My son Harley, raised with a love for everything on wheels.

As I paused in the driveway and waited for the garage door to open, I felt an unexpected presence by my side. Unbeknownst to me, my six year old son had slipped the confines of his booster seat in the rearmost row and made his way forward past his sisters with surprising stealth. Now he stood between my wife and I as we prepared to travel the last few feet of our journey.

My first thought was annoyance. Little kids are supposed to remain in their seats with their hands and arms in the vehicle at all times. Yet for some reason here he was walking around inside our van in bold defiance of everything that he had been taught since we first strapped him into a car seat as a squalling, red faced infant. Didn’t he know most car accidents happen close to home?

Caught off guard I opened my mouth to say something harsh, but before I could an old memory clawed its way to the surface. Reaching around behind my son, I swept him onto my lap, “Take us in.” I told him. My wife gave me a surprised look but said nothing as my son gripped the wheel with eager anticipation. While I handled the pedal work and gave the wheel an occasional assisting nudge, my little guy brought us into the garage with amazing skill. He was absolutely delighted with himself, and in that moment my life came full circle.

The clan Kreutzer circa 1972. I’m the youngest, my father, Harley, is on the right.

Almost 40 years earlier, at around the same age, I too had been between my mother and father in the front seat when I also tested the bounds of good sense in the last few feet of a family journey when I innocently asked if I could drive. My own father, not one to brook any back-talk from any of his 5 kids looked at me hard, but instead of a quick rebuke responded with the unexpected. Setting me in his lap, he let me guide the our car, an Oldsmobile Dynamic 88, into our garage.

It was a moment for the ages. I can still feel the Oldsmobile’s thin plastic wheel in my hands, the back side scalloped to fit my fingers and the vibration from the mighty V8 under the hood, as we slipped smoothly into the garage. The experience changed my life and from that day forward, no matter how far we traveled, those last few feet were always spent on my father’s lap the two of us bonding over the joy of driving.

As car enthusiasts, we’ve all heard talk about how the new generation of kids lack a real interest in our hobby. We’ve all read about hot the cell phone and social networks have usurped the role of the car in the transition to adulthood, too, but I see other reasons for this generation’s attitude towards cars. Belted in the back seat with a DVD player to occupy their time, most little kids view the car as a sort of mobile living room. Prohibited by law from the front seat until they become “tweens,” kids don’t get the opportunity to see what is happening up front and, as a result, they never fantasize about what it must be like to slide over one spot and actually sit behind the wheel. Without the fantasy, the seed doesn’t take root.

My daughter Maiko in the big seat.

Not on my watch. I love everything about cars and, much to my wife’s dismay, I have been programming all three of my children to be motor heads from the day they were born. Due to my efforts, my son Harley wants to be a race car driver and my oldest daughter, Maiko, wants to be a doctor-princess.

I won’t give up on her though. I want all my kids to feel same the joy I get from driving and, as much as I hate little footprints all over my nice leather seats, I let my children play in my car whenever I am cleaning it. I let them crawl behind the wheel, roll down the windows, open the sunroof and crank up the tunes. I let them sit in the big chair with the wheel in their hands and the gearshift under their right hand and I let them imagine what it must be like to be in control. Then I tell them that it isn’t a fantasy, it’s a preview. It’s only a matter of time until the seed takes root.

The circle complete, my son Harley and I pose for a picture with the last Oldsmobile my father, also Harley, ever bought. A 1984 Cutlass Supreme.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He writes for any car website that will have him and enjoys public speaking. According to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

So I was looking for a photograph or diagram of the “friction drive“, an early continuously variable transmission used in the 1906 Orient Buckboard made by Waltham Mfg and I came across this period advertisement, selling an accessory child’s seat for the Buckboard. The Buckboard was exactly that, a buckboard horse cart with a one cylinder gasoline engine. Like many early runabouts the Orient Buckboard was a two-seater. There was no room for the rest of the family. Some companies, like Ford, offered a third “mother in law” seat out back, but Waltham decided to go in the other direction.

The detachable child’s seat for the Orient Buckboard cost an additional $25, a not insignificant sum in light of the fact that the cheapest version of the Buckboard was $375 (without headlamps and a folding roof), but as the ad,  from the trade journal Motor Age and aimed at car agencies (i.e. dealers) pointed out, it made the rather primitive motor car a bit more marketable.

“Mother-in-law” seat on a Model T runabout, Piquette Ave Model T Factory

The child’s seat mounted in the front of the Buckboard got me thinking. I babysit my year old grandson once a week. Under state law here in Michigan, I’m not even allowed to put his car seat in the front passenger compartment of the car, let alone drive around with him exposed on the hood of the car. Never mind the fact that sitting in his rear-facing car seat he wouldn’t be endangered by an activated airbag in the event of an accident, the law is the law.

Sometimes I wonder how those of us who are here today got here without the safety nannies telling our parents how to keep their kids alive long enough to reach adulthood. Heck, I would never have graduated from grade school because some days in the carpool there were 10 kids in a six passenger sedan. “There’s a policeman. Hide under the dashboard!” Yes, I made my kids wear bicycle helmets and nobody can ride in a car that I’m driving without being belted in but like I said, sometimes I wonder how we made it here without the do-gooders.

Parents have always been concerned about safety. I’m sure the parents 109 years ago that opted for that optional child’s seat on their Orient Buckboard figured that was safer than holding the kid in Mom’s lap. At the Henry Ford Museum’s Driving America exhibit, there’s a display about auto safety, including a selection of car seats that date back to the 1950s or earlier. From our perspective some of them are clearly death traps. The landmark General Motors Infant Love Seat seat that I used for my two oldest kids (who now have kids of their own) would probably not meet the government safety standards of today.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Diego Rivera mural, Detroit Institute of Arts

I was at the Eleanor and Edsel Ford estate today for the media preview for the Eyes On Design car show coming up on Father’s Day this Sunday. The grounds of the Ford home are where the show is held every year – in honor of Edsel’s seminal role in the history of automotive styling. Eyes On Design is a unique car show. The cars are concours level (many Eyes On Design cars get shown at the Concours of America (formerly Meadow Brook)) but they’re not judged on build quality or meticulous authenticity. The show is pretty much run by car designers and the cars are judged on their design, not whether or not the air cleaner is factory or aftermarket. After the press event I walked around the 87 acre site, checking out the outside of the home and the other buildings, which were (no surprise here) Albert Kahn designs. Henry Ford’s greatest asset was his sheer indomitable nature. His second greatest talent was surrounding himself with talented people like Kahn.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ford surrounded himself with people who not only had great talent but had the ability to get Henry to agree with them – most likely by getting him to think it was his idea in the first place. James Couzens, Horace Rackham, Charlie Sorensen, Peter Martin, Eugene Farkas, Joe Galamb and Walter Flanders were arguably as instrumental in the success of FoMoCo as Henry was. Henry was also lucky with his son. Edsel was a very capable business manager as well as a pretty refined person – certainly compared to his farmboy father.

Clara and Edsel Ford c. 1997

There is one of those Detroit stories, thought by some to be apocryphal, but documented in Richard Bak’s Henry and Edsel, about a prototype Model T that was built at Edsel’s direction fairly late in the T’s production run, in 1924. The Dodge brothers had decided to start selling their own cars in 1914 rather than continue supplying Ford with components and rolling chassis because they were good engineers and wanted to build modern cars. If technology and style had outstripped the Model T by 1914, imagine how obsolete it was a decade later.

Edsel was a good businessman and knew how much market share Ford Motor Co. had lost to Chevrolet and Dodge. Henry, rich as Croesus, didn’t care, he thought the Model T was the perfect car, forever.

Click here to view the embedded video.

While Henry was in Europe, Edsel had a revised Model T prototype built to try out his ideas. The prototype was sitting in a Ford garage at the Highland Park plant when Henry happened upon it after his return from the continent. It was less boxy than a standard Model T and it was painted bright red. Though the Model T was available in different colors early on, by 1924, “any color you want as long as it’s black” was part of Ford’s productivity model so I’m sure the red car was a shock to Henry.

Henry and Edsel in a Ford Model F, 1905

According to the account of George Brown, the FoMoCo purchasing agent who had worked on the project for Edsel, Ford asked him, “What’s over there?”

“Well, Mr. Ford, that’s the new car.”

“Ford car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He walked around the car three or four times, looking at it very closely. Finally, he got to the left side of the car, and he gets hold of the door, and BANG! One jerk, and he had it off the hinges! He ripped the door right off! God, how the man done it, I don’t know! He jumped in, and BANG! goes the other door! BANG! goes the windshield! He jumped over the back sat and started pounding on the top. He wrecked the car as much as he could.”

A 13 year old Edsel Ford takes some friends sledding in a Ford Model N

In time, Edsel would bring Bob Gregorie to Ford to start a styling department at the Dearborn automaker. Unlike his father, Edsel had an art patron’s eye and understood how fashions and tastes change.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Edsel and Eleanor’s home shows that they had great taste. It’s a magnificent property and Eleanor lived there until her death in 1976. When Edsel died in 1943, he had been running the company. Henry was, of course, in charge, but he wasn’t involved on a day to day basis, that was Edsel’s job.

