Posted on 12/04/2002 10:34:52 AM PST by nicollo
Freepers in the Air
(running through your cable, more precisely)
Tonight, Dec. 4, the HISTORY CHANNEL will air a program
that is in part derived from Nicollo's book:
Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine
(Society of Automotive Engineers, 2002; http://www.sae.org).
Called "Limos," it shows tonight, Wednesday, Dec 4:
9:00 pm E.S.T.
8:00 pm Central
7:00 pm Mountain
9:00 pm Pacific
It will repeat at midnight EST and Sunday afternoon.
Local TV guides list it as "Limos" or "Automobiles."
Here for History Channel schedules
The documentary is part of the "BOYS TOYS" week of the Modern Marvels series.
Featured are stories and photographs from our book and interviews with
co-authors Michael L. Bromley and Tom Mazza.
Click here for the Boys Toys promo:
P.S.: Nicollo hopes not to have made too much of a fool of himself... tried to get excited about the subject and all I did was flail my arms around. It was fun, though, and the producers really tried to bring some history into the subject, which they got from our book. Otherwise it's all about "girls and limos" and "limos with girls" ... Heh, it's Boys Toys week, what-d-ya-want?
P.P.S.: The book is hardcover, 221-pages and includes over 300 color and b&w photographs. The publishers did a beautiful job with it. It is serious automotive and social history that doesn't take itself too seriously. If you know Nicollo, good or bad, you'll know what that means.
P.P.P.S.: Below is an extract from the last chapter of the book, a study of the meaning of the limousine in culture. You will note that this is the only treatment of the limousine to discuss its imact upon marxist ideology. It's also the only limousine book to mention George Washington & Abraham Lincoln (sorry, Neo-Confeds...)
Please visit our website Stretching It
for excerpts, photos, and the all important order forms and links.
May I copy/type that little section here with your permission? I know a lot of freepers will enjoy it as much as I did?
"(Got my html up a bit, eh Chong? -- Thanks!)"
I love what you've done with your website. :-)
Coachbuilder John Bumgarner recalls that the first stretch limousines his company produced were called “hearses” by the locals. "The only time they’d ever seen a limousine was behind a hearse," he says. When Esquire magazine writer Bob Greene pulled up to his parents house in a hired limousine in 1981, the neighborhood buzzed. "Is everything all right at the Greene house?" one asked. "No. I know everything’s not all right at the Greene house. There’s a hearse in the driveway..."I liked that line of his: a double "-ous" and a "-ness" topped off with an "excess" is awesome & most appropriate for the subject.... The stretch limousine became a fixture in the movies and a required prop for every script’s mafia Don, drug lord, or corporate bad guy character, as well as for a general symbol of wealth. The epoch was famously represented à la limousine by the television show "Dallas," the movie "Scarface," and, in real life, Donald Trump, who unto himself was a major consumer of and whose name was licensed for a line of stretch limousines. When the first stretch limousines hit the streets, crowds gathered and traffic halted. Limousines have always been the object of curiosity and stares, but the stretches caused a furor. Across the country, newspapers ran articles on these fascinating "stretched," "cutup," or "stretch out" cars. Bob Greene just had to find out for himself. He hired a limousine from Al Golub’s Chicago Limousine Service for four days to feel firsthand "the delirious ridiculousness of this excess."
Excepts from your book (and my 'commentaries' in red if I may) follows:
General Motors contributed the next line of presidential vehicles for Bill Clinton (1993-2001) (Geesh, Michael, it was an honest mistake not addressing him as president as you did all others, wasn't it?)
three 46-inch stretched limousines based on the 1993 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and built by Cadillac in-house.
Although the figure is not published, each car must have cost considerably more than the 1989 Ford's $600,000. (HA! Way more than what it cost to build President Reagan's limos per car.)
The cars have oversized windows for viewing of the president and interior lights to illuminate the passengers at night. (To match his oversized ego and sickness and other purposes?)
"So deftly did Karen manage the car, the other chauffeurs were moved to applause." Page 48.
Good for her. :-)
Uh, oh. The safety gestapo are going to get you for not wearing you seat belt.Lol! We were driving around in circles in Linden, New Jersey. No need for a seatbelt there... so long as John Gotti's on your side.
As for "limousine liberals," here it is defined from my book: Limousine Liberal
The peculiar, dysfunctional mixture of money, socialism, and limousines. The Limousine Liberal loves the limousine but feels guilty about it (guilt being a happy condition).
**Bump** from the left coast.Thanks!
9pm Pacific tonight. Let me know if you're watching.
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