Posted on 04/18/2002 3:40:20 AM PDT by 2Trievers
ONE CAR COMPANY is running ads in which its suave 44-year old CEO underscores his love for the outdoors by saying, I wont even stay in a hotel if I cant open the windows. Another car company, its tone set by its 70-year-old vice chairman an ex-Marine aviator is putting up three billboards. One shows a 1957 Chevys grillethink of Teddy Roosevelts grin in chrome and says: Proof your parents were actually cool once. Another shows the rear deck of a little red 1963 Corvette Sting Ray and says: They dont write songs about Volvos. The third shows the gritted-teeth grille of a 1970 Chevy Chevelle SS and says: Not everyone wants a car with a bud vase on the dash. Guess which company is doing best. Bill Fords problems at the company his great-grandfather founded are bigger than odd advertising. And there are many reasons why GM is soaring like the jet fighter Robert Lutz flies for fun. But institutions are the lengthening shadows of strong individuals, and Lutz is, in the elemental argot of Detroit, a car guy. When GM lured Lutz back into the car business last summer, The Detroit News headline (Lutz Rides In To Rev Up GM) was of a size usually reserved for Pearl Harbors or two-game Tiger winning streaks. But are Americans still car people the way they were when Lutz was young, in the 1950s? Then they were automobile voluptuaries, Detroit was in its rococo period and its great stylist was GMs Harley Earl, the Cellini of chrome, of whom it was said that if he could have put chrome on his clothes, he would have. Cars had front bumpers that were protuberant, not to say nubile, and tail fins. Cars looked, a wit said, like chorus girls coming and fighter planes going. Indeed, Buicks LeSabre emulated the F-86 Sabre jet. Lutz, tall and trim, knows that todays Americans generally have a less erotic relationship with cars. They look upon many cars, he says, as more or less an appliance. As mere transportation. Utilitarian. Boring. Furthermore, 20 years ago a premium car meant one substantially more capable. Today premium technologies (e.g., high-tech engines, overhead cams) are everywhere. But, Lutz says happily, your car is still an extension of your psycho-motor system. More than the other stuff we surround ourselves with do you know the brand of your refrigerator? will you replace it before it breaks down? your car continually makes an instant statement about you, even to complete strangers. So, Lutz insists, design is still central to success in the automobile business. Art is supposed to evoke emotional responses and cars are art a mobile sculpture. He also believes that when everybody else is doing it, dont. Most cars today have rounded aerodynamic lines. But the new Cadillac CTS, with angular lines, is described in ads as edgy. And when Lutz was at Chrysler a few years ago, he pushed through the development of the popular PT Cruiser, an echo of a 1937 Ford. Why? Surely not nostalgia. Probably most of the (mostly young) people buying these cars do not know who was President in 1937. Go figure. Lutz believes that aspirational aspects overwhelm the functional differences when car customers make their choices. When that happens, the left-analytical brain has been defeated again, the right brain has prevailed and Lutz rejoices. But this does not mean people plunk down large sums merely for high-status brands. Chevrolet sells more vehicles costing more than $30,000 than do Mercedes, BMW, Lexus and Audi combined, but this is partly due to the popularity of light trucks, a category that includes sport utility vehicles. Today an extremely high-end demographic e.g., investment bankers and stockbrokers are buying GMC SUVs. Some Americans (let us avoid the term liberals) hate fun, such as cheeseburgers, talk radio, guns, Las Vegas, and cars that are larger than roller skates and that look more interesting than shoe boxes. They hated 1950s cars that looked as a sniffy critic said like juke boxes on wheels. Such people love guilt, and want people to feel guilty about cars because cars have made possible suburbs, Wal-Mart, McDonalds and emancipation from public transportation. GMs car guy knows that Americans generally keep their cars longer than they used to creeping utilitarianism and do not define automotive fun as they did in the gaudy 1950s. But he is betting that lots of them still are guilty of letting their right brains rip when purchasing a car. George F. Will is a columnist with Newsweek and an ABC commentator.
I had one of those.
348, positraction, 3-2's...pretty fast...60 mph in first
I have to agree with you there, but it is possible to combine the two. I look back now and wonder how I ever 'did it' in that thing but we even did it under the tonnau cover once.
P.S. My Morgan is sort of a basket case right now. I smashed it up some years ago and bent the frame pretty badly. I visited the factory and arranged to have a new frame and aluminum body built for it. It's all hanging up in my garage, waiting to be assembled while the years go by...
Have you ever visited the factory? I've been there three times.
In my youth I was obsessive about keeping the top down (which ain't so easy in Michigan) I kept it down all winter once, but...once was enough. Another time, my wife and I toured New England in the Morgan, but in order to make room for all our camping gear, we left the top home. Drove through some fierce rainstorms that way. Didn't do much for the leather.
This car is already being built in Australia. It is called a Monaro and I beleive it is a V8 rear wheel drive. It sounds like fun to this 69 year old grear head. My wifes daily driver is a 95 Riviera with the SUPERCHARGED 3.8. It weighs 3700#, gets 18 around town, 28 on the hiway and hauls the frieght. I drive the 99 Silverado 4x4.1500. My project truck is the 1968 Chev Stepside I bought new, black with flames. My grand son is helping me. BTW, I traded my 65 GTO tri-power after I raced it for 3 years.
That is funny... Prisms are just rebadged Corollas. GM has a contract with Toyota to produce them on the exact same line, side by side. They are 99% identical. Only the resale value on the Chevy is much less than the Toyota because of brand reputation, Toyota is overrated and everyone knows GM makes crap. However, if you want to get a used Corolla cheap, buy a Prism of the same year and you get the same car.
The last version of the RX was a very fast, very sophisticated automobile.
Wow. I only live about ten miles from the Chrysler factory, but I've never been there!
The Morgan factory is literally a step back in time. You can see guys pounding out the new fenders with a hammer. Another guy making special nuts an bolts, a room with about ten women in it sitting at sewing machines, making the tops and interiors. It's amazing. But it's been about ten years since I've been there. Don't know if things have changed. But I doubt it.
Do you ever race your 4/4, like in gymkannas or rallys and club stuff like that? The 4/4s handle much better than the plus fours like mine. I knew this guy who used to beat 911s all the time with his 4/4 at gymkannas events, even though it was much less powerful.
Just doing the sums now on a 1928 Chev half ton 4 cyl truck to keep it company.
I hope the Australian company makes it LOOK like a Goat---nostrils, that big toothy grill, etc. My father had 3 of them over the years when I was young, and I'd give anything to have his '72 right now. Those were fantastic cars.
Heh... how did the old TV ad go? "Piston engine goes 'Boing, Boing, Boing' but the Mazda goes 'Hummmmmmm'" - something like that, IIRC. Yes, the Wankles are interesting, but very specialized work.
Know what else Goes Like Hell? A 1991-'94 Toyota MR2. Especially when you drop in one of those sweet little 3.0 liter V-6 engines from a '94 and later Camry, Avalon or Solara. It literally bolts right up - only minor machine work is needed to slide an axle bushing retainer over about 1/4". 200 hp from a super-reliable six-banger - and if you insist on more power, slap a Toyota Racing Development supercharger on it. The aluminum V-6 weighs no more than the cast-iron 4-cyl. engine that it replaces, so the handling does not suffer. Trickiest part is wiring and exhaust, but what a nifty little ride to go hunting Boxsters in. ;-)
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