Henry and Clara Ford leaving Edsel Ford’s funeral, 1943

When Edsel died, Henry reasserted operational control of FoMoCo, by then one of the major suppliers to the U.S. and British war efforts in WWII. There were rumors that Henry wanted to put the Model T back into production. The U.S. government could not afford for the company making Jeeps and B-24s to be run by a man who was always a bit of a crackpot but now was also senile.

Edsel had some training as an artist. Here’s a charcoal sketch he did as a teenager.

Henry was a megalomaniac who had lost control of the Henry Ford Company in 1902 to his financial backers (that brought in Henry Leland who then talked them into using the assets to start Cadillac). He hated the idea of partners and once he could afford it after the huge success of the Model T, he paid investors like Rackham and the Dodges (who had taken stock in lieu of payment in the early days) $12.5 million for every $5,000 they had invested in FoMoCo. Couzens, who was FoMoCo’s business manager and a very early investor, got over $29 million for a $2,500 investment.

Those prices were paid after Henry first tried depressing the value of their Ford stock by publicly announcing that he was going to start a new car company that would compete with Ford Motor Company. Once he controlled 100% of Ford stock, Henry kept 49% for himself, gave Edsel a minority stake at 48%, and gave Clara, Mrs. Henry Ford, the remaining 3% of the stock.

Another sketch of Edsel Ford’s, this one presages his role in automotive styling

After Edsel died, the U.S. Army discharged Henry Ford II from officer’s training school so he could return to Dearborn and run the company. Henry balked until Eleanor and Clara explained that they owned 51% of Ford Motor Company stock and that if he didn’t turn over operational control of the company to his grandson, they would sell their shares. Clara, who had tolerated Henry taking Evangeline Dahlinger as a mistress, had her limits.

One of a series of custom roadsters Edsel had built for his personal use. C. 1911

I couldn’t help but wonder, in an alternate history sense, how different things would have been if it was Henry who died in middle age instead of Edsel. Edsel was 49 when he died of stomach cancer – the family felt it was brought on by the ulcers he got from his father’s regular humiliations (Henry didn’t want Edsel to be the soft son of a rich man, so he’d berate him in front of others).

Edsel and Eleanor Ford. Edsel liked fast boats as well as fast cars. He’d sometimes commute to Dearborn via the Detroit River.

Henry Ford would have been 49 in 1912. He was already a very rich man as the Model T was a huge success (actually, he was already rich before the Model T, since unlike his first two automotive ventures, Ford Motor Company had thrived). What would Ford Motor Company and automotive history had been like if Edsel had taken over in 1912?

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Chrysler’s recent decision to snub a recent NHTSA recall request is big news. I need not restate the facts of the story, if you are a “car guy” and haven’t heard the sordid details, or noticed the dramatic photos of burned out Jeep Grand Cherokees and Liberties posted all over the internet in the past few days, you must live under a rock. With 2.7 million vehicles involved the costs of conducting such a recall would be staggering but, ultimately, inaction may cost the company even more money if consumers lose confidence in the brand.

Because the root cause of the recall is said to involve rear-end collisions, ruptured fuel tanks, and the possibility of a death so gruesome that most of us shudder to even think about it, people are drawing a natural comparison between the current case and the Ford Pinto debacle of the 1970s. They appear the same on the surface but that’s only because, as much as I am loathe to admit it, the ‘70s were a long time ago and public awareness of the details of that earlier case has wasted away. In their rush to assert that history is repeating itself, people leap over a critical piece of the story that makes what happened almost 40 years ago much, much worse. Namely that Ford knew about the tendency of the Pinto to explode before the cars even left the factory, and, because it would cost an extra $11 per car to fix, they elected not to act.

The case against Ford was laid out in great detail by Mother Jones News in their October 1977 issue – view the original article – and it makes chilling reading. In a nutshell, that article states that the problems with the Pinto’s fuel tank became apparent during pre-production crash tests, but that Ford elected to go ahead with the car as designed because the tooling for the cars was already in place and because the overall cost to upgrade the car was deemed to be higher than the cost potential settlements to the families of those people unfortunate enough to be burned alive in an accident. Mother Jones backed up this assertion with a leaked Ford memo that revealed that an internal cost-benefit analysis had determined that the company’s average estimated payout in the event of a death caused by the defect would be $200,000. Crunching the numbers, then, was simple: $11 times X million cars over the car’s product cycle vs $200,000 times a projected 180 burn deaths per year. Chillingly logical, isn’t it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once Mother Jones blew the lid off this story, people got enraged and Pinto sales dropped precipitously. In 1977, seven full years after the car’s introduction, Ford finally made the required modifications and the car continued to appear on Ford lots where it sold in much smaller numbers until it finally went away in 1980. Today, the Ford Pinto has virtually vanished from the streets and, when they do appear, they seem more an oddity than a rolling death trap released upon the world through corporate duplicity.

I suppose that those whose lives have been effected by current “alleged” defect in Chrysler’s Jeeps will care little about the distinction I make between a vehicle that is determined after the fact to have a possibly deadly defect and one that left the factory with a similar defect with the full knowledge of the people running the program, but to me the difference is an important one. One is a mistake, the other is murder. One deserves to be prosecuted and the other made right. Both, however, need to be remembered in their correct context.

Even so, Chrysler should not ignore the lesson that Ford learned in the ensuing debacle. People don’t like to be burned alive in their cars. We don’t even like the thought of it. Over time we may forget the specific details, but we will remember the part about the burning. Don’t forget that. Make this right before its too late.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He writes for any car website that will have him and enjoys public speaking. According to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

Photo couretsy of turbododge.com

The empty space in my driveway mocks me. The 300 is gone and I know it is not coming back. I have accepted that and I really believe in my heart-of-hearts that the car has gone to someone who will give it the use it actually deserves. But the sun still shines and the money in my pocket burns like fire against my thigh. I dare not ask my wife to allow me to buy another toy, she’s small but feisty, but never the less I still find myself on Craigslist considering all the possibilities. Help me, oh best and brightest, help me to exorcise this demon before I do something rash.

This weekend one of the cars I wrote about a few weeks ago in my article, Psycho Love, suddenly appeared for sale right in my own neighborhood. The 1993 Grand Prix is on my short list of cars I wish I had bought back in the day, and this one appears to be in pretty amazing shape; especially when you consider the evil that road salt works on cars of this age in this part of the country. I managed to stop myself from calling this young man up and rushing right over, but I did, in the name of putting my youngest child to sleep in her car seat, drive up and down dozens of streets in my neighborhood hoping to “stumble across” it. I never did find it, but I note that as of this morning the ad is still up so perhaps…

The ad says this car has just 90K miles on it, is still inspected and is on the road as of this writing. It also comes with a cold air intake, an aftermarket Magnaflow exhaust, a sunroof that doesn’t leak the speedometer projection and aftermarket rims. The owner claims that there is not a scratch or spot of rust on it and that it even comes with its own cover. All this for just $2900.

Compounding my crisis of the soul I just happened to be perusing the classified section of my favorite Turbo Dodge website on Saturday when I came across a 1987 Dodge Daytona Pacifica. Truth be told, back in the day I thought Daytonas were girls’ cars and of them all the Pacifica, with its puffy padded seats and snooty sounding name, was especially evocative of overweight women in their 40s who thought themselves just too cool to buy into the LeBaron. Before you get angry, just bear in mind that I can back up my assertion with the fact that the vast majority of Daytonas I see today, yes even the turbo Daytonas, have automatic transmissions.

The Daytona Pacifica I found just a few hundred miles away in North Eastern Ohio however shatters my preconceptions. Just read the ad and judge for yourself:

91,000 miles, 5 speed manual, 2.2 Turbocharged Block. Car has been converted from a Turbo I to a Turbo II. Car is in great condition and has many extras. Some extras are: 2 piece intake. mildly ported head, ported exhaust manifold, custom built turbo a little larger than stock,+40 injectors, heavy duty motor mounts, Koni adjustable shocks and struts, strut tower brace and custom rear shock tower brace, 255 ltr/hr high pressure high volume in tank fuel pump, Accufab adjustable fuel pressure regulator, rising rate regulator, Hella E Beam headlight lenses, custom front mount intercooler, talon blow off valve (modified for high boost), 3 stage manual boost control, switches at console ( can be adjusted to any settings), kumho 205X55ZR16 tires, braided steel turbo lines, 2 1/2″ mandrel bent exhaust, alarm with aftermarket power door locks, Alpine CD player. $3200.00.

To make my crisis even worse, when I asked a simple question about where exactly in Ohio he was, I got this response:

I’m North East Ohio, about 4 hours from Buffalo. Owned the car for the last 16 yrs. Been running the tuneup for the past 10 yrs without a problem. Passes E-check just fine with the existing tuneup. This car is more Shelby Daytona than a Shelby Daytona. I built this car to be dependable, fast and handle. This car is nothing like the Pacificas that people write about. No digital dash, no power windows, no factory power locks, no automatic.

Crisis acute. I’m a sucker for the days of my youth and this car looks like it was hand built by Doc Brown with the should intention of returning me to the 1980s. A turbo Dodge with all the right mods and a 5 speed. Of course, recent medical tests have revealed that I am producing less testosterone than I should be so that might be part of this crazy attraction I am feeling, but that Gel was supposed to fix that! It might just be puppy love, I know, but then again it might also be that I happen to know a really cool car when I see one. I’m so conflicted!

