autos » Absurd Intellectual

Rocket cars from the ’50s

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 11 June 2010 Vintage/Retro

Jun 112010

There’s something amazing about mid-century design, and that goes double for the cars. But if you think the cars from the 1950s are fabulous, you should see the cars that didn’t get made.

Design Float has a fantastic gallery of 1950s-era concept cars — some which look like they were actually drivable, like the 1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket, above. Others are more whimsical and less fantastical.

Serious Wheels quotes a GM press release about the Golden Rocket:

Oldsmobile’s 1956 Golden Rocket featured a seating system in which a roof panel was raised and the seat was elevated and rotated toward the entering occupant when the door was opened. Buttons on the steering wheel allowed the column to tilt downward, providing the driver with easier access.

Talk about luxury! Sounds like something that could be marketed to today’s aging baby boomers.

Safe, stylish and fuel-efficient. Of course the government destroyed it

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 28 May 2010 Vintage/Retro

May 282010

Jalopnik has a great story up detailing the sad history of the RSV. It just might be the best car that the world never saw.

Built for the U.S government, it demolished (sorry) its competitors in safety tests, had ridiculous fuel economy, and actually looked kind of cool. The gullwing doors helped.

Technologically, it was miles ahead of any other car on the road, featuring anti-lock brakes, air bags, and a crumple zone. This in the 1970s, by the way, when even seat belts were sort of an afterthought.

What kills me is this ad. The company that designed and built them for the Department of Transportation, Minicars, obviously wanted to market these wonder vehicles. So they tried to drum up public support:

Unfortunately. It didn’t work. The government — under new administration — decided to scrap the cars, calling them obsolete.

Luckily, two survive.

Read the whole story — it’s equal parts inspiring and depressing.

Abandoned gas stations are so post-apocalyptic

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 9 April 2010 Photography, Vintage/Retro

Apr 092010

Remember that car ad (maybe it was a truck ad) where they showed the “life cycle” of a gas station? It ran from the vintage sepia-toned early days, though the 1950s, to a hyper-modern one today, with changing styles and renovations all the way through, as vehicles from the various eras pulled up and fueled up?

Then, the kicker at the end was they they tore it down, and replaced the meadow that was there, because future-cars run on lawn fumes or something.

Yeah, well, I hope you’re not surprised if I tell you that they don’t actually do that.

When gas stations close, they just leave ‘em there, to decay. (That’s called a brownfield, in case you’re interested.)

Here’s a gallery of 26 such abandoned gas stations — and Eric Tabuchi has actually found an additional 26, so if you wanted a whole deck of cards, you could kind of go for it.

There’s one of these right by my office, and another one a little further down the street. They’re pretty depressing, I gotta be honest, because you know that no one’s ever going to turn them into a cool restaurant or art gallery or anything. I’ll bet they’ll smell like gasoline forever.

But every time I pass them, a part of my brain remembers being in a Movies & More, gazing with pre-adolescent boy longing at the VHS cover of The Last Chase, which I totally was not allowed to rent, and I knew better than to even ask.

Believe it or not, this classic racing 1937 BMW was once traded for a Lada

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 4 April 2010 Vintage/Retro

Apr 042010

That’s a good-looking car, right there. Beautiful, clean classic lines. I’ve always loved the look of the two-person roadsters from classic early-20th-century races, and this 1937 BMW is a prime example.

It’s also up for auction, where the entrance fee is 70 euros, so I don’t think I’m going to get it. But the story, which is up on the auction site, is a fascinating look at how this car, built and re-built for competition in the late 1930s, survived five years of World War Two as the possession of German architect Albert Speer, and was later seized by the Russians as reparations:

The Russians awarded it to Artiom Ivanovich Mikoyan, head of the Mikoyan i Gurevich Design Bureau, creator of the famed MiG fighters. Mikoyan let his son use it, but the boy’s escapades eventually exhausted his father’s patience, and he traded the Bügelfalte in 1972 to Guido Adamson of Riga, Latvia, for a Lada, a vehicle much less inclined to excite the fantasies of a young man.

Man, to be on the receiving end of that trade!

(via Beautiful Life, which has a ton more photos, including close-ups of the interior and dash.)

Is the stick shift going away?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 2 March 2010 Modern Life

Mar 022010

I love my standard transmission car — even if it means Amy can never drive it. I love the feeling of actually doing something when I drive, rather than just steering. I love the extra control that even a not-so-great shifter like me can achieve with the clutch pedal.

