Tag: Cars

Time to wax nostalgic (again).  The setup:

You are going back to 1973 to make a trans-continental car trip from Savannah GA to Monterey CA:

For the sake of convenience, let’s say that the trip will take place in the early summer (mid-May to mid-June), which would be months before the Arab oil embargo was imposed later in the fall.  In other words, gasoline prices and availability will not be an issue.

You need not take any particular road (the above map is just a guideline), and you can take up to two weeks to complete the journey.

Your choice of companion is up to you:  a buddy, your wife, your girlfriend, the girl of your dreams, or even that rather skanky-looking thing you picked up at the gas station while filling up before setting off.  Your call.

As with all these little games of mine, imagine that your car will prove to be 100% reliable (as much of a stretch as it may be to imagine, in some cases).

Your choice of 1973-model cars comes from the following list (no substitutions are allowed):

Dodge Challenger 

BMW 3.0 CSi

Chevy Corvette

Mercedes 450SL

Ford Mustang Mach 1

Jaguar XKE

Plymouth Barracuda

Ferrari Daytona GTB4

Pontiac Formula 455

Porsche 911T Coupe 

Choose wisely, O my droogies…

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In a random rant about modern cars the other day, Reader JQ made this observation in Comments:

“I’m finding that the lottery dream car is typically a pre-1970 offering with few if any electronics other than an analog radio.”

And another thing:  there have been a number of stories and articles about the potential dangers and chaos after an EMP attack — against which a car with no electronic doodads would be immune.  Here’s a decent list of stuff which might survive, but I’m going to concentrate on the cars only.

• Toyota 4×4 Trucks 1985-and earlier
• American-made pre-1980 trucks, SUVs, and commercial vehicles
• Dune Buggy and similar kit cars (e.g. Caterham/Lotus Seven)
• Pre-1980 Jeep and Land Rover

There’s a huge overlap between these, and the type of car specified by JQ.

And to the surprise of absolutely nobody who has ever pulled up a chair on this here back porch of mine, I am completely on the same side.  To me, simple beats complexity when it comes to cars, and although I will freely admit to being an Olde Phartte with a certain degree of technophobia, I don’t think the principle is altogether wrong.

The list of must-haves (but more specifically must-not-haves) would probably exclude most of today’s car models.

So allow me to suggest a two-part list:  the first part would be to satisfy a need for simplicity (which I touched on before, here), and the second to address a post-EMP apocalypse.  There can be some overlap, of course.

If you know enough about cars to be able to fix them yourself, the list of “simple” (i.e. pre-electronic) cars is practically endless, especially if you’d like to derive some actual pleasure from driving the thing.

One of the features you’d have to do without is electronic fuel injection, i.e. carburetors are mandatory, which keeps your date range pretty much to pre-1972.

Sticking with Murkin cars (because parts for older Euro cars like Mercedes might be difficult to come by), my top 3 (and 3a) would be the following:

1967 AC Cobra

1965 Ford Mustang

1963 Chevy Corvette C1

And the 3(a):

1956 Porsche 356 replica (w/ VW engine)

(I know, it’s furrin — but VW parts and spares are as common as GM stuff nowadays, and the simpler “crate” VW engines are practically bulletproof anyway.)

In the second category — we’re talking about post-SHTF survival here, where your vehicle might actually need to be able to do some work — here are my top 3 (plus non-Murkin) choices:

1966 Ford F100

(I’ve always had a soft spot for these good ol’ boys, sue me.)

1948 Willys Jeep M38

You can get one of these, fully restored without mods, for under $30k.  Cool factor is off the charts, and transistors hadn’t even been invented back then.

1965 Chevy El Camino

These are regarded as kinda déclassé  nowadays, but I like them anyway.

And my not-so-token 3(a) Euro option:

1970 VW Panel Van

I’ve spoken before of “Fred”, my old Brazilian-made VW.  It had no creature comfort fiddle-faddle, no seatbelts even, and it withstood the travails of carrying practically all our band gear and three passengers, without complaint, for over 170,000 miles.  Had it not been thus punished, it might not even have needed a new clutch at 80,000.

