Tag: Cars

All-American Road Trip

Drive Time, Gratuitous Chick Pics

I think I’ve tortured everybody enough with my various dream road trips whether in France, Italy or Western Europe in general.  There’s only been one in the U.S., but even that involved furrin cars and -women.

So am I going to quit?  Hell, no!

Today’s trip is going to be All-American, in that the choice of car and female companion will feature no foreign entanglements* of any kind.

The trip?

Actually, you have a choice there too:  U.S. 1 (and 1A where available) along the East Coast, from Miami – Bar Harbor ME:

…and U.S. 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway/PCH) along the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle:

The East Coast trip is nearly 400 miles longer, and if you wish, you could skirt NYFC (or add to your pain by doing a loop around Long Island).

You can do the trip north – south or vice-versa (please specify which), and at a time of year which suits you (do tell).  The only hard and fast rule is to avoid interstate highways wherever possible.  The goal is to keep the shoreline on the side of the car as much as you can.  You may go through any of the cities you wish, but you can also skirt those which would make you homicidal with rage (NYFC, LA, Boston etc.) while trying to deal with the traffic and congestion.

As always with these scenarios, assume you’ll have trouble-free motoring en route, and a (shall we say) willing partner of the female persuasion in the passenger seat, and she will be as pictured.  Also assume that you are of an age which would do the driving and overnight stops, so to speak, justice.

Now the fun part:  the cars and companions. I’ve tried to avoid listing any of the cars and the women in earlier posts, which has made it quite difficult.  Here we go, and remember:  no substitutions.

1. 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and Angie Harmon

2. 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk and Candace Cameron

3. 1957 Corvette and Katherine Lanasa

4. 1957 Chevy Bel-Air and Mary-Louise Parker

5. 1957 Ford T-Bird and Téa Leoni

6. 1954 Kaiser-Darrin Roadster and Marg Helgenberger

7. 1956 Chrysler Imperial and Daisy Fuentes

(*I know, Daisy was born in Cuba.  Shuddup or she’ll be replaced with Whoopi Goldberg.)

Let’s go a little earlier, car-wise:

8. 1935 Auburn 851 Speedster and Nancy Wilson

9. 1936 Cord 810 and Eva Amurri

10. 1932 Duesenberg SJ and Dana Delaney

11. 1940 Packard Super-8 and Lynn Russell

12. 1933 Lincoln KB Victoria and Lisa Edelstein

That’s my delicious dozen.  If you’re unfamiliar with any of the options, you know where to look (duckduckgo).

Oh wait!  A wild card!

13. 1958 Chevy Apache and

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Take Your Pick

Drive Time

Jeremy Clarkson, who knows a thing or two about these things, once suggested that the only reason you should buy a car is how it makes you feel when you walk into your garage in the morning.  If it causes feelings of pride, vanity or even a slight protuberance in the trousers, then that’s the car you should get instead of that Honda Civic or Toyota Camry.

As threatened promised earlier in the week, today we are going to take a look at Sotheby’s 2024 Arizona auction catalogue.

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to pick the top five (and only the Top 5) that would give you the above-mentioned feelings if you were to walk into your five-car garage in the morning for the purpose of selecting the car that you were going to drive that day. (And if you’re perfectly happy with your 1995 Chevy C-10 pickup and can’t imagine wanting one of these, feel free not to share that with us.)

As I said earlier in the week, please ignore the prices because they’re just suggestions — some or most of which may turn out to be hopelessly unrealistic come next Thursday’s auction.

I would recommend that you spend some time looking at the descriptions for each of the cars offered, because (as I discovered) your choices may well be influenced thereby.

What I’m looking for is a feeling of desire, and not investment. Please rank your choices, therefore, in order of desirability;  and feel free to add the purpose of your drive that day (hot date, cross-country trip, visiting family, getting groceries, whatever).

My Top 5 are listed below the fold.

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Turning Tide?

