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.
The car lover, which you are not, has very little to chose from. The car prol, like you, has so many ugly appliance type vehicles to choose from. Not fair.
Not all models and not always cheap but available. And the tools are being made for the less than professional restorer, the plasma cutters, shears, etc.
At the tender age of 17, after working and saving all my money working at the A&W drive thru. I paid 3200.00 for my first new, off the show room floor AMX 1970. It was the best car I have ever owned. Then in 1974 I bought an AMX and fell in love again. God they were beautiful! Sexy! and Oh so good to me!
I picked the 2007, beautiful color, pre-owned by an elderly suburban couple, as clean inside and out as if it had just rolled off the assembly line, even smelled new.
Only 20,000 miles on it. Roomy, built like a Barack Shiite house, crumple proof in an accident, good mileage, biggest trunk on the road, almost new Michelins, no repair bills big or little as yet, no monthly payments, this baby will outlive me.
All this and heaven, too, for $14,000 plus tax and the usual little extortions.
Eat your hearts out, everybody, LOL.
Leni
Wish I still had mine, too. It had style and rode so smoothly I never needed cup holders. I would set a coke on the seat and it never once spilled. And you didn’t need arm muscles to turn the wheel like today’s vehicles. Oh, and leg room!
Got a basic 2000 Tacoma 4 cylinder pickup with 258,000 miles on it. Not a single service problem of any description since I bought it used with 21,000 miles on it in 2003. Still purrs like a kitten. Nice styling too (at least that’s what a few people have told me). Never could get more than maybe 120,000 miles out of any domestic truck without serious service problems.
Had four Toyotas over the past 35 years with pretty much the same story including a ‘77 Corolla wagon that my sister and I put 410,000 miles on before selling it in the mid 90’s. Other folks may have had trouble out of their Toyotas but I sure haven’t.
You lucky baddog, you!
To see them lunge down in the front and rear up in the back going off the line was always hot!
Once in a great while, somebody will bring one to the local drag strip.
I get crazy.
;D
If somebody gave me a 16V Scirocco or Corrado, I wouldn’t care if I had to climb through the freaking rear hatch to get in and out.
And he said that the security system used to call his phone at all hours of the night, saying that it had been “kidnapped”. He’d have to run down to the garage to make it was still there.
The guy in the building next to mine has one. I hadn’t seen one in 15 years. I really didn’t age well. The mix of ‘80s and ‘90s lines are kind of bland. The new NSX is beautiful.
I saw a 1990 Toyota Supra the other day, and the owner kept it pristine. It still fits in twenty+ years later.
BEST retro car of the current crop, and I’m not even a Ford fan. New Camaro (heavy, over-sytled), not so much.
I remember the late 1980s/early 1990s generation of “mustanges” and they were erstaz-ricers. Lots of plastic and an insanely huge selection of aftermarket plastic, lights and whistles. Ugh.
The current Mustang is amazing, but it might give way to a new Euro-mustang. Yikes.
The “estate wagon” needs to make a comeback.
The last one I really liked was the Buick Roadmaster Wagon. Huge, powerful, beautiful.
The Europeans have made some nice wagons, but they’re too small. The American SUV is a poor replacement.
These guys were given a rare Buick ragtop if they could drive it home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAFoX3jfvzY&feature=endscreen&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIM7gSNbX08&feature=fvwrel
The only problem is it had been sitting outside for 30 some years
Utility is my number one concern as well. I’m a bicyclist, so hauling bicycles around is job 1. I need a 2” receiver for my bike rack, and the ability to just throw a single bike in the back without the rack is a plus. My Explorer is up to the task, but it’s not pretty. My idea of a good looking car would be something like the latest Chevy Malibu.
Good god, please don’t bring back station wagons. The memories, the horror, anything but....
“As for size blame the CAFE rules and it is only going to get worse.”
Now might be a good time to buy futures in lawn mower wheels, the demand from the auto industry may drive the price up soon.
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