OK, so what the hell do I do? Do I face that tiny but extremely vociferous typhoon of a woman that I brought home from the far East ten years ago with the full knowledge that we will be going overseas in another year and that the money I drop on one of these cars may not entirely return to the account from which it came? Or do I keep my money safely in my pocket, and my head attached to my neck, and know that this sudden bout of infatuation will pass in due time? Help a brother out, your advice is much appreciated.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He writes for any car website that will have him and enjoys public speaking. According to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

At just 10:30 AM the sun was already near its full zenith and it beat down upon the city of Osaka with an intense, angry glare. Waves of heat shimmered up from the pavement and superheated the air which blew around in tepid, weak breezes that offered little respite. Perhaps later, the column of heat created by the great city’s many square miles of pavement would spark a sudden thunderstorm as it rose high into the stratosphere and the resultant rain would bring relief as it cascaded down and turned the streets into raging torrents. For now, however, there was only the glare of the sun, the stifling heat and, for me, the thought that riding an 1100 cc air cooled sport bike in a full set of leathers was a choice I should have avoided making.

The morning had begun as all summer mornings do in Japan, with the incessant shrieking of cicadas and the knowledge that sweltering heat and insufferable humidity were to follow. Regardless, my bike had sat unused for far too many days and I knew that if I failed to get the it out on the road I would regret my inaction later. To mitigate that future guilt, I decided I would make the trip across town to get a hot dog at Costco. My silly, trumped up excuse for action firmly fixed in my mind, I rolled my mighty GSXR from its hiding place under the stairwell of our apartment house, slipped into my familiar riding gear and set out.

It was still early enough that traffic was light and despite the big bike’s size, I weaved through traffic with relative ease, splitting lanes as needed but never really putting bike‘s full power to the ground. When it had been built back in 1991, my GSXR was as close to a street-going race bike as you could get. Regardless of that fact, its first owner had modified it to be even faster, adding larger carbs and a full stainless steel race exhaust that raised the bike’s horsepower well into the triple digits. It was loud, temperamental and, compared to the newer, fuel injected sport bikes made today, crude and it hated to be constricted by real world concerns like traffic laws and my own will to live. By the time I got close to my destination, the bike too was having trouble with the heat and was beginning to show signs of a fouled spark plug.

I rolled onto the wide boulevard that led the last half mile to my destination and pulled up at a stoplight. Ahead of me, the road stretched out wide and straight, three lanes wide in each direction and on its surface only the shimmering waves of heat rising from the pavement gave any indication of motion. The light turned green and I revved the bike, using the open road as an opportunity to raise the revs a bit higher into their range to tray and blast loose that bit of carbon that I knew was clinging to the electrode of at least one of my plugs. It was the city, however, and I stayed in the lower gears, letting off the gas and killing my acceleration just under of the speed limit. Ahead, the last two lights between me and my destination turned green in tandem and I held my speed.

Just then, out of the entrance to a blind alleyway, a bicyclist shot out into the main street. How he failed to hear me, I have no idea, but the distance between us negligible and a collision looked imminent. I laid on the horn and just as quickly clamped on the brakes. I squeezed down hard and the big Suzuki’s brakes bit deeply, unsettling the bike’s suspension and shifting the bike’s weight forward onto the front end, almost bottoming out the forks. With me baring down upon him, the bicyclist stopped dead in the road and right in my path – a deer in the headlights.

You learn to make choices fast on when you are on the back of a sport bike and years of experience had taught me my options were limited. There was no time to swerve, and a sudden pivot in any direction would leave me dumped on my side in the street. There was no swerving then, my best option, I decided, was straight ahead, right up and over that stoplight running SOB. It was going to be ugly.

I bore down on him like a freight train, my big bike’s dual headlights boring into his soul as I closed the gap, my horn blaring steadily. The distance closed to inches and then, a split second before impact, in an act of sheer desperation the bicyclist kicked forward with is foot and rolled just one foot forward. That movement saved us both and I slid past behind him with a bare inch to spare stopping about 5 feet beyond what would have been our point of impact. I turned my head, glared back at him over my shoulder and extended my arm palm up, giving him my best sign language version of “WTF?” With a downward motion of his hands and a slight bow, he placated me and, with the cars behind beginning to bare down upon us, we separated, him to his destination and me to mine.

The manual operation of the bike occupied my attention while I covered the remaining distance to Costco and parked, but once inside the store the entire experience hit me hard. It took some time to compose myself, it isn’t every day you almost kill someone, after all. After a brief period of adrenaline related butterflies in my stomach, I headed into the store and my mind was filling with the other possible courses of action I might have taken. Lost in deep thought, I approached the food court.

For whatever reason the line at the hotdog stand was huge. Hundreds of small dark haired women, many with children scuttling around their feet, waited patiently in long lines, each one taking a few extra moments to verify the complicated menu that listed so many odd, Western food options prior to making their order. The process took far too long, but it was OK, after the events of the morning waiting mindlessly in a long, slow moving line was rather cathartic. After many long minutes I found myself before the counter, made my order and scurried away to condiment table where I dressed my hotdogs and filled my cup with cold soda.

I turned towards the tables and found myself shocked at the site of a sea of sullen faced men, none with food in their hands, occupying virtually all of the tables as they waited for their wives who were lost somewhere in the mass of humanity lined up before the counter. There I stood, two dogs gripped in my right hand as it stuck through the chin bar of my full faced helmet, my leather riding jacket in the crook of my arm and my tank bag and a soda tenuously sharing the grip of my left. There was nowhere to sit, and I found myself flushed with sudden anger. This was typical.

Like a well practiced team, these men had rushed to the tables and staked out their places while their wives ordered and prepared their food, Meanwhile, no one else would be allowed to sit. I stalked into their midst staring them down and forcing them to turn and look away whenever they dared to glance in my direction. At last in the middle of this group I found a single table, a carefully folded jacket draped across one side of it. Frankly, I didn’t care anymore, chances are I would finish before the jacket‘s owner returned anyhow so I sat down and unloaded my food.

I unwrapped a dog and had only taken my first bite when they arrived. An elderly man, perhaps in his 70s, his small, silver haired wife, their daughter and grandson approached the table furtively and made to take the coat away. In their hands they each had a plate of food, a drink and I could tell when I made eye contact that, like me, they knew there was nowhere else to sit. I began to wrap my hotdog back up and rise, but the man bade me to sit and after a word with his wife the family sat down with me, the little man across from me, his wife to my right and the daughter across from her with their grandson on her lap. It was only mildly uncomfortable for us all and soon they were chatting away with one another about the most ordinary of subjects, carefully and politely avoiding the subject of the giant gorilla of a man who had stolen their spot. I finished quickly, gathered my trash and made to leave when the old man spoke to me for the first time.

“Are you an American?” He asked in English.

I paused. It could be something of a loaded question, I knew, but I am what I am and I looked him in the eye and said, “Yes.”

He bade me sit again and leaned in close. “I speak English,” He told me in a quiet, almost furtive voice. “I worked for the American Navy in Yokosuka at the end of the war.” And then he told his story:

I was 12 years old and my father had been killed in the war. Times were very bad and I needed to work to buy food for my mother and sisters. I went to the Navy base to look for work. I was scared. I had been told the Americans hated us and I thought they might kill me. But I knew that without food, we would die anyway, it was that bad.

They didn’t kill me, instead, they gave me a job shining boots. Every morning, I would go to the base and meet with the other workers in a small hut. Someone from the base would come to take them men to their work sites and bring us boys boots to shine. It was hard work and we got little money but whatever I earned, I gave to my mother and with it she bought food. It was never enough, though, and we were always hungry.

One day just before it was time to go home, an American sailor came into the hut where we gathered. He had a big shoulder of beef in his arms and he put it on the table in front of us. He told us, “Don’t anyone touch this! This base has a rat problem and we need to see if this shack has rats in it. I will leave this beef here and if it is gone in the morning I will know there are rats here and can call an exterminator.” Then he left.

We thought he was crazy! We were starving and he was going to leave the meat for rats! When he left, we cut up the beef leg and took it home. We knew it was wrong, but our families were starving. We thought we would be punished.

Fraternization was strictly forbidden in all theatres after the war.

The next day, the man came back as we were going home and instead of punishing us, he put another large piece of meat on the table. He told us, “There must be many rats in this building because in the morning I didn’t even find a single of the meat left yesterday. I need to know how many rats are here, so I will leave this meat here as well and come back again tomorrow.” Naturally, we cut that meat up and took it home as well.

The man came every day for several months and we always laughed about how foolish he was. Today I am older and I understand what he was doing. That man had been told it was against the rules to give food to the Japanese, but he saw us starving and found a way to help us. He might have been arrested and punished for disobeying orders, but he put himself in grave peril in order to give us food. We laughed at him and I am sorry about that today.

The old man looked at me with tears in his eyes and, to the shock of his wife and daughter took me by the hand. “The Imperial military abused the Japanese people and they would have let us die for their glory. Our enemy came and saved us. I love America. I know it is the greatest country in the world. Thank you.”

