This week, our teenage wall posters of yore feature the Lamborghini Countach:
…and Raquel Welch:
Classic pairing, if ever there was one.
Tag: Cars
Driving Fun
I have frequently referred to Jeremy Clarkson as the Greatest Living Englishman, because he is. Not only is he unrepentantly un-PC, he’s wonderfully talented as both a writer and a TV presenter.
The fact that he and I agree on practically everything — about cars, politics, social life and society, whatever — doesn’t hurt, either.
So sit back and enjoy a partial retrospective of his 30 years’ work as a car reviewer for the Sunday Times. And just to whet your appetite, here’s a little excerpt from one:
Many years ago I refused to road-test the Vectra on Top Gear, arguing that if Vauxhall couldn’t be bothered to make the car interesting in any way whatsoever, I couldn’t be bothered to drive it.
To understand just how dull this car was, you need to visualise a chartered accountant in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, playing cricket, in a period drama by Jane Austen, in Belgium, while reading out details of the Enron scandal in a Birmingham accent.
This car was Mogadon in metal, hypnotherapy with a hatchback. Driving it was as interesting as listening to the details of someone else’s dream, and thinking about it had exactly the same effect on your neck muscles as that moment at school when the master dimmed the lights and said: “First slide, please …” You immediately nodded off.
They said, remember, it was a car for the new millennium. And how far did it get? Well, it’s only 2002 but already it’s gone.
I can’t stop with just one.
I have read hundreds of surveys in women’s magazines about what women look for in a man and usually it’s a sense of humour or nice eyes. Not once have I ever heard a girl say that what she wants, more than anything, from a man is an ability to do power slides.
It needs to be explained to Gary that, when he’s doing 100mph round the bypass, with jungle noises bouncing the doors off their hinges, his girlfriend is not sitting there thinking, “Gosh. This man’s car control is exemplary and I hope that later he will perform similar miracles with me.”
She is thinking: “Bleedin’ Ada. We’re going to crash and I wish this plonker would slow down.” But of course she can’t say that because then she’d find herself at the side of the road, in the rain.
We need the people who did those amazing Australian “If you drink and drive, you’re a bloody idiot” adverts to pick up the baton on this one. And I think I have the tag line already. “A smooth ride: if you give her one, she might let you give her one.”
Brilliant. Like I said: the Greatest Living Englishman. Here’s his smooth ride.
Bygone Broads 4
Here we go with another “pairing” of a bedroom-poster-worthy car and a woman of similar value. This time, it’s the De Tomaso Pantera:
And Morgan Fairchild:
And yes, she got older and plumper (but in all the right places, if I may say so):
I have no words, either way.
Bravo Scuderia
Finally, a ray of hope amidst all the gloom of Global Warming Climate Cooling Change:
Legendary Italian car maker Ferrari has no intention of phasing out combustion engines and going fully electric or hybrid anytime soon, promising Sunday to keep making the eight and 12-cylinder engines it has made its trademark at least until the end of the 2030s.
The chief of the Italian manufacturer told the BBC in an interview it would be “arrogant” to dictate to customers what they can buy while at the same time walking away from the company’s heritage.
Ferrari instead wants to honor its history of high performance cars using traditional methods of propulsion.
Of course, they’re dealing from a position of strength because they can’t make enough Ferraris to satisfy the huge market of people with more money than sense and no resistance to brand snob appeal.
That said, their 296 hybrid is pretty sexy:
…albeit still overpriced, like all Ferraris.
But let me not be too grumpy about this because they are to be congratulated for not capitulating to the Watermelons, and keeping their Rosso where it belongs: on the outside.
Keeping The Old, Shunning The New
I’m smack dab in the middle of this trend (for a change — I’m usually lost in any trend’s wake):
Americans Delay Buying New Cars As Long As Possible To Avoid High Prices
The average age of cars and light-duty trucks on American roads has reached 12.5 years, according to a report from S&P Global, a phenomenon that comes as bottlenecked supply chains and elevated inflation continue their toll on households.
The financial analytics firm noted that 2023 marked the sixth consecutive year of increased average vehicle ages. The three-month rise between 2022 and 2023 constituted the largest year-over-year increase since the recession which struck the United States between 2008 and 2009, during which consumers likewise tightened their budgets in response to economic turmoil.
It’s looking increasingly like the Tiguan is going to be the last car I’ll ever have bought, unless some miracle occurs. What sucks is that doing Uber (not an option at the time, by the way) made me put just over 100,000 miles on the car, which means it has a limited shelf life. That 100,000 miles, in terms of my normal driving, was about 12 years’ life. As things stand, the next few years are going to be a lot more tenuous.
Still, I’d rather just pay to get it fixed when things break than get a new car — see the post immediately below for reasons.
Bygone Broads 2
Last year, I posted the first of this series, in which I lamented the disappearance of beautiful cars and lovely women from teenage boys’ bedroom walls. That post featured a couple Ferraris and Lucy Pinder.
Here’s another such coupling [sic]. First, two cars of the Corvette persuasion:
…and second, one of the pinups who might have appeared on the opposite wall:
As the old saying went: “Farrah Fawcett: creating pup-tents in teenage boys’ beds since the 1970s.”
And as an older woman:
