The Truth About Cars » Auto-biography

Seven Classics Reissued for Today

Paul Niedermeyer — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:50:19 +0000

For the third time, a dramatic oil price spike has thrown the auto industry a curve ball. And once again, after years of supersizing, manufacturers are lacking the right-sized, economical products for which the market is desperate. Instead of spending three to five years developing new cars from scratch, it’s time to dust off the best from the past and put them back into production. An air bag here and some updated engines and technology there, and these seven classics are ready to save the day in each of the major categories:

Auto-Biography: In Search of… The East Glows

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:57:17 +0000

In 1971, I committed a crime, the repercussions of which still affect me today. I was a bored eighteen year-old whose over-developed automotive memory banks craved stimulus. In those pre-web dark ages, the information gap between monthly car magazines was excruciating. Desperate, I plied the 629.22 rack of the Iowa City Public Library, and found the font of automotive history. I slipped the heavy Rosetta stone under my baggy Army surplus jacket and walked out. I’ve been guiltily absorbing its contents ever since.

Road Trip to Wenatchee Part 2: The Honda Lucerne and Other Roadside Attractions

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:07:14 +0000

Spontaneous road trips are a like a treasure hunt without the clues. The prizes always appear unexpectedly. Like Goldendale’s night-shift police officer. “No, Mr. Niedermeyer, your speed was just fine. But you seem to have your high-beams on. That’s against the law within city limits. But… you’re free to go.” With those words of affirmation, our road trip to Wenatchee resumed. Adrenalin flowing, we were alert to the next roadside attraction.

Road Trip to Wenatchee

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:27:42 +0000

“You’re free to go.” With those hackneyed words, the Goldendale police officer returned my license. They were the very same words I’d heard in my head just a few hours earlier. At one-thirty last Sunday, my older son Ted called: “If you can drop Will [(his brother) here by three, we can take him back with us to Portland for a few days.” Cabin fever was at 103. The ninety minute deadline to pick a destination and pack the xB was just the tonic I needed. Time to head for… (flings open the atlas)… Wenatchee!

Corolla Memories

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:23:04 +0000

For me, driving bliss is all about the setting. Give me an empty road, spectacular scenery, good company and the freedom to explore without an itinerary or time constraints, and I’m in Heaven. Sure, a nice set of wheels enhances the pleasure. But if it came down to it, I’d take an inexpensive reliable car and an endless open road over a garage full of under-used toys that never really get off their leash. I knew the basic formula intuitively in my youth.

The Great American Anti-Towing Conspiracy

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:18:32 +0000

“Scion does not recommend towing a trailer… your vehicle was not designed for towing." Welcome to the great American anti-towing conspiracy. Manufacturers of anything less than a big SUV or pick-up are trying to take away our God-given right to tow with our cars. For a guy who’s towed everything from a Radio Flyer wagon behind a pedal-powered John Deere sidewalk tractor, to a three-bedroom house, I feel like I’m being singled out. Of course, there’s a possibility that I’m the cause as well as the target of this jihad. A lot of lawyers do drive the Ventura Freeway, and one of them may well have seen my spectacular stunt with a trailer.

Plymouth Fury

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:39:41 +0000

Somewhere west of Ogallala, rocketing across the plains at ninety-six in a sixty-nine Plymouth Fury, a twangy voice lectured us with the old song: “love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.” My two female traveling companions and I exchanged glances, laughed and sang along. “…you can’t have one without the other.” In that precious moment, everything crystallized: what it meant to be nineteen in 1972, free as a bird, barreling down the freeway in a powerful American sedan.

Bodacious Tatras

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 13:32:23 +0000

The dorsal fin is what put it over the top for me, literally. When I was a tyke of six in Austria, I ogled cars like a fifteen year old with X-ray vision at a cheerleading camp. But the most tataliscous bod my eyes could never get enough of was the Tatra down the street. Its radical aerodynamic form was already twenty years old, but with its dorsal fin, tear-drop shape, rear engine and uncompromising fluid lines, the Tatra positively screamed “futuristic” to me then. Hell, it’s still ahead of the times today.

The Game of Foxes

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:48:14 +0000

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Of course that was NEVER going to apply to me and my nerdy, car-clueless Father. He drove boxy Detroit stripper sedans. I drove VW’s and Peugeots. He’s a world-renowned neurologist-- but totally impractical. I never finished high school-- but rebuild cars. I grew-up in the time when political pundits pronounced our cultural chasm a “generation gap.” Except ours was more like the Grand Canyon. Or so I thought...