I can see that sailor in my mind’s eye now. He is typical of those we call the greatest generation, tall, hollow eyed and raw boned. He might be a farmer from the Kansas plains, his brown hair bleached blonde from long hours of hard work in the sun. He might be shorter, heavier, and a survivor of the hard streets of New York or some other crowded North Eastern city. He might be an American Indian from the Southwest plains whose family had been consigned to a life of poverty on an isolated reservation, or an African American who had gone into the service despite his own country’s lack of respect or concern for him and his family’s well being.

Whoever he was, that sailor knew what suffering was when he saw it, because he had lived it. He had felt the bite of hunger, seen the swollen bellies of his brothers and sisters and he knew, despite the fact that the people in whose faces he saw it reflected had recently been our sworn enemies, that he could not let human suffering go unanswered. Instead, he chose to make a difference, and that choice echoes down through time to this very day.

On Monday, our country pauses to honor the men and women, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers and grandparents who swore their lives to our nation’s service. We will remember their great deeds, the battles they fought and the obstacles they overcame. It is all too easy, however, to let slip away those other important things that they do in all our names, those times when they act out of compassion and simple human concern. We should seek to remember those things as well, because it is through them that we win the peace.

To all of you who have served, thank you for your service, and your sacrifice. More than that, however, thank you all for your humanity and your kindness. We honor you, because you have honored us all. Thank you.

“The American Way” Painting by Norman Rockwell

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

In the early 1980s, as the economy continued to slump and gas prices soared, American car makers were desperate for a way forward. The good old days were gone forever. Under pressure from the Japanese, whose small cars had gone from rolling jokes to serious, high quality competition in little more than a decade, the big three knew they needed to make a radical departure from their traditional approach before it was too late. Although some of the more stodgy cars would soldier on and continue to sell to members of the Greatest Generation well past their expiration dates, for the rest of us the future was a smaller, lighter and more efficient. The winds of change were blowing and even the Ford Mustang felt the chill.

In 1982 Ford began to take a good, hard look at their strong selling V8 powered, rear wheel drive pony car. Introduced in 1979, the Fox body mustang was a radical departure from the Ford Pinto based Mustang II that had carried the name forward through the disco era and it was a good car, but all indications were that the front engine rear wheel drive platform appeared to be on the way out. Most domestic manufacturers were headed towards front wheel drive platforms, Chrysler was already heavily invested in its K car and rumor had it that even GM was considering moving its Camaro and Firebird to FWD. Fortunately, Ford’s 25% stake in Mazda offered them quick and relatively inexpensive access to a FWD platform already under development, the Mazda 626, and they chose to examine that option.

Toshi Saito of Ford’s North American Design Center prepared the initial concepts, one of which was chosen and the project moved forward into a full sized clay mock up and eventually a fiberglass model was constructed and sent to Japan where Mazda headquarters in Hiroshima. Mazda’s management approved of the design, but after some thought Ford decided that it wasn’t quite what they were looking for and came back with a longer, leaner and more rakish design that required some re-engineering from Mazda. The car was to be produced in the United States and Mazda purchased a Ford property in Flat Rock, Michigan to produce the car alongside their own 626 and Mx-6 models.

Much like the now oft-derided Mustang II, the new Mustang was set to be a radical departure from the Fox car. First, no V8s were to be offered. Instead, the front wheel drive Mustang would mount a Mazda sourced transversely mounted 4 cylinder good for about 110 horsepower. For the first year, GT Mustangs would feature the same 4 cylinder with turbo good for about 145 horsepower – comparable to what the Mustang V8 was making at the time – and the next year move to the Mazda V6 which was good for about 175 horsepower. The design was sleek, slippery and generally well liked by those who saw production models and images.

The public backlash against the car came as a real shock. Mustang enthusiasts and red blooded ‘Murricans everywhere were appalled at the thought of a Mustang based on anything other than good old American design and sent up a howl of indignation that resonated all the way back to Ford’s executive offices. Firmly in the Reagan era, a resurgent America would simply not tolerate the venerable Mustang name attached to a Japanese design. As thousands upon thousands of angry letters poured into the corporate offices, buyers rushed into dealerships and sales of the Fox body Mustang, which had been slipping as the design aged, suddenly increased.

People, it seemed, were anxious to own what was sure to be the last “real” Mustang rushed into the dealership before it was too late and, in a moment of “Classic Coke” vs “New Coke” brilliance, Ford capitalized on the controversy. The classic Mustang would remain on sale, but the new car would live too, and so Ford reached into the bag of names and pulled out one that had been attached to an especially well received aerodynamic concept car just a few years earlier and, with a knowing wink to proctologists everywhere, dubbed it the “Probe.”

The rest is well known history. Introduced in 1988, The Probe was a success and it went on to win the hearts and minds of many of those who cross shopped it with its primary competition, the Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge Turbo K variants, the small FWD GM cars, the Cavalier and the Beretta and Japanese turbo cars of all makes and models. Sales were brisk and the Detroit News reported in 1989 that Ford was selling around 600 of them a month. The design was refreshed in 1993 and almost 120,000 were sold that year. By 1997, however, the design had run its course and only 16,777 were sold. Meanwhile, the “Classic” Mustang soldiered on, was continually refreshed and, although it has been updated and redesigned over the years, it is still with us as the front engine, rear wheel drive pony car that God and Lee Iacocca originally intended.

Looking back, the 80s was a time or real, small-car innovation. Car companies, both domestic and foreign, put forth an amazing number of designs across all price ranges as they fought for market share. In that regard, I suppose, Ford really didn’t hurt themselves by keeping the ‘Stang and adding the Probe to their showrooms. I’m guessing the Probe really didn’t steal buyers from the Mustang as they each appealed to different market segments. I wonder, however, what would have happened if Ford had made the decision to stick with New Coke? Would GM have followed suit and put the Camaro and Firebird on a smaller FWD platform? Would the Chrysler K Turbos have eaten all their lunches? I wonder…

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

At around 2:00 PM on the afternoon of October 6, 1973, more than 200 Soviet built Egyptian aircraft began to assault Israeli air bases and missile emplacements north of the Suez canal and the established line of defense, known as the Bar Lev Line. During the night that followed, Egyptian combat engineers crossed the canal in small boats and used gasoline powered pumps to throw streams of high pressure water against the massive sand wall the Israeli forces had erected at the water’s edge following their 1967 conquest of the Sinai. The water eroded the wall with amazing efficiency and by the next day more than 50,000 Egyptian troops and 400 tanks had made their way across the Suez, through the remains of the Bar Lev line and out onto the Sinai desert where they forced the Israeli military back in disarray. The offensive, known as Operation Badr was the opening of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and it makes interesting reading. The conflict had lasting effects in region and some say that it helped to set the stage for the Camp David Accords and eventually led to the peace treaty that President Carter helped negotiate between Egypt and Israel. The war also had effects closer to home and, thanks in part to the Arab Oil Embargo that was a direct result of America’s support of Israel during the conflict, it led to a new, fuel efficient car appearing in my family’s driveway.

The Opel Kadett wasn’t running right. My father’s coworker had purchased the little car, 1.1 liter Coupe, new back in 1969 and it had always been a spry little car. It was never a power machine, but with its light weight and manual transmission it could scoot when you wanted to go and it looked good doing it. For some reason, however, the car’s performance had begun to degrade and now, just four years old, it was proving to be a disappointment to its owner. Naturally, my dad bought it for next to nothing.

Once the car was safe at home, my dad, who could fix anything, took a closer look at it. The car ran smoothly and shifted fine, but it was definitely down on acceleration. Under the hood, and with my older brother Bruce in the driver’s seat working the accelerator pedal, my dad watched the carburetor linkage as it moved through its full range of motion. It wasn’t binding, but the butterfly valves didn’t seem to be fully opening, either. An hour of troubleshooting located the problem, two screws under the accelerator pedal had worked their way out over the years and, thanks to their interference, the pedal simply wouldn’t go all the way down any more. Two minutes with a screw driver completed the repair and the little car’s power was restored.

My dad used the car as his daily driver for three years and as the older of my two brothers, Bruce, approached his 16th birthday it became a given that the little Opel would go to him. Bruce drove the car for a year or two without incident and then passed it on to our brother Tracy. Between the two of them, I am sure that the car went on any number of mid ‘70s high school adventures most of which I, who am about 7 years younger than them, never actually heard about. I did hear about the big wreck, however.

There may or may not have been alcohol involved. According to Tracy, he came speeding around a corner to find several kids in the middle of road pushing a go-kart. He swerved to avoid them, put the car into the ditch where it dug into the soft earth and flipped onto its top. Tracy and his friends righted the car, popped out the dented roof and refilled the engine with oil. Unfortunately, they forgot to refill the transmission oil as well and by the time he got the car home the transmission was fully destroyed.

The Opel ended up in our garage as it awaited my father’s attention and, for some reason or other, he never quite got around to getting the parts to repair the little car. Tracy graduated high school, got his first full time job and sunk a part of his monthly salary into a slightly used 1978 Nova coupe. The Opel languished in the garage where it became my own personal play car. I read the entire owner’s manual cover to cover, learned the purpose of every switch and warning light and even taught myself how to recharge the battery to keep the radio working so I would have music as I played. I logged a lot of hours behind the wheel, fantasizing about being out on the road. Although I was only 13 at the time, I naturally assumed that like my brothers the car would eventually become mine. Despite the fact that over the years I endured a whole host of hand-me-downs, clothes, toys, and bicycles, I never did inherit the car. Somewhere around 1981 the little car left our garage and was never heard from again.