And, frankly, it looks cool and it sounds cool. Standard transmissions are where it’s at.

But, they’re also slowly going extinct. Upwards of 90% of new vehicles have automatic transmissions. Auto writer Kirk Seaman at AOL Autos offers up a column in their honour that sometimes reads like a eulogy:

For the serious driver, piloting a car with a manual transmission is a badge of honor. Having control over your ride carries an appeal that may well go back to the time when man first rode astride a horse. That sort of intimate control over your steed is heady stuff, and a feeling not easily conceded. The conviction that the driver knows best also comes into play: an automatic transmission can’t see that just down the road is a decreasing radius turn that’s going to require you to downshift a gear or two so that you can launch yourself smartly out of the turn.

Then there is the pride one takes in a perfectly timed two-three upshift, wringing it out to the redline and listening to the symphony of pumping pistons and whirring camshafts, or perhaps mastering the black art of heel-and-toe shifting and precisely matching revs on a downshift as you drift into a corner.

Perhaps it is because, in a world that seems increasingly out of control, in the driver’s seat you are in complete control, and with a manual transmission and an open road to the horizon, that is as much as we can hope for these days.

Yes, I think I’ll stick with my standard for a few more years. Plus, they’re cheaper!

‘Oh look at that: The smoke grenades fit right in the cup holders!’

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 5 November 2009 Modern Life

Nov 052009

Many, *many* thanks to John White at the Winnipeg Free Press for posting this video and exhorting people to watch it. He calls it “the most entertaining 11:16 you will spend online this year” and, with the year almost over, he might be right.

I’ve had numerous friends tell me that I should get into the BBC car show “Top Gear” before, but this is the first clip I’ve really watched. Well worth it. I thought that the Blues-Brothers-style car chase through a shopping mall would be the top, but then they used the Ford Fiesta in a beach assault with the Royal Marines.

Do Blade Runner sounds dream of electric cars?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 20 September 2009 Modern Life

Sep 202009

We’ve got 10 years (and two months) to go until the events depicted in Blade Runner, but in some ways we’re ahead already. No, there aren’t replicants or asteroid mining in our immediate future, but our electric cars should arrive next fall.

And some people are worried. The blind, who rely on the sound of the internal-combustion engine to help navigate city streets, might not be able to detect these new cars, for example. Even for people with 20/20 vision, audible cues can be important — when cycling, for example.

So Nissan is going to give their electric cars a “beautiful and futuristic” sound effect, which is being described as similar to the flying cars of Blade Runner (they’re known as spinners).

You can hear some samples of the “spinner” noise in the Blade Runner trailer below. Personally, I like it, but I wonder what crowded highways would sound like — and what effect it might have on wildlife. It’s spooky, a little.

Firetruck stops, drops and rolls — right on top of classic Firebird

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 12 June 2009 Modern Life, Vintage/Retro

Jun 122009

Firetruck, meet Firebird.

When he was 16, Colorado resident Bill Vickery bought a 1969 Firebird for $1,200. Since then he’s spent between $30,000 and $40,000 restoring every part of it. It was a classic that he vowed never to sell, says the Denver Post, unless he could buy a 1967 Corvette to replace it.

He’d better start checking for that Corvette. On Tuesday, a 48,000-pound firetruck tumbled down the hill above his house and, well, smushed his classic ride:

The truck, driven by an Evergreen Fire Rescue firefighter, had been on the road up the hill from the family’s home when something went wrong. Apparently moving to the right on the narrow paved road to make room for a truck heading in the other direction, the driver dropped a tire off the asphalt.

With no shoulder to support the rig, it tumbled down the hill and into the Vickery family’s driveway. The tanker toppled trees and clobbered a camper before landing, right-side-up, atop the Firebird and a Honda all-terrain vehicle. The truck also hit a one-car detached garage, inflicting a still-undetermined amount of damage to it.

No decision has yet been made on whether to cite the firefighter who was driving in the accident. He was quickly released from hospital, after being checked out, and is okay after the crash. The Firebird was not so lucky:

Listing the parts that were salvageable was easier than listing the things that were broken: The chrome wheels. The left-front fender and driver’s door and window. The grille and headlights. The P-O-N-T-I-A-C between the tail lights. The rear bumper. The engine and transmission.

The rest of it was crushed. Even the back seat and the dashboard showed the effects of the crash.