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Paul Niedermeyer — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:03:13 +0000

Santa came early in 1972. My older brother had taken a civilian job on a military base in Greenland. Out of the blue, he gave me his 1963 Corvair. It was my very first set of wheels. Instead of bracing myself for the thousand mile-long hitchhike from Iowa to Baltimore in freezing weather, I was driving home for Christmas in comfort. But there was a catch: Santa had deputized me. I had a present to deliver, and deliver I would, come hell or high snow.

Hemi Love

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:56:53 +0000

What eye-candy poster was pinned up on your bedroom wall when you were thirteen? A black Lamborghini Countach sprouting numerous spoilers? Farah Fawcett-Majors with blindingly-white teeth? Metallica? KISS? What I gazed lovingly upon-- whilst sprawled across my bed-- was a giant detailed cross-sectional drawing of a Chrysler hemi engine. Thus was the spell that the mythical engine had on me.

MGA

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:10:38 +0000

The pop rivets on the crudely fabricated rocker panels were a dead giveaway: tell-tales of ill health under the distraction of a box fresh $29.95 Earl Scheib paint job. I noticed the rivets as soon as the smarmy soon-to-be seller of the ’57 MGA pulled into the driveway. But I was 15, and not the intended victim. That would be my older brother, who was utterly blinded by lust as the late-summer sun sparkled on the curvaceous roadster. He was 19, and about to enter that unique form of parallel hell endemic to the ownership of a clapped-out rusty English car. His only consolation: unlike most self-inflicted drives to auto-hell, his would at least be fairly quick, and a one-way trip.

Auto-Biography 27: Squaring the Circle

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:44:33 +0000

Readers who’ve accompanied me on this long, strange trip-- from my automotive awakening to this, the final installment of my Auto-Biography-- may recall my earliest childhood memory: riding in a 1950’s VW Beetle in Austria. The bug was the automotive womb from which I sprang. I’ve carried the Volkswagen DNA ever since. Even as a freewheeling young adult, I was a loyal Volkswagonista. Eventually I strayed, looking for more space, speed, comfort and even prestige. But I’ve finally returned to my automotive happy place, reunited with my one true love.

Auto-Biography 26: There’s a Future in Your Ford

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:05:04 +0000

Twenty years ago, I was a well-heeled young exec. One day, I decided to indulge in a four-wheeled “weekend toy.” Instead of a Dino or XK-E, I dropped $500 on a 1966 Ford F-100 pickup. Sure, I’d harbored fantasies about Ferraris and Jags for years. But I didn’t want to be saddled with an expensive toy that offered temporary or unreliable escape. My dream has always been about real freedom. The freedom to wake up in the morning, sniff the air and go… berry picking! Lumber hauling! The simple, rugged, frugal Ford represented my ideal life. And I knew it would get me there.

Auto-Biography 25: Gone Fishin’

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:40:01 +0000

Five years ago, on a whim, I rented an RV and we headed for the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. The late October weather was exquisite; we didn’t see a single cloud for the whole two weeks. And the scenery was stunningly, drop-dead awesome. Once again, my wife and I (and now our youngest son) were hooked on the freedom of the open road and self-contained camping. But steep prices and free-fall depreciation of new RV’s was off-putting. But the answer was waiting just down the street…

Auto-Biography 24: Forester? I Just Met Her!

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:47:13 +0000

Instead of holding down a “real” job and paying other professionals to maintain my lifestyle, I stay at home and do it all myself: rebuild old houses, deliver the children, grow our organic berries and fix the cars. One day, back in ’99, this shade-tree mechanic finally grew tired of wrestling with the Gordian knot of hoses and wires nestling underneath our fifteen-year-old Cherokee. When the Jeep’s headliner let go and draped me in rancid mouse fur, I’d had enough.

Auto-Biography 23: Caravan of Love

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:51:37 +0000

Unless you live under a highway, an empty box has no intrinsic value; it’s what’s inside that counts. The Dodge Grand Caravan we bought in 1992 was little more than a big dumb box on wheels. But by the time I got rid of it fifteen years later, I’d filled the Caravan with a lifetime of family memories.

Auto-Biography 22: Bury My Jeep at Wounded Knee

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 11:43:02 +0000

If you’re looking for someone to blame for the whole yuppie-SUV fad, look no further. Back when I was bouncing over Rocky Mountain off-road trails in my VW bug, I sneered at actual Jeeps. And when I headed out across the desert in my Dodge van, I (almost) never missed having four-wheel drive. The moment we became city folks with kids, we just had to have a genuine 4X4 SUV.