The Opel looms larger in my brothers’ transition into adulthood than it does my own but, like so many machines I have bonded with over the years, the little car was more than just the sum of its mechanical parts. Maybe she was a little too old for me, and maybe she had been around the block a few too many times, but the Opel’s clean, utilitarian design helped to shape my view of what great cars should be. The little car took everything my brothers could throw at it and still brought them home safely every time. Its toughness and reliability are legend and, to this day, that Opel holds a special place in every Kreutzer’s heart. It was the one that got away.

Thomas M Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

1998 Pontiac Rageous

All good things, even obscure and maybe even not so good, must come to an end. You can see previous installments of the Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars here, here, here, and here.

Oldsmobile, Packard, Plymouth. Another dead brand with obscure concept cars in this part of the alphabet is Pontiac. This is their Rageous concept from 1997, another proto-CUV, and what some have called “the Aztek that should have been”. Imagine a four door Trans Am (the rear doors are suicide style like on the RX-8 Mazda) with  a hatchback and a flat load floor that will accommodate a 4X8 sheet of plywood. A ’90s vintage LT1 and a Corvette based rear suspension completed the package, which of course had Pontiac’s supernumerary nostrils from that era. Actually, the Rageous isn’t that obscure. Mattel’s Hot Wheels released their own version of it in 1999 and reissued it at least 8 times since then. Like the Jeep Jeepster concept, if you’re a Gen Y’er, or a baby boomer who collects Hot Wheels you may actually remember the Pontiac Rageous.

Speak of the devil. Not a bad idea, but much better in theory than in practice.

The name Banshee has graced a number of sporty Pontiac show cars starting in 1964.  You can see how GM designers were trying to come up with an integrated rear spoiler and this 1988 Banshee did have an influence on the Firebird and Camaro but I think the 4th generation Camaro, which came out in 1993, had an even better integrated spoiler.

In the early 1960s, Pontiac made a couple of Tempest based concepts including the Monte Carlo in 1962, a two seat speedster with cut down glass and fairings on the back deck. I dig the period correct mag wheels secured with a single knock off hub nut.

The following year the Pontiac Tempest went from sporty to elegant with the Fleur de Lis, though if you look at the badge in the grille, it’s got a 326 V8 under the hood. You could argue that the first muscle cars were small Pontiacs with V8 engines.

The Pontiac Piranha, introduced in 2000, had a logo that could be used to make an Angry Fish spinoff. It’s so obscure that it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page, though Mattel’s Matchbox brand has issued it four times since 2002 and it’s apparently still in production. Perhaps Mattel sold more Pontiacs in that brand’s last decade than General Motors did.

Like Ford’s Ghia Prima, Pontiac tried the Nissan Pulsar sedan/hatch/wagon idea with the Salsa show cars in 1992: “A highly versatile small sport utility vehicle with a unique expanding body configuration.” Note the surfboards, a recurring show car motif.

Did anyone put a poster of the Pontiac Stinger on their wall?

In 2004, to demonstrate the flexibility of the then new but now abandoned Kappa platform, GM brought out three show cars, the production version of the upcoming 2006 Pontiac Solstice, the Saturn Curve concept and the Chevy Nomad concept. The Curve, a chunky, muscular design that I thought looked kinda funny, never made it to production but Saturn did get the Sky, it’s own version of the Solstice roadster. The Nomad, a modern take on GM’s legendary Corvette station wagon from the 1954 Motorama touring car show, was probably never even considered for production. Saturn and Pontiac are dead, as is the Kappa platform. As far as I can tell, since the Sky, Solstice and Sky-based Opel GT have gone out of production no current GM product is based on Kappa architecture. Of the three show cars in 2004, the Nomad was the most popular. My guess is that had Chevy made that version of the Kappa, the platform might still be alive. Somewhere a shuttered Pontiac-Saturn dealer is having Nate Altmanesque dreams of buying some tooling.

Some of the less obscure show cars of the late 1950s and early 1960s were ideas that seemed perfectly reasonable then but outlandish now, like the two wheeled gyroscope stabilized Ford Gyron. You may have heard of the Gyron, but have you ever seen the Simca Fulgur from Chrysler’s French subsidiary? Fulgar means “lightning” in Latin and I suppose the connection was electricity. The Fulgur was another supposedly gyrostabilized vehicle, with electric power (some references say atomic) and an “electronic brain”.

The 1990 Subaru SRD-1 was the first concept car out of the Subaru Research and Design center in Cypress, California. Recognizing that they were selling the most popular import station wagons, Subaru went with their strengths and designed what they called ”an innovative “dream wagon” concept for the ’90s and beyond”. The “beyond” part was a reference to a “family wagon” with features designed “with characteristic attention to the future needs of the mature wagon users”. The typical Subaru owner then was often rather frugal and I guess for that crowd knowing that the car would still be running after the kids move out and you start buying Depends would be a selling point.

The Suzuki Sea from 2005 and 2006 was one of a number of forgettable Suzuki concepts that embraced surfer culture. You’ll excuse me if I’d prefer a real woody wagon (and definitely not the Dodge Kahuna) if I was going to go surfing.

For a conservative company decried by some as producing “beigemobiles”, Toyota has made some rather odd concepts, like the Pod from 2002.

I’m guessing that like the Subaru SRD-1, Toyota’s CAL-1, from the 1977-78 show circuit, celebrated that Japanese company’s then new California design center, in this case CALTY. Though it was designed in the United States, it was revealed at the 1977 Tokyo show, which may explain the right hand drive. Based on an A40 Celica Supra, the CAL-1 was a ute, with wooden decking over the pickup bed. Also reminiscent of Subaru are the BRAT style seats in the bad.

The Volkswagen AAC, shown here at Chicago in 2000, was another VW pickup truck that they didn’t sell in North America.

Do you remember the Volkswagon ARVW (Aerodynamic Research Volkswagen) from 1980? For a while it was the fastest diesel powered car in the world: 362.07 km/h.

A show car doesn’t have to be old to be obscure. The Volvo Concept You was on the show circuit last year. It’s a gorgeous car and a look at what the next Volvo S80 flagship will be like, but I think even Volvo wants to keep it obscure. They kept it behind glass at the 2012 NAIAS.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

Mitsubishi HSR III from 1992

It started with a photo of a strange looking Pinto with a targa style roof and it metastasized into an encyclopedia of just about every concept car you never heard about. Part One, Acura to Chevrolet, is here. Part two, Chrysler to Ford, is here. Part three, Honda to Mercury, is here.

Mitsubishi likes three letter acronyms and alphanumerics. Behold, above, the HSR III from 1992, some kind of Eclipse concept, I think.

And 2001′s RPM.

Or the SSS from 2000.

And the SSU from the year before.

This is Nissan’s Alpha-T from 2001. I’m pretty sure that T stands for truck. As for being the alpha truck or not, a Ford Raptor looks like it could could drive right over the Alpha-T.

After years of mismanaging the Oldsmobile brand, General Motors started giving Olds dealers some decent new product but it may have been too late to resuscitate the brand. It’s possible that new model names like Alero, Achieva and Aurora only confused their existing clientele, many of whom had been buying Cutlasses and Ninety Eights since the Kennedy administration. Someone at Olds must have liked car names starting with A because in 1992, they introduced the Anthem concept, which previewed the Aurora. I suppose they couldn’t use Aurora because GM had just used it a couple of years earlier on a Cadillac concept (see above).

The Wikipedia entry on the Oldsmobile Profile from 2000 says that it’s a crossover, a CUV, I guess that’s because it had sliding doors but I still think it looks like a station wagon. Not a bad looking car either, it had show car features that have since become commonplace on production cars like keyless entry and ignition, a rotating shifter knob complemented by shifters buttons on the steering wheel, hands free phone plus internet and DVD based entertainment for rear passengers. Give it a big glass sunroof and call it a Vista Cruiser.

Olds’ Recon from the year before does have a big sunroof (though it can’t be a Vista Cruiser because it isn’t a glass roof) and it does look more like a proper CUV, albeit with suicide doors. What’s a car show without at least one concept car with suicide doors?

