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And So It Begins

Drive Time

Seems as though I’ve opened up a big ol’ can of Murkin worms in posting about the ’66 Mercury Comet last week.

Reader Brad_In_IL wrote:

On the way home from work the other day, I was passed by what I’d call “Purty Car”. And what was that fine ride you ask? Something of an American Classic. Twas a 1971 Buick Skylark convertible:

Fucking hell, that’s an ugly barge of a car.  Sorry, Brad — but my taste runs towards this kind of 1971 convertible:

That’s the Fiat Dino, with its Ferrari-inspired 2.46-liter V6 engine.

And Reader Clem C. added his experience:

We owned a ’91 Buick Reatta coupe.  Maybe you’ve heard of it.  I look forward to your take on the car.  We enjoyed it.

Actually, I don’t find that Reatta too appalling.  Although much larger, as is the American way, it compares quite favorably, shape-wise, to the 1990 Toyota MR2:

…although the actual performance of the Buick, when compared to that of the “Mister Two”, makes one understand why Buick only made the Reatta in small numbers for two years while Toyota made a zillion MR2 models over two decades.

(Actually, I prefer the chunkier 80s-style MR2:

…but that’s just me.  I’d drive one today, in original condition.  YMMV.)

In Comments to last week’s post, Reader Don C. spoke of his love for the brawny ’71 PontiaG GTO convertible:

…which would be, I agree, a better choice than that overpriced Mercury Comet, although I still think it’s hideously bloated.  But #MuscleCar, so it can be forgiven.

Reader Topcat loved him his Chevy Nova SS back in the day:

…which I think is easily one of the ugliest cars ever made, but I’ll accept the #MuscleCar excuse here too.

Although I have to say that the more I look at these things, the more I prefer my compact and nimbler Euro cars…

…and I’m not even talking about Ferraris, Lamborghinis or Maseratis.  That’s a 1971 Alfa Romeo Giulia GT 1750cc.

This topic is kinda fun, guys.  Keep them coming.

And tomorrow begins a weekly series of my personal experiences with American cars.

Cry Me A River

Marxists, Politics

Via Insty:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said New York City’s proposed $1 billion cut from the police department budget tiptoes around demands from activists who are asking for a reduced police presence.

Though the plan proposed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) cuts one-sixth of the New York Police Department (NYPD) budget, activists note that much of it would be transferred to other city departments, including the Department of Education, where it could pay for police in schools. Activists have advocated for removing officers from schools altogether.

“Defunding police means defunding police,” the congresswoman said in a statement. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools.”

—The Hill, June 30th, 2020, at the height of left’s riot, arson, and looting season.

How it’s going: The Fruits of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Labors: A 70% increase in Violent Crime in Her District.

Last year, AOC was hoping to be named to the top spot on the powerful Oversight Committee. Pelosi blocked her ascension,  proving to AOC that moving up in the Democratic Party will be harder than she thought.

Through all of this political maneuvering to further her career, AOC has forgotten the people who got her to where she is: her long-suffering constituents. From 2019 to 2025, murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft have jumped 70%.

You might claim that a congresswoman’s actions or inactions have little to do with the crime rate. That would be true if AOC hadn’t been a prominent voice in the “Defund the Police” movement.

“The 115th Precinct, which also serves part of Roosevelt Avenue in addition to Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, and north Corona, saw major offenses rise by 85%” reports the New York Post.

Ocasio-Cortez’s district takes in two police districts that are among the worst in the city. And some residents are pointing the finger at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“She’s not doing shit. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care,” said Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez, who has lived in the neighborhood her entire life.

Here’s a quick question for “Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez”:

Did you vote for AOC in the past couple/three elections?

If you did, then you got what you wanted.

If you didn’t, then all the other people who did are also getting what they deserve*.

Vote for Commies, get government run according to Communist principles. 

Tell your sob story to someone who cares.

*Or, as H.L. Mencken once put it:  “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Secret Fears

Health

I am surprisingly sympathetic to this story from writer Bryony Gordon:

What if I had done something awful to someone on the Tube the evening before and blanked it out because I was secretly a psychopath? Had I accidentally sent my child to school with a water bottle full of bleach? Had I emailed a terrible, abusive message to her teacher and deleted it from my sent items to hide the evidence? 

