12 Golden Country Greats: The Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand(TM)'s Greatest Hits of 2012
I wrote a lot of vaguely-car-related stuff in 2012, and here’s my chance to show off the stuff that made me proudest (or at least took the most work to create). Enjoy.
When I Build My Spaceship, It Will Be Equipped With This Cordia Instrument Cluster
1965 Impala Hell Project, Part 20: The End
Bored On a Long Road Trip? Bad Car Bingo!
When You See a Clean Corinthian Leather Bench Seat In the Junkyard, You Buy It!
Possibly the Greatest Badge Engineering Feat In History: Isuzu Statesman Deville!
Junkyard Jackpot: The Missing Pieces For the A100 Hell Project Puzzle
Automotive Lawsuit History Unearthed, Junkyard Style: The Ford Park-To-Reverse Warning Label
How Honda Survived the Vigor, the Del Sol, and the Lawsuits: Super Cub!
Time Machine Dilemma: It’s 1973 and You Have Enough Cash For a New LTD. What Do You Buy?
My Introduction To Panther Love: Inaugural Police Interceptor Road Trip!
Corvairs, Kaisers, and Cadillacs: Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard Is a Mile High… and a Mile Wide
Kill Switch Thwarts Denver Civic Thieves Once Again, Junkyard Parts To the Rescue
What’s It Really Like To Obliterate a Press Car?
Hooptie Harley Adventures: Hell Project Shovelhead Hauls LeMons Judge To Road America In Style
Real-World Review: Fleeing Hurricane Sandy Across 8 States In a Rented 2012 Kia Sorento
Auction To Crusher: 12 Weeks In the Lives of Two Cars At a Self-Service Wrecking Yard
Then there’s my own site, where you’ll find lots of old and new stuff from the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand. What’s in store for 2012? That’s like asking how long Hindustan Motors can keep building the Ambassador!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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- SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
- SCE to AUX My son cross-shopped the RAV4 and Model Y, then bought the Y. To their surprise, they hated the RAV4.
- SCE to AUX I'm already driving the cheap EV (19 Ioniq EV).$30k MSRP in late 2018, $23k after subsidy at lease (no tax hassle)$549/year insurance$40 in electricity to drive 1000 miles/month66k miles, no range lossAffordable 16" tiresVirtually no maintenance expensesHyundai (for example) has dramatically cut prices on their EVs, so you can get a 361-mile Ioniq 6 in the high 30s right now.But ask me if I'd go to the Subaru brand if one was affordable, and the answer is no.
- David Murilee Martin, These Toyota Vans were absolute garbage. As the labor even basic service cost 400% as much as servicing a VW Vanagon or American minivan. A skilled Toyota tech would take about 2.5 hours just to change the air cleaner. Also they also broke often, as they overheated and warped the engine and boiled the automatic transmission...
- Marcr My wife and I mostly work from home (or use public transit), the kid is grown, and we no longer do road trips of more than 150 miles or so. Our one car mostly gets used for local errands and the occasional airport pickup. The first non-Tesla, non-Mini, non-Fiat, non-Kia/Hyundai, non-GM (I do have my biases) small fun-to-drive hatchback EV with 200+ mile range, instrument display behind the wheel where it belongs and actual knobs for oft-used functions for under $35K will get our money. What we really want is a proper 21st century equivalent of the original Honda Civic. The Volvo EX30 is close and may end up being the compromise choice.
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I'll be around looking for more entertaining pieces from you this year too!
Your Junkyard finds this year mentioned the Book "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors" after searching many used book stores for this out of print title I found a copy and read it. It still seems relevant 40 years later. Thank you for passing on your depths of automotive knowledge.