I guess we’re into the dead brand section of obscure show cars. Even Packard made concept cars, though some of them were more like personal vanity projects for Packard executives. The Panther is pretty slick, and while Dick Teague’s Predictor didn’t help Packard survive, true to its name it did influence a lot of cars in the 1960s, but neither of those cars are particularly obscure. The Packard Request, for 1955, on the other hand, is an obscure for a car that ironically came about due to popular demand. The Request was apparently the reaction to requests by Packard executives, dealers and enthusiasts for a car with a classic Packard grille. Now I happen to think that the 1955 and 1956 Packards, also Teague designs, look great. Teague gave the last real Packards a grille that looked contemporary but still echoed the distinctive arched radiator shell of classic prewar Packards. The ’55 and ’56 Packards gave away little in the looks department to the mid-’50s cars from the Big 3. However, grafting an actual upright classic grille onto Teague’s ’55 Packard gave the Request an odd, Edsel like appearance. I suppose that Teague, the original silk purse out of a sow’s ear designer, did the best he could, but I wouldn’t put it on the list of ten top Teague designs. Still, from the side view it looks almost stately and in any case it could have been worse. For instance…

If they arranged the cemetery of dead car brands alphabetically, next to Packard’s grave would be Plymouth. Of course in real life, or death, Packard customers would not likely be buried next to Plymouth owners, Plymouth being one of the “low cost three”, and Packard being America’s most prestigious brand for decades. Low cost three or carriage trade, just as the Packard Request was not Richard Teague’s most attractive show cars, the Plymouth Plainsman, another western themed show car, was not one of the better Exner-Ghia Chrysler concepts. The Darth Vaderish front end is massive, which is good in a way because it distracts you from the oddly shaped B pillar and the wagon’s stepped roof that looks like they mounted it backwards. At one time the as yet unrestored (I wonder why) Plainsman was part of the Bortz collection of show cars but later ownership was transferred to Joe Bortz’s ex wife as part of the settlement of what I understand was a somewhat contentious divorce. It’s not clear if the former Mrs. Bortz wanted or didn’t want the Plainsman. That’s only part of the car’s story, which involves Chrysler avoiding customs fees, the car almost becoming one of Cuba’s old American cars, and a stay in Australia before ending up in Joe Bortz’s hands. The story is much better than the car is.

The Plymouth Belmont is one of two Chrysler concepts that could have competed with the Chevrolet Corvette and the original Ford Thunderbirds, sporty two seat roadsters. The other Chrysler two seat concept was the 1955 Chrysler Falcon, a personal favorite of Virgil Exner Sr., who supervised Maury Baldwin’s design of that car, which Exner used personally. He also used the Belmont as a personal car but that was not an in-house Chrysler (or Ghia) design. The Belmont, like the first two Chrysler concept cars from just before WWII, the Thunderbolt and Newport, was designed and built by Briggs, Chrysler’s body supplier. In 1954, Briggs wanted to experiment with the then new material called fiberglass and demonstrate to Chrysler that they could supply plastic bodies as well as the steel ones they’d been building for almost half a century. Working under Briggs design head Al Prance, designer Bill Robinson, who later worked directly for Chrysler and subsequently taught at Detroit’s CCS, came up with the Belmont. Since Briggs had no experience working with the new material, it is thought that they contracted the actual body making to Creative Industries or Ionia Manufacturing, two companies that did contract work for the major automakers. It’s an attractive car, though I think the design is a bit compromised by the fact that Robinson was told to use production Plymouth bumpers. The Belmont still exists and is in a private collection.

I’m not sure what relevance the Slingshot had to the rest of Plymouth’s lineup in 1988, which was mostly K-car derived. The Slingshot was made of carbon fiber and was designed with input from design students interning at Chrysler. It has a canopy opening, but then I already said it was partially designed by design students. According to Wikipedia, it was designed as part of a series of three concepts, along with the Big Shot and the Hot Shot but since I can’t find anything at all about those other two cars, and since that information has no citation, I think someone’s pulling our Wikilegs.

Continued in part 5 tomorrow, Pontiac to Volvo.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

Continuing with our look at long forgotten (and some not so long forgotten, but forgotten just the same) concept and show cars from the major automobile manufacturers. Part One, Acura to Chevrolet, is here. Part two, Chrysler to Ford, is here.

Sure, once you see it, the Honda SSM (Sports Study Model), first shown at the Tokyo show in 1995 and styled by Pininfarina, was obviously the concept for what became the S2000 roadster. The question is do S2000 fans even remember the SSM?

Try and see if you can recall the Infiniti Triant from 2003.

Chrysler recycled the Jeepster name for this 1998 concept, which you may actually remember.

Quite a number of die cast model companies and brands, including Maisto, Hot Wheels, Matchbox,  and Tonka have produced toys and models of the Jeepster. If you’re a member of Generation Y, you may just remember the Jeepster.

Along with the Jeepster, the Varsity concept from 2000 made Hooniverse’s list of Jeep’s top 25 concept vehicles (not included on the list were the very cool Mighty FC cabover “forward control” truck and the JC-12 pickup concepts from last year). Jeep does indeed have a history of cool concepts, but I wouldn’t call the Varsity as memorable as the twin Hemi powered Hurricane that could turn on its own axis.

I don’t know if the 1969 Jeep XJ-001 concept is what convinced American Motors to buy Jeep from Kaiser the following year, or not. Jeep had been buying AMC engines for a while and when they decided to build their own version of a muscle car, with a custom fiberglass body on a CJ-5 chassis, they dropped in an AMC 360 cubic inch V8.

The XJ-001 is actually notable in Jeep history as it introduced one of the earliest full-time four wheel drive systems, which they called ”Quadritrac”. That would morph into Quadra Trac when the system was first offered for sale in 1973.

I can’t imagine where ever Kaiser got the idea to name this 1951 concept the “Safari”. Seriously though, I’m pretty sure they got the idea to use fur and zebra skins from the Cadillac Debutante the year before. The car companies were lucky there was no PETA then.

When I saw this photo of this Lincoln concept from 1988, I said, “what a cool car”. Lincoln has a history of making concept cars that, years later, enthusiasts say, “now that’s a car that Lincoln should have made”.

Then I saw what they named it. In what alternate universe is the brand Lincoln associated with the word machete? If it had gone into production, would they have gotten Danny Trejo to do their ads?

Now that Morgan has brought back the Three Wheeler, with the blessings of Baruth, and Polaris is about to introduce the Slingshot reverse trike, perhaps Mercedes-Benz should put the F300 Life Jet leanable trike concept from 1998 into production. I wonder if they paid any royalties to Fritz Fend‘s family.

The Mercury brand had some exciting show cars. Perhaps if some of them had gone into production, the brand might still be here with us today. The MC4 concept was based on a 1996 Thunderbird (Sajeev take note). The car’s designer, the late John Hartnell, gave it both suicide doors and de Tomaso Mangusta style rear center-opening hatches (with integral taillights). That combination alone should have made it a memorable concept car but memory can be fickle.

When Ford sold off some of their corporate collection of concept cars in 2002 to raise money for charity and celebrate FoMoCo’s centennial, the pre-sale estimate on the MC4 was $60,000-$120,000 with no reserve. It was hammered off at $645,500, the second highest sale price at that auction You may not remember it, but someone sure did. I bet his wife remembers the auction too.

The Mercury Messenger wowed the critics in 2003, so it’s not really that obscure, but does anyone think that Mercury dealers would have known what to do with a sporty two seater? It was supposed to be Mercury’s new brand look, which lasted until the Messenger was retired from the show circuit.

A great looking car but is there anything about it that says “Mercury”? Part of the problem is the name. Who calls a two seat sports coupe with a V8 engine the Messenger? For gosh sakes, this was a company that made cars called the Eliminator and the Marauder. Lincoln shows a Machete and Mercury shows a Messenger? Boy, Ford really got its brands messed up before Mulally turned things around. Besides, the Messenger was based on the Mustang, they should have called it the Cougar.

Less memorable was the Mercury Mystique, another suppository shaped minivan.

Before there was Ford One, there was the Mercury One, a joint project of Mazda and Mercury.

Somehow the name Mercury Palomar isn’t quite right. I know there’s an observatory on Mount Palomar and Mercury is indeed an astronomical body, but the car brand is named after the god, not the planet, so you end up with a car that’s actually named after a god and a mountain, not a planet and and observatory as the marketers guessed. The inspiration for the Palomar’s name was obviously the retractable roof, just like an observatory has. The inspiration for the roof itself was possibly from South Bend, not outer space. Well, sort of. In 1959, Brooks Stevens, who would later design the similarly featured Wagonaire and other Studebakers, designed three concepts cars called the Scimitar for the Olin Matheson Chemical Corp. to demonstrate the functional and decorative use of aluminum. One of the Scimitars was a station wagon with a retractable roof that let you carry tall items. The retractable roofed wagon is one of those ideas that pops up from time to time on concept and production vehicles most recently with the 2004 GMC Envoy XUV.

Continued in part 4 tomorrow, Mitsubishi to Plymouth.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

1954 Chrysler La Comtesse

Part One, Acura to Chevrolet, is here

Yesterday, we started are look through concept and show cars from major car companies that may have slipped your attention by being rather obscure. I delight in the obscure and the unusual, figuring that not everyone needs more pics of ’69 Camaros or ’58 Isettas. We continue with barely known Chrysler, Dodge and Ford concepts.

The 1954 Chrysler La Comtesse was was a companion car to the Le Comte. Spare me the lecture about how the La Comtesse and Dodge La Femme were sexist (see L.P. Hartley on the past). Because of three or more years of lead time in the production of a new car, it takes years for a chief stylist to make a personal imprint on a company’s styling. Virgil Exner’s “idea cars” for Chrysler, usually made by Ghia, gave consumers an idea of what future Chrysler products might look like but in the meantime, they still had to sell current production cars and by 1954, the full size Chryslers were six years old. They slapped two tone paint on the old stallion and mare and gave them clear Plexiglas roofs and put them on the show circuit to help move some metal. I’d say that it took well into the 1960s for car designers and customizers to realize that clear plastic roofs make for an uncomfortabley hot car on sunny days.