Man, that’s tragic. Oh, I found a picture online of a similar, green, 1969 Firebird. Here’s what it might have looked like before the crash:

Cannonball Run has totally sold out

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 9 May 2009 Modern Life

May 092009

I used to love watching that old Burt Reynolds movie, Cannonball Run, when it was in reruns on TV. The idea of blasting across the continent non-stop, fast as you could, in a no-rules road race sounded awesome.

In fact, when they announced the TV show “The Amazing Race” I kind of hoped it would be like that — “Here you are, in Melbourne, Australia. Here’s $100. First one to hit Moscow, then Mumbai, then Minneapolis wins.”

So I’ve been casually following the new Gumball 3000 rally, which is like a sellout version of the original Cannonball Run.

Nowadays, drivers have to pay upwards of $40,000 to enter, and they drive souped-up Lamborghinis. Not in the spirit of the original, which was cooked up by a car magazine writer, and known as the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.

All the fast cars money can buy don’t always get you away from the cops, though. Check out this video for a taste of the douchebags who do the Cannonball Run Gumball 3000 these days:

If you’re interested in the rally (which is nearing its end) check out posts like this one at autoblog.com, or this take on the arrest warrants from the New York Times.

The Times also profiled a while back this fellow, who was setting a coast-to-coast record in a souped-up technocar.

But I encourage you to Google and to read more about the original. A good starting point is here, or here.

Road trip, anyone?

Truck testes are terrible

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 8 April 2009 Modern Life

Apr 082009

Okay, when Amy posted a while back about so-called “Truck Nutz” — a real-looking scrotum that you can hang from your truck’s back bumper, I didn’t realize what kind of a world we were entering into.

Sure, I’ve seen them around, and I find them offensive, and I’m glad that I don’t have, say, and eight-year-old daughter that I have to explain them to. And I made a comment on the original post to the effect of, “How fast do you think I would get pulled over if I had a photorealistic vagina in my back window?”

But weeks after that original post, we still get loads of traffic to it. (That and “Naked Men In Gym Change Rooms” — that one’s a perennial favourite.)

Finally, I followed one of the referrers to find out why. Turns out we’re listed in a fake ecommerce “blog” that is trying to boost its Google ranking by linking to random posts that it thinks are related to keywords. I’m not going to do it any favours by linking to it here.

Browsing through the other links, I would estimate that 75% of them were not in favour of the truck testicle tsunami. I clicked on a couple, to read what other people have to say, and I stumbled across this post, on the blog “In This Economy?“, which uses “Truck Nutz” to introduce a new feature called “Waste of Money.” The best part of the post is the little war that erupts in the comments. I urge you to click through and enjoy it, but I’ll excerpt some of it here:

Not an objective posting. Full of misinformation. All the information is for Ken’s Brothers websites and products. And one who claims the lowest price is a joke. Not even the lowest.

I called in to allthenuts to buy some small blue balls for my quad, and all I got was pressure to buy something I didn’t want.

If you like rude, loud and childish people, call them and try and place an order.

I have since found better quality and pricing at bullsballs.com who also offer discounts if you buy more than one, so I got three. Their service and no-pressure attitude also helped me decide to avoid anyone that sells David Hams imitation crap.

…

Kenneth Ham is an arrogant ass-hole and is taking every chance to shill for his brother David by defaming the ‘originals’ web site.

This is a fun product, and his only interest is to create trouble for his brothers competitors instead of helping him build a better product line. (way too many imitations from the oldest website on the net, bullsballs.com)

allthenuts is owned by David Ham and not Keneth Ham. Ken is violation the law in his actions, (coming soon to federal court) for all his defamation of character all over the internet. He is the one that needs to grow up.

I believe that ‘drocolate’ is Ken Ham. Why else would there be a big picture of his brothers product and links to others selling his brothers products, instead of the First Truck Balls Internet web site?

More bullcrap in his rampage of disinformation.

(Unhappy buyer and con-sumer have good reason for their comments. Add federal trademark violations to all of this too.)

…

Wow. I never knew there was so much drama in the truck scrotum world. Can’t all the truck sack salespeople get along?

Driving behind balls

Posted by Amy Breen on 17 March 2009 Modern Life

Mar 172009

I’m sure everyone knows the jokes about guys with huge trucks, or sports cars shaped like phalluses. But what do you think when you see one of those penis re-placers with balls hanging from the hitch?

Yup. Balls. Kind of like these ones.

I drove behind two younger guys in a giant Dodge truck yesterday, and they had silver balls hanging from the back. This poses an interesting question: do they recognize that their big truck is compensation for their little penises, and show that by getting balls for it, or do they think that the balls represent their manly manhood?

