My Black Brick

Sociological Images  unearths an old VW ad that features the 1950s manufactured conflict between man and wife over what car to buy with the husband’s money.  Similar to the hen-pecked husband in this Volvo ad from the same era, the man in the photo above (who looks like he’s about to be castrated beheaded) desires the car that’s advertised. But his wife is reluctant, even hostile to the idea of driving it, so the husband must do the job of the car salesman in convincing his wife to allow him to buy the car he wants, even though he won’t be driving it.

“It looks like a bus.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”

Do these sound familiar?  Your wife is not alone.  It is hard to convince some women what sense the VW Station Wagon makes.

Although the wife’s assumed place in the family is taxi and delivery driver, the ad implies that since she’s a woman she must be too dumb to understand the utility of a van. She only cares about how it looks.

According to the ad her duties include carting groceries, baby carriages, antique chests, tree saplings, Boy Scouts and camping supplies, all while enduring “bumper to bumper traffic on hot days.” Can’t she pick her own damn car? She’ll be picking up hubby’s dry-cleaning too, I’m sure. Dude, give your slave a break.

The kicker is the final statement, which, if there was any confusion, really puts the woman in her place:

“If these facts don’t convince her, tell her it’s only $2655 and you aren’t made of money.”

In other words, it’s really not a mutual decision with the husband making a convincing argument. He’s gonna buy her the cheap death-trap and she better get used to it.

Nowadays we know that car companies conduct focus groups with and conduct marketing campaigns for women specifically. In fact, Volvo recently created a concept car designed by and for women. “YCC”, or “Your Concept Car” included such innovations as a redesigned headrest to accomodate pony-tails and interior decor that can be swapped out depending on the season. Oh, how far we’ve come.

Any DL drivers want to weigh in on Jalopnik’s Question of the Day “What’s the Best Diesel Ever Sold in the US?“

I so shoulda’ bought a Chevy Malibu Maxx when I had the chance. Now I’m just an a-hole.

Almost all owners of 240s have to figure out a plan to have a wet beverage in their car. Unless you’re one of the lucky few who have the rare armrest-mounted cup slings, you either put in some crappy aftermarket mini-bucket, or you shove your latte into the door pocket. Or you go thirsty and speed past all highway rest stops.

Cup holders seem as neccessary to modern vehicles as windshield wipers and cruise control (which I don’t have either). But it wasn’t always that way.

A few years ago Slate posted a short overview of the growth of the cupholder in the US auto industry. In the early part of the 20th century you’d have a tough time keeping a drink from spilling while driving on rough roads with your cars bone-jarring suspension. With the advent of eating in parked cars, auto makers added indented circles to the inside door of car gloveboxes. The 240s have them, but you’d have to put your tray back in the upright position if you encounter turbulence.

While American manufacturers developed holders in the armrests and between the seats of cars in the 80s, European car makers had no interest in giving up precious real estate for drinking, an activity that was meant to be enjoyed while stationary, preferably in front of a chic cafe.

Things have changed. According to this 2005 article about the eating and drinking habits of mobile Americans in the NY Times, Volvo has now accepted their multi-cup-holder fate:

Cup-holder ubiquity has reached the extreme in the Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicle, which has 18 beverage holders – nine for standard cups and nine to hold large bottles. The vehicle seats seven passengers.

Back in 2004 Malcolm Gladwell interviewed cultural anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille about the seemingly irrational, reptilian responses people have to products, and the psychological basis for them. Speaking about cupholders, Rapaille asks and answers his own question:

What was the key element of safety when you were a child? It was that your mother fed you, and there was warm liquid.   That’s why cupholders are absolutely crucial for safety.   If there is a car that has no cupholder, it is not safe.   If I can put my coffee there, if I can have my food, if everything is round, if it’s soft, and if I’m high, then I feel safe.   It’s amazing that intelligent, educated women will look at a car and the first thing they will look at is how many cupholders it has.

So much for the heavy steel cage and collapsable front end of my 240; without cup-holders, I’m screwed.

Great quote from P.J. O’Rourke regarding the difference in working on a muscle car from the 70′s with trying to work on a car today:

A modern car, you flip the hood open, you might as well pry the back off an iPod. What’s in there? I don’t know.

I gotta get his new book, Driving Like Crazy.

In case you missed the Ghost Riding fad from a couple years ago, consider yourself lucky. Based on a video from Mista FAB, Ghost Riding involves every parent’s nightmare of kids jump out of the slowly cruising family truckster and dancing next to and on top of the vehicle, instead of sitting safely buckled into the front seat.

I was originally going to embed this video of two dudes ghost riding a Volvo 940 (?) for this post. Instead I had to go with this classic of a guy standing of the roof of his Ford Ranger as it slowly makes its way up the curb and into a telephone pole.

I’d seen a bunch of Smart cars on a trip to France back in 1997 and thought they were pretty cool. Back then the emphasis was on the collaboration between Swatch design and Mercedes Benz engineering. Now that they’re available in the states, the selling point seems to be gas mileage.

They can cruise at a pretty good clip, but it looks like some drivers on American roadways can’t handle it. There’s a thread on the Smart Car of America forums documenting drivers who become enraged at being passed by the Smurfmobile:

I have had lots of people on the highway speed up as I am about to pass
them. I have had people check their speedo and do a double take.. its a
ton of fun passing them while they think they are going faster than
general traffic. Audi owners are especially peeved and almost insulted
by my passing them for some reason. I guess its all part of the fun of
driving my smarty.

…
I get it mostly when sitting at red lights with multiple straight
lanes. The vehicle next to me HAS TO beat me off the line. I’ve seen a
few people so interested in beating me off the line that they almost
get into accidents.

Someone even made a video.

Since your boyfriend’s Hummer isn’t going off-road anyway, why not fit it with wooden wheels?

Via Cars and Motors

I’d wager that there are more Volvo 240 “Art Cars” than any other, with the obvious exception of VW Beetles. But BMW boasts the highest caliber of artists painting on factory fresh vehicles.

Grand Central Terminal recently had a display of the Absolut-Vodka-like series of painted Beemers from the 70′s until now, including the 320i pictured above, painted by my hero, the late Roy Lichtenstein.

You can see all the cars, and check out the huge painting created by Robin Rhode driving a Z4 through paint and over a 100×200 foot canvas.

Via Streetlevel

“I Love Traffic” is a sweet little time waster that lets you play god by controlling traffic lights at an increasingly complex set of of intersections. It’s like a combination of Frogger and Tetris, with streets in multi-lane and multi-directional patterns, cars and trucks of differing sizes driving at different speeds, and a rapidly accumulating stack of traffic that will jam if you’re not quick enough. The best feature, though, is that no matter how many accidents you cause (like the one I did pictured above) you can always try again with the same roads; you’re not dumped at the simple starter levels.

From Armor Games via How We Drive.