Auto-Biography 21: Doing an E

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:28:42 +0000

In 1985, I started a Spanish language TV station. Having run a multi-lingual broadcast outlet for the world’s most famous guru, I was ready to rock and roll. There was only one minor detail: thirty million dollars. Fortunately, my partner and I found it. Unfortunately, we didn’t choose our sugar daddies carefully enough. It was a wild roller-coaster ride-- even if I did end back on the ground. At least I got a sharp set of wheels out of the deal.

Auto-Biography 20: Fun, Fun, Fun

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 11:48:42 +0000

Buying my first new car was a lot like losing my virginity: it was unplanned, impulsive and quick. Even though it didn’t turn out exactly as I might have expected, I certainly don’t regret it; it was an inevitable rite of passage. There has to be a first time. At least the glow of satisfaction lasted longer (with the car).

Auto-Biography 19: Beverly Hills 92404

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:29:35 +0000

Mercedes SL’s were as thick on the ground as mascara on an over-the-hill movie star. The teenaged scions of the local glitterati drove brand new BMW 320i’s and VW Cabrios. A red Ferrari 308 GTB was de-rigueur for the up and coming producer. If you simply HAD to have attention or score the prime valet-parking spot, a Rolls Royce Corniche convertible was the winning ticket. And what was I driving down Rodeo Drive? A beat-up 1968 Dodge camper-van. I looked like Jethro in “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Except that I actually was poor.

Auto-Biography 18: Vanishing Point

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 26 May 2007 10:19:46 +0000

I followed the old maxim: “go west young man” to its ultimate conclusion: the California beach. I guess I missed an exit. I was looking for an opportunity to start a career. What I found instead was the clothing-optional Black’s Beach near San Diego. After spending two months watching pelicans skimming the waves and hang-gliders surfing the breeze off the cliff tops, I had a great tan. But I was broke. So for the last time in my life (fingers crossed), I defaulted to driving for a living.

Auto-Biography 17: Bus we Must

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 19 May 2007 10:58:12 +0000

It was the mother of all drifts. Forty feet behind me, the back of the passenger bus was coming around fast, threatening to wipe out a block’s worth of cars parked across the street. By the time I caught the first slide, I had overcompensated. My arms were a whirling dervish on the giant steering wheel, flying back and forth, until the bus straightened out. No need to stop for coffee THAT day; I was wide awake on a triple-shot of adrenalin.

Auto-Biography 16: Bad Vibrations

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 12 May 2007 11:06:51 +0000

I was one with the universe. Everything around me was aglow in the summer sunlight, twinkling with a profound luster. I was floating serenely in my VW bug through the time space continuum. My consciousness was wide open. And then, in an instant, everything went black.

Auto-Biography 15: The Do-Dah Man

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:14:33 +0000

It was a successful launch, and I was going for the record books. The 534 cubic inch Ford V8 bellowed and roared through the two short pipes exiting under my feet. The wide-open Holley four barrel noisily sucked the cool morning air. The air-scooped hood rose and dropped on the passenger side with each banging shift, a visual testament to massive torque. As my speed approached record territory, I had my hands full keeping the snorting beast under control. I glanced down on the big round speedometer and confirmed my victory: ninety miles per hour.

Auto-Biography 14: Bug-Eyed and Painless

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:06:32 +0000

In my early twenties, I went through jobs like a teenage girl trying on clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch: truck driver, actor, gardener, cook, bus driver, bicycle mechanic, painter. And that was just in the sales rack. My ADD extended to a seemingly endless succession of girlfriends. In fact, the only continuity in my life was my VW bug, a slow and steady anchor in those turbulent times.

Auto-Biography 13: Wildcat!

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:00:10 +0000

They were both gorgeous, in that all-American wholesome, sexy, energetic way. Voluptuous, but athletic. Heartland traditional, but ready for a good time. Exhilarating and accelerative. And they were both mine to do with as I pleased. So why was I, a healthy young man, having a problem?

Auto-Biography 12: Training Wheels

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:35:57 +0000

On a sunny February morning I left my family behind, hitchhiking west out of Baltimore. By Ohio I was barreling through a night-time blizzard in the cab of a semi. I reached Iowa the following morning. It was ten degrees; I needed to stop and warm up. California would have to wait.

Auto-Biography 11: Gainful Employment

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:26:08 +0000

At seventeen, I finally joined the ranks of legally sanctioned drivers. I could have taught the drivers-ed class by then, including certain advanced techniques well outside the usual curriculum. Speaking of which, as part of this rite of passage, I retired the implements I’d used for hot-wiring the family Dodges. More importantly, I got a job where I could indulge my love of driving and get paid for the pleasure.

