A 1995 Volvo 960. Supple leather that made long trips easy. Great safety and visibility. It represented what I thought would be the perfect family car.
I financed it quick enough. But then the troubles began.
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Category: Question of the Day
I remember those advertisements of the 1990’s when a loaded car meant….
“AUTOMATIC! POWER PACKAGE! V6 ENGINE! ABS! PREMIUM SOUND SYSTEM! ALLOY WHEELS!”
All this and MUCH MUCH MORE! was yours for the low, low lease price of $199 a month or $14,995 before a healthy smattering of taxes and bogus fees.
These days a loaded car means something else entirely.
“The V12 engine is a thing of the past. The engine belongs in a museum.”
Those are the words of Antony Sheriff, managing director of McLaren, who spoke to a Dutch publication regarding the future of its supercars. The new Mclaren MP4-12C, with its compact, turbocharged V8, is an impressive machine, but Sheriff may be exaggerating the demise of exotic, multi-cylindered engines.
Growing up, my parents were adamant about prohibiting video game consoles in the house; TV was time-limited as it is (the permitted shows included South Park and The Simpsons…go figure), the computer was for “educational purposes” (i.e. school work or reading about cars) and recreational activities took the form of a book or outdoor activities. Until that fateful day in Target.
The average Toyota Camry likely sells for somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000.
What if you could buy a more durable version of that Camry for, say, $33k…. and get a bumper to bumper lifetime guarantee?
The email was pleasant enough.
I had finally become a world famous ‘blogger’ according to the lady whose job was shucking an unloved SUV to anyone who would care to write about it.
“Sure!”, I thought. “Why the hell not! Where else would the term ‘SUV Sally’ have so much acceptance?”
Starting with the redesigned 2013 Accord, Honda will introduce its new, ultra-efficient/more powerful Earth Dreams engine lineup. And it’s far from the most silly moniker attached to automotive technology.
I saw the future as clearly as day.
The Honda CR-Z. A beautiful machine that would finally marry that elusive dream couple, sport and fuel economy, for less than $20,000.
It had to be a hit. Just had to…
The best advice I ever received about cars came from a fellow named Charlie.
He sat me down. Looked right into my 22 year old face and told me,
“You know nothing!”
He was right.
Do you know West Point?
If you ask an automotive assembly plant designer, chances are the West Point he is thinking about won’t have statues of General MacArthur or cadets in full uniform.
It will be this place.
Having tracked down a copy of Car by Mary Walton, I am now eyeballs deep in the birth and gestation of the DN101 Taurus.
A Grand Touring car is— or used to be— a big, fast, luxurious machine made for long drives to high-roller destinations. Once automobile manufacturers figured out that they could stamp out GT badges just as cheaply as Brougham emblems, we started seeing some truly silly GTs on the street. Say, the Hyundai Excel GT. Or the Plymouth Scamp GT, which wasn’t even a car. Even with those examples to choose from, my vote for the most absurd GT has to go to the Pontiac Vibe GT. Do you think a decadent, Quaaludes-and-Chartreuse-addled Italian countess would have driven a grubby little badge-engineered Toyota econobox to Monaco at an average clip of 115 MPH? Read More >
After my idea for a DUI Telepresence Crown Victoria Racing series failed to attract the shadowy Eastern European investors I’d hoped to line up, I got to thinking about spec racing. Everybody in a spec racing series runs the same kind of car, which makes parts easy to get and (in theory, though sure as hell not in practice) puts the focus on driver skill rather than vehicle price. There’s Spec Miata and Spec E30 and Spec Neon and all the rest, but it’s sort of boring watching those races. Spec racing needs better cars, and we’re going to pick the best one right now! Read More >
One of the key lessons learned by American automobile marketers in the 1990s was: friendly cars flop, aggressive cars sell. Have they learned this lesson too well? Read More >
The General’s downward spiral from its zenith as one of the most powerful and respected companies in America into Chapter 11 was an agonizingly slow affair, requiring decades and a fair number of billion-dollar miscalculations. Today’s question offers many choices: which GM vehicle caused the most damage to the company’s bottom line and/or image? I’m going to present a few examples from my own list, not necessarily in order of severity. Read More >
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