The “blanked out” thing is what caught my attention.

Many years ago, I was afflicted with terrible PTSD dreams.  I mean the kind of dreams where you wake up shaking in terror — all horribly violent, all involving death (my own) — and they happened often, sometimes three times a week.  And they were also repetitive, revolving around being attacked by lions, and getting into a street fight being two examples.

But they weren’t the worst.  I actually learned to cope with those dreams after a while, by simply recognizing them as they began to unfold, and forcing myself to wake up before they got any worse.  Now, I only get them maybe once a year, and they’re easily overcome.

The worst of my dreams, however, is where I become two characters in a murder mystery:  a cop or investigator of some kind on the track of a serial killer, a killer whose murders are gruesome and revolting.  And part of the investigation is my seeming ability to visualize the murders as they’re taking place — as portrayed in the movie The Eyes Of Laura Mars. 

After a while (in the dream), the realization would begin to dawn that the reason I could visualize the gruesome murders was that I was the murderer, and this manifested itself in the dreadful fear of discovery.

I would wake up, and so realistic were the dreams that in process of awakening I would ask myself if I actually was a murderer in real life and had somehow managed to get away with the killing.  The feeling of horror (at being that kind of person and of being discovered) was as strong in my semi-wakened state as it had been in the dream.

It would take me a long time, as much as an hour of rational thinking, to dispel those fears.

Fortunately, I haven’t had one of those dreams in a couple of years.  Maybe they’re gone — I certainly hope so.

I cannot imagine that feeling of dread happening to me in an awakened state.  It must be awful, just terrible;  and that’s why I’m sympathetic towards Bryony Gordon.

Nobody deserves to have the mind play such foul tricks on them.

An afterthought:  many times, these kinds of dreams and hallucinations are caused by psychotropic drugs, taken to suppress things like feelings of panic or depression.  Mine weren’t, because I’ve never taken such drugs;  that’s why they’re all the more terrifying.

I’ve tried to analyze why I get them.  The most plausible explanation is that when writing fiction, writers have to envision the plot from both sides of the mystery so that the plot doesn’t have holes in it.  And even if I’m not in the process of writing a book, I’m always developing plots and storylines in my head.  I haven’t done any such writing for a while, now, and maybe that’s why I haven’t had those dreams recently.

I just hope that writing about them today doesn’t cause a re-occurrence.

Crappy List Part Tre

Drive Time, Lists

Okay, after doing the Limeys and the Krauts, let’s do the Wops.  Here we have a problem because Italy has produced so many amazing cars that it’s difficult, nay almost impossible to keep it to only 25 great ones.  And for the purposes of simplicity, I’ve excluded Italian-styled cars which used off-brand engines, like those from Bizzarini, Intermeccanica, Pagani and De Tomaso.  Anyway, I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge, even if choosing the top 5 greatest Italian cars is really difficult.  Nevertheless, here we go…

1) 1959 Ferrari 250 GT:  Certainly, the ’59 GT set the bar for all other sports cars of the era, and today it’s sought after more for its collector value.  Although as one sees several racing at Goodwood nowadays, the howls of their lively engines are almost drowned out by the collective thudding of the heartbeats of their insurance agents.

2) 1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400:  I don’t know if any other car’s picture has graced more teenage boys’ bedroom walls, and even though the Countach is an absolute pig to drive, to park, in the rain and all that, people love this Lambo with a passion.  Even though some earlier cars can claim to be “supercars”, this one was the first:  impractical, over the top and utterly gorgeous.

3) 1975 Lancia Stratos HF Stradale:  “I know!  we’ll make a car the size of a skateboard and slap a modified Ferrari V6 engine right behind the driver’s head — and then we’ll go and win some World Rally Championships!”  Only Lancia could even have conceived such a concept.

4)  1956 Maserati 450 S:  Take a car that’s won some Formula 1 races, make it street legal and release it to the public almost unchanged.

5) 1969 Dino 246 GT:  One of the top 3 most beautiful sports cars Ferrari ever made, and it’s in almost everyone’s top 5 most beautiful of all cars ever made.