Before Chrysler made a Cordoba to suit Ricardo Montalban, the Cordoba de Oro concept in 1970 was a radical statement of the “fuselage” look then popular with cars wearing the Pentastar (and its name corrected the Dodge Deora’s bad Spanish). More than a decade after Virgil Exner’s Norseman concept went down with the Andrea Doria, Chrysler stylists working under Exner’s successor Elwood Engel reprised Exner’s cantilevered roof with minimal A pillars.

All the publicity photos of the  the Cordoba de Oro seem to have been in black and white, but this snapshot taken at the 1970 Chicago auto show explains the car’s surname. The interior featured novel adjustable pedestal bucket seats developed by Allied Chemical that had an integrated lap and shoulder belt system. The seats were trimmed in gold leather to match the car’s exterior. It’s not clear if it was of the soft Corinthian type. Another safety system tested on the Cordoba de Oro was an early airbag prototype. They even worked on a demonstration-purposes-only airbag that deployed much slower than normally, but for some reason that was never shown to the public.  The Cordoba de Oro did have a common concept car gizmo that’s become a common feature on today’s cars, a camera and tv monitor that replaced the Cordoba’s conventional rear view mirror.

The 1959 DeSoto Cella I is one of my favorite lesser known concept cars. Actually, it was more of a concept than a car since it never got past a 3/8ths scale model, but the model was on public display at the 1959 Chicago Auto Show and other shows that year. The personal project of DeSoto’s chief engineer, A.E. Kimberly, the Cella was supposed to be driven by an electric motor at each wheel, powered by a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell, hence the name Cella. Yes, a fuel cell powered electric car conceived by a Detroit car company in 1959. Detroit was an innovative place in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In addition to its advanced propulsion system, the Cella concept was to have had a padded dashboard, seat belts and collapsible steering column for safety, along with a built in refrigerator, television and stereo sound system. As you buckle up and access the songs on your cellphone through your hybrid car’s infotainment system while you reach for can of chilled soda pop from the console, ponder for a second that there is a reason why car companies build concept cars.

The 2003 Dodge Kahuna concept. A number of obscure show cars have had Hawaiian names or surfing themes. Mattel even added surfboards to the Alexander Brothers’ Dodge Deora show car (definitely not an obscure car) when they introduced the Hot Wheels line.

Chrysler never gave the spunky Neon the love that the little car deserved. It was a credible competitor in a competitive segment but Chrysler let it die on the vine. I bet you never heard of the 1994 Neon Aviat concept, with its own neon parrot.

Most car enthusiasts know about the Chrysler Turbine Car but how many of you know about the 1962 Turbo Power Giant Truck? That medium duty Dodge truck with the very Japanese domestic market sounding name was equipped with one of Chrysler’s famous turbines. Ford also experimented with turbine powered trucks.

Some of these vehicles have names that make you scratch your head and wonder, “just what were they thinking?” (see Machete, Lincoln below). In 1975 Ford owned Ghia and the Italian styling and coachbuilding company came up with the concept of a blinged out and luxurious little city car, replete with “classic” grille and faux leather straps over the bustle back trunk. Not only is the styling odd, the name “Flashback” is both a reference to drug use and LSD as well as a curious word choice considering that in 1975 Ford was right in the middle of an exploding controversy about supposedly exploding Pintos.

Speaking of Pintos, here are the rest of the publicity shots of the Pinto Sportiva. A jpeg of the press release can be seen here.

And speaking of leather straps on a faux classic bustle back rear end, here’s the 1971 Ford Maverick Estate Coupe concept.

It’s so incongruous that I tracked down another photo just so you could avert your eyes twice.

To cleanse  your visual palette, here’s a better looking Ford show car, the 1966 Black Pearl, based on an LTD. The Chicago Auto Show site says that it’s a factory custom, but it might have been done by the Alexander Brothers or another of the era’s leading customizers, who prepared a lot of Ford’s show cars in the mid 1960s. The name comes from the black metallic paint and the pearl white satin, leather, and mouton carpeted interior.  It looks almost stock because of how subtle the custom touches are: shaved door handles and keyholes, and deeply recessed lights in the back. I think Jack Sparrow would like it.

What’s that you say? A Tuareg is a VW, not a Ford? Well Ford used that name for this Euro Fiesta based rallyish concept in 1979.

B’wana wanna a 1970 Econoline Kilimanjaro for your next safari? Leopard print was still in style 20 years after Cadillac’s Debutante.

The 1996 Ford Indigo concept may be obscure but as far as I can tell, it was the first public use of the V12 engine that is now the workhorse of the Aston Martin brand. The “Aston Martin 6.0 V12″ is basically two ‘Siamesed’ Ford Duratec 3.0 L V6 engines with a common block cast by Cosworth, which developed the engine. At the time the engine was developed, Ford owned Aston Martin, though I believe it hadn’t yet owned Cosworth, though that’s kind of moot in light of the close relationship of Cosworth to Ford. It was Colin Chapman who convinced FoMoCo to invest $100,000 into what became one of the most successful racing engines ever, the Cosworth Ford DFV.

Ferrari just introduced La Ferrari, but Ford predated them with the 1958 La Galaxie (and Cadillac and Chrysler before Ford with the La Espada, La Comtesse and La Femme), one of the less extreme Ford space age show cars of the 1950s.

You’ve heard of the Ford Mach 1. What about the Ford Mach 2? Looking a little like the love child of a Mustang and a GT40, it was built by Kar Kraft, which built many of Ford’s racing cars and other special projects. It was midengine two seater with a 289 V8 and a ZF transaxle and apparently at least one functioning example was made, since Motor Trend published test results. It’s not known if the Mach 2 still exists. It may still be in a warehouse in Dearborn, but Ford isn’t telling.

Starting in 1976, Ford had Ghia, which it owned at the time, do a series of concepts based on the Fiesta, starting with the Corrida. In case you’ve forgotten what the Corrida looks like, it’s the angular coupe with the turned up butt behind the white Pinto. Behind the Granada based Thunderbird, on the turntable beneath the Chicago Auto Show 78 sign,  is the white  Megastar II concept, also by Ghia, but based on the Ford Taunus.

Another of the Fiesta-based concepts, the Ghia Prima predated the Nissan Pulsar with its changable roof by a decade or so. The Prima had station wagon, hatchback coupe and notchback roofs that could be swapped out or left off for a pickup truck. I was able to find publicity shots of the hatchback,  notchback and pickup, but no luck for you longroof fans.

Continued in part 3 tomorrow, Honda to Mercury.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

I saw it this morning. Slipping along the in the dim, pre-dawn light and shrouded in the thin early morning fog that wicked up in wispy tendrils from the damp pavement, it was an apparition, a beast from another age. Like poor Yorick, alas I knew it well and although, in time, it has become the subject of infinite jest, it was in its day the most excellent fancy of many young men and it bore my youthful dreams upon its back a thousand times. It had, I thought, no right to be among the living when so many other, better, vehicles of its era were consigned to their graves, rotting away in fields, pulled apart for their components or crushed, shredded and melted wholesale back into their base elements. Why then, knowing through the clarifying lens of history the terrible truth about the trouble that lurked beneath its slick sheet metal, did its unexpected appearance stir a long-forgotten longing in my heart?

“May you live,” So goes the Chinese curse, “in interesting times.” Now well into my 40s, I can tell you that the times, especially from an automotive standpoint, have indeed been interesting. Waxing less rhapsodic, there has been a whole lot of suck built in the last four decades but the awful truth is that some of those cars still set my heart aflutter. I’m not sure what the attraction is, honestly. Is it the curve of a fender, the sweep of a windshield, or is it the fact that just seeing one sends me back to a more innocent time in my life when many of these cars were aspirational? I don’t know.

20/20 hindsight tells me many of these cars lack power and have an unacceptably high level of fuel consumption. They lack most real, modern safety equipment. They lack build quality, hell most of them came off the assembly line with issues, but I still fantasize about them. Crazy as it may seem, the following are “bad cars” that I would like to own –

Pontiac Grand Prix GTP

It’s hard to tell people today what a breath of fresh air the 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix was. It looked clean and its plastic body cladding accentuated just the right spots, making the car look wide and muscular. Door handles up on the door frame seemed like a real innovation as well and the interior, complete with buttons on the steering wheel and various switches mounted on the gauge cowl made feel like you were sitting in a rocketship. In GTP trim, the V6 produced more than 200 horsepower and could be had with an automatic or a stick. Frankly, I thought these cars looked great back in the day, and I think they look pretty darn good today, too.

Chrysler LeBaron Turbo, Coupe

When Kitty changed her name to Karen and traded her MG for a white Chrylser LeBaron, this is the one the she got. With their long hood line and short rear deck lids, the mid to late 80s Chrysler LeBarons are still, in my opinion, one of the best looking cars ever. By 1990 a V6 had been added to the mix, but I am a Chrysler Turbo guy and that would be my first choice. I understand that the 148 horsepower turbo could also be ordered with a 5 speed manual, but I have never seen one in person. Inside they are “budget plush” and they don’t come anywhere equaling the interior design and build quality of a modern sub compact like the new Dart, but they were functional and comfortable enough for long trips. Many convertible LeBarons have survived into the present day and I even see them offered occasionally on the Buffalo area Craigslist at reasonable prices, but my preference is for the coupe.