Business, Drive Time, Eco-Crap

Via Reader Mike L (thankee, squire), comes this little snippet that may just be the signal of something or other:

Hertz, which has made a big push into electric vehicles in recent years, has decided it’s time to cut back. The company will sell off a third of its electric fleet, totaling roughly 20,000 vehicles, and use the money they bring to purchase more gasoline powered vehicles.

Electric vehicles have been hurting Hertz’s financials, executives have said, because, despite costing less to maintain, they have higher damage-repair costs and, also, higher depreciation.

“[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle,” Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call.

And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz’s used EV rental cars.

I lost count how many whammies are contained in the above, but it’s making parts of me tingle, and in a good way.   Okay, let me count the ways:

Higher damage-repair costs, higher depreciation and lower resale value.

Any one of those Bad Things would make me (as Hertz) want to cut back on the Duracells.  All together?  Short-Circuit City.

Ol’ Elon’s not gonna be happy, because if Hertz sneezes, the entire rental business gets diarrhea.

And common sense pokes its head above the parapet.

Car Nuts

Drive Time

Harry takes us through his garage in a 2023 review.  The maintenance costs are staggering, underlining that owning exotic sports cars is not for the faint of heart (nor of wallet).

The interesting thing is that of all his cars, I’d only want to own one:  the 1968-70 Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato (but with LHD, thank you).  Watch the video to see its (too-brief) cameo (or the whole Zagato episode — headphones recommended if you’re not alone;  that little 1600cc engine shouts, oh yes it does).

Want.

Fond Farewell

Drive Time

I see with some regret that Audi is discontinuing both the R8 supercar and its baby brother, the TT sports car.

For obvious reason$$$ I was never in the market for either, but I still feel somewhat melancholy because the thought of the loss of any car built for the pure enjoyment of driving is not a happy one.

A hundred years ago I talked about the joys of open-topped sports cars, and my feelings have not changed one iota. If anything, my desire to own a convertible sports car has increased, not lessened,  even though I know that I’d probably need some kind of crane or lift to get my decrepit fat ass out of the thing.

Hence my lottery dream of the exquisite BMW Z8:


(horrifyingly, since sold)

…or more reasonably, the Mazda MX-5:

Which leads me to today’s little thought exercise.

Below is a list of 20 sports cars (not supercars).  Assuming that all were driveable and in excellent condition, and had assurance of some kind of reliability (and please note that last factor)…

…rank your top 5 of the 20 (and only of these 20, no substitutions) with reasons if so desired.  Consider whatever factors you feel are important:  “wow” (that feeling when you walk into your garage and realize that it’s yours, all yours), reliability, chick-appeal, speed, handling, trunk size, whatever.

Note that there’s a mixture of old and new.  Feel free to mix ‘n match.  Also, I’ve left off some obvious ones (pure performance cars like the E-type, Corvette, Ferrari, AC Cobra etc. so that you end up having more choices).

Sunbeam Alpine

Honda S2000

Austin Healey 3000 MkIII

Jaguar XK120

Mercedes 230 SL

Alfa Romeo 1750 Spider

MGB GT

VW Eos

Toyota 2000 GT

Audi TT

Morgan Plus 8

BMW Z4

Ford Mustang

MG TF

Toyota MR2

Lotus / Caterham Seven

Triumph TR4

Fiat Dino 2400 Spider

Porsche 356 C

Jensen Interceptor

My Top 5 below the fold:

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Yeah, Nazzo Fast, Guido

Drive Time, Subsidies

Stephen Green takes a long-overdue look at the inevitability of electric cars and such, and comes up with this priceless observation:

We need to talk about the word “inevitability” because when it comes to electric vehicles, I do not think it means what supporters think it means.

And then the killer:

Inevitability, you see, is when government spends money we don’t have and passes laws that won’t work to bribe or force people into buying cars they don’t want.

Like Karl Marx’s sense of inevitability — the inevitable fall of capitalism and the inevitable advent of its replacement — such things which go against human nature always need assistance from the firm foot of government to be applied with a heavy hand.

If the above is slightly incomprehensible to you, you need to read Stephen’s whole piece.