I know, I know… “But Kim, what about…[endless list follows]?”  See if you find yours in the next twenty…

6) 1947 Cisitalia 202:  The very first car made with “single-shell” coachwork, the 202 changed the entire face of the automobile industry.  As each car was handmade, the cost was astronomical and only a couple hundred were ever made.  Still lovely, especially the 1951 Cabriolet…

7) 1946 Maserati A6 1500:  With its post-war Italian design, the A6 set the scene for a huge number of sports cars (especially Aston Martin) to follow in the 1950s.

8) 1957 Fiat Nuovo 500:  The first actual purpose-built “city” car, the 500 went on to sell just under 4 million units over its 18-year lifetime.  Amazingly (by today’s standards), it was first marketed as a “family” car.

9) Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider:   The list of “first to market” features introduced by Lancia is staggering.  The Aurelia B24, for example, was powered by the first production V6 engine and was the first car to use radial tires. And was it beautiful?

10) 1986 Ferrari F110 Testarossa:  The only competitor to the Countach for “posters on the wall”, the Testa is still seriously popular among the Ferrari tifosi.

11) 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider:  Whether you wanted to race it or just take it for a long road trip through Tuscany, the 8C line could do either with aplomb.  In the late 1930s.

12) 1968 Lamborghini Miura P400:  Some say the Miura is the most beautiful Italian car ever.  I don’t agree, but I can see their point.

13) 2002 Ferrari Enzo:  When you build a car dedicated to the company’s founder, it better be good.  It was, and still is.

14) 1955 Fiat SuperSonica:  Way ahead of its time, the SuperSonica showed that Fiat wasn’t all about the mass market.

15) 1965 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600:  During its eighteen years of production over four distinct styling generations, every single sports car fan, male or female, wanted to own one of these lovely little creatures — hell, it’s probably still true today.  With good reason.

16) 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS:  Pinifarina design, 3.3-liter V12, ’nuff said.

17) 1967 Lamborghini 400GT:  The 350 — Ferruccio’s first car after his argument with Enzo —  was good, the 400 much better.  And much less likely to break down than any Ferrari of the time, too.

18) 1982 Lancia 037 Stradale:  Like the earlier Stratos, this is Lancia’s street version of a monster Group B rally car, and the 037 was the last rear-wheel drive to win the WRC.  And one of the best-looking examples of 1980s automotive styling.

19) 2022 Maserati MC20 Coupé:  When they think that Ferrari has worn the “supercar” mantle for long enough, Maserati steps up with this 3-liter 600hp V6-powered beast, just so that people can remember that they too have a racing heritage.

20) 1973 Alfa Romeo Montreal:  An absolutely stunning sports car, powered by a 2.5-liter V8 (!), it is still the only car I’ve ever driven over 125mph — and I backed off before the engine did.

21) 1984 Ferrari 288 GTO:  While its “parent” 308 GTB was a good sports car, the 288 GTO was a missile.  Its 300+km/hr top speed was the fastest of any non-racing car of the time, much faster than anything made by its competitors and only 3km/hr less than the Enzo.  And it was gorgeous, too.

22) 1964 Lancia Flaminia Sport:  The Flaminia was Lancia’s luxury saloon line, but the Sport model was the more beautiful.

23) 1953 Iso Isetta:  The Fiat 500’s only competition in the “super economy” market, the Isetta’s 236cc (!) motorcycle engine got between 70 and 90 miles per gallon, and actually won the Mille Miglia race twice in the “Economy” class.  Top speed was about 47mph, but it took over half a minute to get there (unless you were on a downhill road with a strong tailwind).  Still, so popular was the Isetta during the mid- to late 1950s that it was made under license in seven other countries.

24) 1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6:  Best of the 1980s Alfas, the GTV6 was powered by the 2.5-liter V6, which is arguably one of the best Alfa engines of all time, giving incredible performance for a non-racing powerplant.  And it looked pretty good too (like the Lancia 037), in an era in which car designs were kinda blah;  and unlike most sporty cars, the GTV6 could carry a massive amount of luggage in its cavernous trunk.

25) 1986 Lamborghini LM002:  “We have to make-a the truck-a for the militaria.  So we make a truck-a, and drop in the 5.3-liter V12 engine from a Countach.  Should-a work-a.”

And that’s my list of 25 great Italian cars.  And incidentally, I’ve actually driven six of them myself.