Posted on 09/09/2012 9:23:53 AM PDT by count-your-change
It's that time of year. The auto dealers face a wave of 2013 vehicles and must clear out the 2012 models to make room and avoid the inventory tax where it exists. Pretty much the same as last year and if you're in the market for a car you might be able to strike a good deal for brand new one year old car.
But one thing you might have trouble finding is an American auto that is NOT just plain ugly. Ugly and uninspired, ugly and bland, ugly and really ugly seems to be the rule.
I offer in evidence the 2013 Chevrolet Spark. No, I won't post a picture, I'll have mercy on the people that love the classics.
Firstly the front end looks like most other econo thumpers in the $15,000 range, squinty eye, swept back head lights and an overly busy grill area framed in plastic. PLastic! I'm sure it would hold up to an impact with cotton candy fairly well but anything tougher will require a call to your insurance agent.
Open the door and experience the true ugliness of today's offerings: Their tiny entrances. All you have to do is turn backwards, bend double and hope your knees will bend enough to allow you to drag your feet in. Wonderful! Now try getting out.
Moving to the rear of the typical new car gives the impression that the designers just gave up and tried to get the thing finished so they could leave early at the end of the week. Just hit the computer key that says, "Add some lights and acres of plastic" and punch out for the weekend.
But one may object, "You get what what you pay for." You sure do!
Consider the 2013 Chevrolet Corvette. The same squinty eye, wrap around head lights and the rest of the cars exterior a study in blandness, a bar of soap worn down to roundness with a couple of tail lights to keep the drivers behind from falling asleep just looking at the car.
For this you can pay handsomely, up to a hundred grand if you're a wealthy masochist or believe the slinky women in the commercial will ignore your double chins and "portly" avoirdupois. In case they don't the car does go fast so you'll be able to leave that embarrassing situation quickly and feel the breeze in your Hair Club for Men.
Me? The last car that I truly enjoyed driving and found really comfortable was my 1975 Ford LTD. It was big, heavy, feared no car on the road and ate at least one Fiat. And it had character by the ton.
If I were inclined to spend fifteen to twenty grand on a car today I would find one of the older models that were like Cleopatra's barge on wheels and have it restored or at least made serviceable.
The ugliness, the blandness, the uninspired sameness of today's auto designs is, what I believe, drives the popularity of the restoration market. What else would drive a person to pay thousands of dollars for a rusty, thirty or forty year old car and spend tens of thousands of dollars restoring it to its new condition when it sold for under three thousand dollars?
I would go kick a new car's tires but I'm afraid one kick might total it.
Older Jags don’t command very high prices and if the engines gives much trouble kits are available to put older GM engines in them without torch work.
The purist may bulk at the idea but it does work.
My brand new 1957 Chevy Bel Air hardtop high school graduation present gave me a four wheel personality the girls really went for. Now my super clean and shiny 1994 Camaro still turns heads and draws compliments from the ladies.
Those first two cars of your look like old police cars. I was wondering if you bought them from the Mount Prospect Police Dept. and if they had cop engine, cop suspension, cop tires, and could get from Milwaukee to Chicago in just half a pack of cigarettes.
This car sounds *so* healthy...:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNE77kEYJy8
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PEGqTQD318
[and now I’m depressed]
:-|
Almost bought one but got the Taurus instead.
Had less miles and needed no repairs.
Aw geeze...why doesn’t anybody ever offer me something like that?
Hubby built/restored street rods professionally for decades.
He coulda got it home.
:-P
I just never understood why anyone liked a car that sounded like someone farting in a bathtub Lol!
I had no choice.
My life was “you can’t have a car until you get a job” and of course, I couldn’t get a job unless I had a car.
My first full time job I spent a month car-pooling with a kooky broad and one day I came home from work and there sat the Gremlin with my name on the payment book.
I was mortified.
Prior to getting the job, I’d been given a ‘40 Dodge business coupe to fix it up.
[by myself...I hate sanders, Bondo and primer to this day]
Then my grandfather gave me his ‘63 Studebaker Lark which ran like a maniac but my dad sold it out from under me.
Then an uncle gave me a big 60’s Plymouth land yacht that I can’t recall the model and dad sold that too.
He didn’t want me to have anything ‘too fast’.
If he knew what I did with that Gremlin on weekends he’d have a heart attack.
Then I had a Porsche 924 turbo for a while and my favorite car of all time, an ‘84 Scirocco.
Drove ‘em like I stole em.
Then I had a ‘boring housewife spell’ with just stuff like VW Rabbits, Foxes and Golfs and then SUVs.
Now I’ve got the Harley and it scares my parents to death.
Ha.
:)
Ya’ll are forgetting about the New Testament which tells us the apostles came together in one Accord ;-)
That looks like a sewer pipe.
The greatest thing about the early smog control efforts was the way the engine would “run on”, that is, once you shut off the ignition, the damn thing would keep running, very badly, maybe on one or two cylinders. If you had a stick, you could kill the thing by putting it in gear and popping the clutch.
Then there was the regulatory genius who decided that the way to keep people from being tempted to “see what she can do” was to limit the speedometer to 85 mph.
Yeah, but it would knock a couple of seconds off your quarter mile times.
Ohhhh that’s nice.....1970?
They were old police cars. Bought ‘em both in the Denver area, though.
They found that the gals loved the A but didn't care about the Lambo.
When I lived in England (’89 - ‘90) I had a white ‘73 Sovereign with a huge moon roof that looked just like that. Wonderful car. I would have brought it home, but I didn’t want to spend the money to turn it into a left driver.
I own a 2008 Shelby GT500 and a 2012 Infiniti FX35 and I think both are beautiful.
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