkyard I visited. The 900 was a big seller in California (as was the Volvo 240), and you’d always find a half-dozen or so at the bigger yards. The 900 is a much rarer beast in Colorado; I see the occasional lovingly preserved example on the street, but this is the only junked example I’ve seen in a few months. Read More >
I’ve got a 2007 BMW 335 which has a direct injection system. Although I enjoy the car, it has been through three fuel pumps in 35,000 miles and BMW has thankfully extended the warranty on the fuel pump to 100,000 miles and seven years. The benefits, however, are extraordinary. This engine gets excellent fuel mileage and makes fantastic power. So tell me why DI systems are so difficult that mighty Honda has yet to take the plunge! Read More >
A few years after I left Detroit, doing my best to forget my heart-wrenching decision to give up on car design, a similarly disheartened automaker named Saturn made something called an Ion. I saw it at the Houston Auto Show circa 2002. Wounds from Detroit still fresh on my mind, I had absolutely no problem with the Saturn Ion shown behind a velvet rope. I honestly thought it was a design study commissioned by Playskool, not a production ready vehicle from General Motors.
I mean, it was that awful. So imagine my surprise when the General’s peeps come up with something nearly as ugly…and this time it’s a Cadillac. Read More >
Every once in a while, you see funny things written on junked cars, presumably by waggish junkyard employees. There was the Bee Careful Cressida, for example. On a recent trip to a Colorado self-serve yard, I spotted this very charred pickup with some more examples of the Funny Junkyard Guy genre. Read More >
If you want to see a 1910 Franklin up-close and personal, you would usually have to look in a museum. Dave Cruickshank doesn’t believe that 102-year-old cars belong in museums. They belong on the street because as Dave says, “If you own them you should drive them.” Read More >
We’ve seen a few NUMMI-built Junkyard Finds in recent weeks, including 
The discussion of 
After 15 years of sales in the United States, the Corolla had become as familiar to Americans as the Nova or Dart. By 1981, Toyota had confused matters by badging the unrelated Tercel as the “Corolla Tercel,” but the actual Corolla was still selling well. With the gas lines of the 
Every time I 
Before I moved to Colorado from California, two years ago this June, I became accustomed to seeing Saab 900s in large quantities in every self-service junkyard I visited. The 900 was a big seller in California (as was the Volvo 240), and you’d always find a half-dozen or so at the bigger yards. The 900 is a much rarer beast in Colorado; I see the occasional lovingly preserved example on the street, but this is the only junked example I’ve seen in a few months. 
Every once in a while, you see funny things written on junked cars, presumably by waggish junkyard employees. There was the 
Recent Comments