It’s actually my #1 choice, over all the others, and if I could somehow resurrect Fred as taken off the showroom floor, I’d be the happiest man in Christendom.  (I’d have to leave Texas, though, because no a/c…)

And an afterthought (3b):

1968 Toyota HiLux

Argue with this choice, I dare ya.

Your ideas in Comments, please.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the acronyms in the title, I’ll explain.

A “BBW”, as found in all the best porno websites, stands for “Big-Bodied” or “Big-Butted” woman.  (The two are essentially interchangeable.)  Now I could digress down a branch line, as I usually do, and provide pictorial evidence but we’ve all seen pics of Kim Kardashian’s fat ass a million times (to our everlasting detriment) so I don’t have to go there.

I have no idea why fat asses are especially attractive — African men are particularly fond of them in that the folklore says that fat-assed women are more fertile than their skinny-derriere’d counterparts (wrong, like so much African folklore) — but that’s fine.  Personally speaking, I prefer something a little more substantial in the rear over some bony-assed skinny-minnie like, say, Gwyneth Paltrow, but not overpoweringly so like KK.  It’s very much a personal choice for any man, except that I find that men who do prefer the skinnies may be concealing a predilection for underage little girls, but that’s once again a personal suspicion.  Your mileage may differ, and that’s fine.

Which brings me to the BBC part (and I’m not talking about the British Broadcasting Corporation).

Every so often I receive an email update from the excellent Hemmings organization, which specializes in the sale or auction of second-hand exotic cars, and more especially in older beauties like this 1963 Ferrari 250 Grand Turismo Lusso (GTL) (asking price:  fergeddabahdit).

Said updates usually contain an overview of the latest of such cars coming onto the market, and provide me with many hours of automotive-inspired drooling.

Now because Hemmings is an American company, included in said updates are the various American cars of similar vintage, and here is where I come a little unglued.

As I’ve said many times before, growing up in the British- / European-influenced society called South Africa in the 1960s, posters of cars on my bedroom walls were more likely to be of that Ferrari type.  My knowledge, therefore, of American sports cars was extremely limited.  Most definite, therefore, was the fact that my taste in cars was going to be biased towards the Ferrari (or E-type, even) ilk.

So when I recently received a Hemmings email about the availability of a 1963 Ford Thunderbird Roadster, my jaw dropped in absolute incomprehension.  Here it is:

Now it’s far too big for my taste, of course, especially for a two-seater, but the front is not unattractive and very much in keeping with the ethos of the time in the U.S.  I’d score it about a 5/10 on the Kim Attractiveness Scale (Automotive Category, or KASAC), which is not bad for any Detroit Big Iron.

It’s when we get to the rear of this beast that we get to the ultimate horror of the BBC:

…which causes the thing to fall to a 2/10 KASAC.

Good grief, you could land a C-130 on the backside of that thing.  Amazingly, there was no such thing as a “parking assistance camera” in those days, but if ever a car needed such a thing, this would be at the head of the line.  I cannot imagine performing such an exercise.  (To avoid having you do some scrolling, here’s the side-by-side comparison:

Sorry, but I don’t get it.  To make matters worse, one might think that as both cars carried a full-sized spare tire (which was common for the time), the Ford would have been able at least to carry more luggage, except no:

Yes, I know the Ford needed room to accommodate the drop-top, but that doesn’t account for the shallowness of the trunk.

I know:  “Aha, Kim, you ignoramus!  The Ferrari was a four-seater, not a two-seater!”

Well, yes… except that in terms of passengers, it could only accommodate (maybe) two infants or two legless adolescents:

…but if you treat the back seat more as an adjunct trunk, bespoke luggage for the use of, then this Ferrari could probably hold a lot more baggage than the gargantuan Ford BBC.

As for the engines… well, the Ferrari’s 3-liter Colombo V12 vs. the T-bird’s 6.4-liter (390ci) V8.  Be my guest.

This post is about appearances, and my personal taste therein.  It most certainly has nothing to do with price, because (with links):

• 1963 Ferrari Berlinetta GT:  $1,650,000
• 1963 Ford Thunderbird Sports Roadster:  $65,000

In other words, take off a million and drop a zero… ’nuff said.

And in a final note of irony, I see that the Ferrari is currently located in Pontiac, Michigan.