Auto-biography 10: Strung Out

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:56:45 +0000

Once I crossed the line, once I became a fifteen year-old driving addict, there was no turning back. Nothing could stop me from using my drug of choice. Like most addicts, I was willing to cross any line to get my fix. If my supply was cut off, I found another. Needless to say this is not my auto-biography’s most innocent chapter.

Auto-biography 9: Fulfillingness’ First Finale

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 11:42:57 +0000

In 1965, my family moved to Baltimore. From my seventh-grade perspective, it sucked. Iowa City was friendly, open-minded, cosmopolitan and relaxed. Towson was cold, prejudiced, provincial and uptight. I soon learned to loathe everything about Maryland-- except crab cakes, soul music and the eastern shore. I became a rebel with a cause: driving.

My official driving license was still years away. I mourned the loss of my hot-rodding neighbors, friendly dealerships and farm vehicles. I withdrew into an inner auto-life. I spent long afternoons at the drug store reading car magazines cover to cover, ignoring the pharmacist’s reproachful gaze. I left everything from Hot Rod to Sports Car Graphic shop-worn.

Auto-biography 8: Childhood’s End

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:31:23 +0000

After five years living in the quiet, sheltered and nurturing environment of Iowa City, Iowa, my family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. I was twelve-- that pinnacle year of childhood. I was blissfully ignorant of the long dark tunnel of adolescence just ahead. And in those very last days of innocence in the heartland, I was graced with a peak automotive experience.

It was during my final summer spent with the Mennonites. The preacher and I were working at their neighbor’s farm, helping with an old-fashioned barn-raising. For two hot days, I nailed down endless floor boards, while the men prepared the rafters for the final assembly. Towards the end of that second day, putting away nails in a shed, I had a genuine “barn find”: the chore scooter.

Auto-Biography 7: Love’s Labour’s Lost

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:40:19 +0000

As an immigrant back in the days of the “melting pot,” I was as eager to assimilate as a wide-eyed frat pledge amongst his potential brothers. I tried to forget German, made futile efforts to learn baseball and remained deeply smitten by American automobiles. I repressed memories of my abandoned European flames: Porsche, Mercedes and Jaguar. But my jilted lovers found me hiding in Iowa, and began to torment me with their seductive powers.

Auto-biography 6: Down on the Farm

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:32:12 +0000

It’s not just cars that are safer nowadays, but grown-ups too. Imagine telling your nine year-old, “Son, we’re sending you off to a farm to drive tractors for a family our cleaning lady knows.” That’s what my parents did, and I barely survived to tell the tale.

Auto-biography Pt. 5

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 12:45:02 +0000

The University of Iowa’s reputation for intellectual excellence lured my family away from Innsbruck (it sure as hell wasn’t the skiing). Despite the fact that my elementary school education was a lot less than enthralling, I decided to jump on the academic bandwagon. I threw myself into the study of all things automotive, harboring a secret hope that the University might award me an honorary degree in Autology.

Auto-Biography Pt. 4

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:31:50 +0000

As a boy in the pre-internet early sixties, I became obsessed with unveiling the secrets of that inexplicably alluring object of male interest. I had a general notion of what transpired within: the rhythmic in and out motions, the frenzy of moving members, the rapid inhalations, the (hopefully) synchronized explosions, and in their wake, the murmur of exhalations. Yes, the inner mysteries of the internal-combustion engine sang their siren song, and I was powerless to resist.

Auto-Biography Pt. 3

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:01:56 +0000

Three days after our psychedelic nocturnal journey to America, my family arrived at our final destination: Iowa. The transition was a rude awakening, from a fantastic dream straight into a bad nightmare. We’d traded Austria’s alpine vistas for New York’s towering skyscrapers and wide freeways, and then watched the modern world evaporate in the blazing sun, replaced by endless corn fields and arrow-straight gravel roads.

Auto-Biography Pt. 2

Paul Niedermeyer — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 11:02:03 +0000

My first glimpse of America: looking down on a freeway at night, with glow-worm toy cars and a perfect cloverleaf. It was just like the picture of GM’s World of Tomorrow exhibit at the 1939 New York World Fair that I’d seen in an old book. We were circling to final approach at New York International airport, having left Austria (and micro-cars) behind forever.

Auto-biography Pt. 1

Paul Niedermeyer — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 02:17:33 +0000

My first memories are of the womb. The enveloping warmth, the soothing sounds that correlated to alien activity. I remember the sensations of being propelled: forward, stop, turning, forward again, the gentle g-forces rolling me delicately from side to side, ensconced in my snug compartment on all sides, conscious of the rounded form that surrounded me. My first ride was a VW.