What say you, readers?

(as an aside, when searching for a picture, I came across a hilarious blog about a law being passed in Tallahassee that made truck balls a fineable offence)

Loop-hole in the law allows drive-thru daiquiris

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 1 March 2009 Modern Life

Mar 012009

I wish this was allowed in Manitoba. In Louisiana, you can’t serve open liquor to someone in a car. So they’ll sell you the drinks in a sealed jug, the glasses and the straws separately. Wink.

Fun article here, but I’ve added the video below:

Don’t ever miss another oddball, offbeat roadside attraction

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 28 January 2009 Modern Life, Vintage/Retro

Jan 282009

I thought when the time was expired, you had to move?

Just surfing around, working on a column about parking meters, when I happened across the picture above (it’s in Oklahoma). What a weird tombstone — but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s unusual, but it’s probably also very personal, and it’s touching, I find.

Of course, It’ll likely attract vandals like there’s no tomorrow. They’ll really have to watch out for Luke:

(RIP, Mr. Newman — I really have to watch that film again.)

However, back on track, the website where I found that parking meter tombstone is just the sort of ecclectica that I love to happen across on the Internet. It’s a compendium of weird and unusual off-the-beaten-path roadside attractions.

Although the era of the Route 66 roadtrip seems long past (Roadtrips now seem more about highways and Interstates — you stop at a gas station, not a tourist trap) they’re still ingrained in the culture. And some of those roadside attractions struggle on.

They’ve got a few of the Westman basics covered — Happy Rock, Sara the Camel, Tommy the Turtle — but when Amy and I head off on our bi-annual trip to Minneapolis in May, I think I’m going to spend some time checking out the stuff we might otherwise have just driven right by: Road Cheese Graveyard, here we come!

World’s biggest new-car lots

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 19 January 2009 Modern Life

Jan 192009

Unsold cars are piling up around the world. (photo originally credited to David Goddard of Getty, via the Guardian)

Each one of those tiny dots is a brand-new car. Zillions -- literally zillions! -- of unsold cars are piling up in makeshift parking lots around the world. I see bargains in the future. (photo originally credited to David Goddard of Getty, via the Guardian)

Wow. That is a lot of unsold cars.

I read a few months ago that cars were beginning to pile up at Los Angeles ports, but a photo really makes the sheer numbers hit home.

A 10-photo gallery from around the world hits them home even harder. There are some mind-boggling pics there, including the one above.

But that’s not all! Cars need gas, and the oil to make that gasoline is piling up as well: oil prices are so low that some people are actually holding on to their barrels and to their tanker ships and saying, essentially, that they’ll wait and see, betting that the price will go up sooner rather than later.

In fact, so many people are hoarding supplies of oil that the world is running out of places to store it. I’m serious.

But, of course, as soon as the price of oil starts to rebound, all of these hoarders are going to rush to cash in, selling off their supplies, and adding their glut of stored oil to the market — this excess supply is probably going to keep oil prices depressed for a relatively long time.

That’s interesting — but let’s get back to those cars. Unlike oil, which you can just store and store and store, and sell whenever you want, cars depreciate.

Sure, they say that a car loses most of its value the second you drive it off the dealer’s lot, but what if it never gets to a lot in the first place?

What’s going to happen in about nine months, when the 2010 models start arriving in showrooms? How much do you think that still-shiny-new 2009 — or 2008! — will be on sale for then? Right now it’s sitting in limbo — technically it’s still on the balance sheets at sticker price. But there’s no way a car company will be able to sell them at sticker price if they’re last year’s model.

Plus, these are not the super-fuel-efficient awesome cars we’ve been promised are right around the corner — these are the old-model cars, SUVs and the like. Maybe, if gas prices stay down, trucks and SUVs at bargain prices will fly off of dealer lots — but that doesn’t help society at all.

And selling new cars at used-car prices i’s not really going to help the automotive industy, either.

But if you’re in the market for a new car, I’ll bet 2009 is going to be a very cheap year for you.

The Last Traffic Jam

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 7 January 2009 Modern Life, Vintage/Retro

Jan 072009

From flickr user Stewf

“Too many cars, too little oil. An argument for the proposition that ‘less is more’ ”

Uh, an argument from 1972.

(via GiveMeSomethingtoRead.com)

(Aside: I just love posting things that fit in the category of “Modern Life” as well as “Vintage/Retro.” Makes my effin’ day.)