There’s a used bookstore in Maryland I’ve been frequenting on trips down 95 and last week I scored Brock Yate’s “The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry“. Having read some of Yates crotchety screens in the Wall Street Journal I figured I’d at least get something entertaining and I haven’t been disappointed. The book documents the trumpeted launch and immediate failure of General Motors J-car line from 1981. He talks of the insular “Detroit Mind” which produced a car that was supposed to compete with the European and Japanese imports but wound up being just another anemic, ill-fitting American rustbucket, albeit with a smaller wheelbase than usual. Yates was at least 20 years ahead in outlining the reasons for the eventual bankruptcy of GM. His book is an indictment of the 50’s and 60’s organization men who rose to the lofty heights of American hubris but didn’t have the creativity or foresight to redirect their giant multinational corporations to produce high-performance, reliable cars at the end of the 20th century.
The ad above is for the Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport, built on the J-car base in the mid 80’s. The transparent grandiosity of the name of the car is comical. “Celebrity”? I suppose I could be famous if I drove one around, but not for the reasons GM is touting. “Eurosport”? Let me guess: it’s designed to compete with Mercedes/BMW/Volvo? Their ad company should have been fired for cramming 6′6″ Ken Howard, who played a basketball coach on TV’s “White Shadow”, into the drivers seat and having his head continually rub against the roof liner. When I’m looking to not-fit into a car to drive slowly across vast expanses of highly polished studio floors I’ll head straight for the Chevy dealer.
The Euro package came with mammoth 14″ alloy rims, V6 power, sport handling and black and red-lined trim and badges that look more appropriate as a logo for the latest Nightmare on Elm Street than on a domestic car. I love it.
Bonus: This article in Popular Science takes the odd position of testing America’s “Eurosedans” against themselves, instead of the European high-performance cars they obviously strive to be.
While contemplating tinting the back windows of my brick a friend told me that if I only did the back windows, without also doing the rear passenger windows, the car would look like a panel truck. It reminded me of the sweet family wagon Mel Gibson drove in the first Mad Max movie. My memory must have failed me because it wasn’t a wagon at all. In Australia in the early 70’s manufacturers like Holden made panel vans. They were 2 door El Camino-esque trucks with a cap on the back. Unlike 3rd party caps these were well integrated into the body and formed a big, covered, often windowless rear end.
I painted my front rims a couple months ago and they’re still looking pretty good. The image above shows them sanded, masked and ready for paint. I document the process after the jump… READ MORE…
I’m looking to reallocate some money in my 401k and came across an interesting bit of info on thestreet.com. Auto parts makers and garages have been doing well despite, and probably because of, the economic downturn. I’ll assume this is because drivers have an economic incentive to just get their cars fixed when parts wear out, rather than disposing of them and bringing a new vehicle into the family.
From The Street:
Car-parts shares tend to rise in line with stock-market indices on up days, but also gain on down days because of perceived safety…
Advance Auto Parts has opened 57 stores during the past 12 months, capitalizing on elevated demand for aftermarket auto parts, a recessionary trend that has lasted longer than analysts expected.
This trend of good news inside of bad reminds me of the attitude of an old friend who worked in auto body repair. Rain and snow and ice always made him happy because he knew he could make some good money fixing all the dings, dents and carnage that resulted from dangerous driving conditions.
In trying to find out if my vehicle has EGR or not I discovered a site that decodes the Vehicle Identification Number for many Volvo cars. I discovered my brick has “Super Ultra-Low Emissions” and was built in Gothenburg, Sweden.
A study out of University of Montreal finds that “macho men” are more aggressive drivers than those men who were less inclined to hyper-masculity. More honking, more risky behavior. I’d guess they’d also be more likely to bash through lines of police cars and jump over washed-out bridges.
In the continuing saga of my exhaust leak, I’ve discovered a new issue. There’s a big crack in the pipe going into the catalytic converter.
I think I missed it last time I was under there because I was looking from the other side. But with the camera the hole reveals itself. It’s only 2 years old, so I don’t know why it would have a fracture like that. It looks like it happened from over-tightening.
We know Volvo loves to crash their vehicles to demonstrate safety features, but in a recent demo the crash was truly an accident. To show off their Collision Avoidance™ system with Full Auto Brake™ technology, Volvo launched an equipped S60 toward a stationary truck at 20 mph, in front of press and video cameras. Unfortunately, the system failed and the car plowed into the bumper, destroying the front end of the vehicle and the careers of the people in Volvo’s PR and engineering departments.
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