Jaguar XJS- V12

When I was a kid I used to stay up past my bed time and watch a British TV show called “The New Avengers.” I don’t remember much about it, but one thing that has stuck in my mind was the car used in the show, a pre-production Jaguar XJS-V12. They have terrible reputations, I know, but that classic shape, the hand built interiors and the idea of 12 cylinders under the hood stills sets my heart aflutter. I would love to own one of these, providing I could find one in good condition and then not have to rely upon it. As usual, my inclination is to avoid the convertible and stick with the coupe.

So there you have it, three “bad cars” that I would still love to own. Don’t try to talk me out of it, love is a funny thing. Fortunately, I am in a committed relationship so I won’t be sticking my key in crazy anytime soon. Tell me though, validate my unexpected rush of emotion and tell us about the cars that bring out your own psycho love.

Thomas M Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

1973 Ford Pinto Sportiva Concept

Is it a cliche to say that as a writer I try to avoid cliches? Anyway, I do try to avoid the word legendary (see Dash Parr on being special), but some concept and show cars are, well, legendary. Not in the sense, of course, that people tell grand tales about them but because they are remembered, ending up in books and blog posts. Some concept and show cars are, if not the stuff of legends, certainly the stuff of history. Other cars, not so much. For every memorable Cadillac Evoq, Sixteen and Converj, there’s been at least one La Espada or Aurora, cars that never really caught the public or auto enthusiasts’ imagination even if they may have influenced production cars. A concept car can cost an easy million dollars to build, but once that year’s auto show season is over, it’s often forgotten.

For a long time, after they came off the show circuit many show cars were destroyed or otherwise passed out of company hands. They were of no further use to the car companies so they were discarded. Few things become as quickly dated or as passe as last year’s concept cars. After collectors like Joe Bortz and Steve Juliano started finding and restoring those cars, though, car companies have tended to regard show cars as worth saving, if only because of their pecuniary and publicity value, though I think some folks inside the companies do have a clue as to their historic and cultural value. Today I doubt many show vehicles are deliberately destroyed and when they do let concept and show cars slip the bonds of their corporation, car companies try to get maximum value out of the transaction. As part of their centennial celebration a decade ago, in 2002 Ford had Christie’s auction off 50 concept cars from FoMoCo’s corporate collection, with the proceeds going to charity. During GM’s financial crisis and bankruptcy, in 2009 the company culled out 250  prototypes, SEMA show cars, and concepts from their Heritage collection and sold them at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale. Since then, car companies have auctioned off a number of other prototypes for publicity and charitable purposes.

While researching Detroit’s legendary (if the shoe fits) Alexander brothers, who built a series of award winning custom cars and also made show cars for Ford in the 1960s, I came across a photo of the 1973 Pinto Sportiva Concept (not an Alexander brothers’ car, though I suppose it’s possible that Larry Alexander may have worked on it as by then he was working for Ford as a master metal modeler in Ford’s prototype shop). It’s a notchback take on the Pinto that presages the Mustang II which was itself based on the Pinto platform, and to make it at least somewhat interesting, Ford gave it a targa roof.

Did you know about the 1973 Ford Pinto Sportiva Concept? Neither did I. How about the 1988 Lincoln Machete? Putting aside the concept car itself for a second, how on Earth did someone at Lincoln think that “Machete” resonated with the Lincoln brand, or with its customers? Those cars got me thinking about obscure concept and show cars so I headed to one of my favorite places to find pics of cool cars from the past, the Chicago Auto Show’s website. The Chicago show has hired professional photographers to shoot the show since at least the early 1950s and they’ve graciously compiled a year by year archive on the show’s website that goes back to the turn of the 20th century. In recent years Robert Shiverts (Oscar & Associates) has been the show’s official photographer. The pics that Shiverts and the other official show photographers have shot over the years are a great historical record of American car culture.

I’ve gone through their dropdown menu of concept cars and picked a few whose names I didn’t really recognize (and a few that I think deserve more attention). Some of them did influence production cars even if they didn’t achieve fame as show cars, others are doubly obscure.

Many of the photos are from the Chicago Auto Show site, but I’ve fleshed out the gallery a bit with some publicity and other archival shots.

Acura’s alphanumeric production car names are hard enough to keep straight. Do you remember the 1995 Acura CL-X concept?

1964 American Motors Rambler Cheyenne Wagon. Western motifs were popular in the ’50s and ’60s, particularly with station wagons.

Also in 1964, AMC showed the Tarpon concept, a great looking fastback based on the compact Rambler American with an almost boattail design. Unfortunately, AMC head Roy Abernethy overruled designer Richard Teague and the roofline ended up on the midsize AMC platform as the Marlin. The proportions didn’t work quite as well. Dodge’s similarly fastback styled but better proportioned Charger outsold the Marlin by a wide margin.

Before there was the Rambler Cheyenne, there was the 1959 Buick Texan, based on the Invicta wagon.

As you can see from the 1958 Buick Wells Fargo, western themes weren’t exclusive to station wagons. The Buick Wells Fargo was made especially for actor Dale Robertson, whose western tv show, Wells Fargo, Buick sponsored.

The 1983 Buick Questor had state of the art electronics, with a laser based keyless entry and a computerized navigation system. That was just two years after IBM introduced the Intel 8088 based 5150 personal computer and the same year two guys named Steve introduced the Apple IIe. Some of the Questor’s electronic features ended up on the production Buick Reatta.

Not to be confused with Brooks Stevens’ masterful Studebaker Sceptre concept, the 1992 Buick Sceptre gave a preview of Buick’s soft curvy design language of the 1990s. It also had one of those newfangled cellular telephones.

They wouldn’t go financially bankrupt until 2009 but General Motors’ creative bankruptcy was evident by 1995. It’s one thing to recycle a concept name, or another to keep a popular car on the show circuit for a couple of years, but reusing the same actual car a dozen years later with virtually no restyling shows that even the famed staff of GM Design didn’t have much left in the tank by the 1990s. In 1995 Buick revived not just the Questor name (companies recycle concept names all the time), it brought back the same car, only with new paint and upgraded electronic gizmos. It’s a little confusing because they recycled the car but by I believe that by 1995 the Questor had 14 micro-computers, automatic level, attitude and spoiler control, a “systems sentinel” to monitor the status of vehicle systems, heads-up display, computer based map and navigation system, automatically aimed headlamps, theft-deterrent system, road traction monitoring and control system, TV rear-view mirror (GM first put a rear facing tv camera on the Centurion Motorama car in the 1950s), and a touch-command system for entertainment, comfort and convenience functions. As a concept car in general, the Questor accurately predicted many of the features on today’s cars. As a concept car to promote the Buick brand, though, it didn’t do much.

1998 Buick Signia station wagon. It’s made some ugliest cars of all time lists but I don’t think it’s that terrible. Okay, on second thought, maybe it is.

1999 Buick Cielo. Remember it? Had Bill Mitchell been alive to see it, I think he would have said that it looked like a fish.

1954 Cadillac La Espada. Actor Ronald Reagan was the Grand Marshall for that year’s Chicago Auto Show. Reagan later rode in Lincolns.

1950 Cadillac Debutante, with all unpainted interior metal plated in gold. In today’s politically correct world, would Cadillac use even fake exotic fur, let alone the Debutante’s real leopard skin?

Cadillac used the Aurora name in 1990. The name would later appear at the top of Oldsmobile’s lineup.

2002 Vizon Concept, a preview of the Cadillac SRX. The Vizon was an early version of Caddy’s Art & Science design theme.

Lately there have been rumors that Chevrolet might expand the Corvette lineup to include a four seater. Expanding the Corvette line is not a new idea. At the 1954 Motorama, Chevy showed hardtop, fastback and station wagon versions of the Corvette, introduced only a year before. For the Motorama in 1957, Chevy debuted the Corvette Impala concept which seated five. Most Motorama cars look a little bizarre to my tastes, but the Corvette Impala was damn near perfect. It’s fate is unknown, probably scrapped.

Did Chevrolet really use the obscure, difficult to pronounce and deliberately misspelled Sigizi in 1992 to introduce the dustbuster minivans? Just what two things are connected sygyzistically in this lozenge shaped vehicle?

Continued tomorrow in part 2, Chrysler to Ford.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

While researching the topic of the “blackout” cars of 1942, that had painted rather than plated trim due to wartime restrictions on strategic metals, I came across this promotional postcard for the 1942 DeSoto, the second American production car to feature hidden headlights, advertised as “airfoil lights” . “Boy,” I thought, “Now that’s a sleek, streamlined car, I’m surprised I don’t remember it,” well until I saw a photograph of an actual ’42 DeSoto.

Not quite the same, is it? While the hidden headlights, the grille treatment and lack of running boards are modern for their day, the real “rocket body” is rather stodgy, certainly not nearly as sleek as the car on the postcard.

We live in an era where every contour in a production car that deviates from its concept show car is noted and discussed. I can’t help but wonder how many potential DeSoto customers were disappointed to see that there was some bait and switch going on with the new 1942 De Soto, as advertised. So far, I’ve only found a couple of instances where DeSoto used an actual photograph or a properly scaled drawing in advertising for the ’42. Almost all of the period advertising uses some variation of the drawing above. All of the drawings make the car look lower, wider, and sleeker than it actually was. The one photo illustrated ad uses an elevated front 3/4 beauty shot, a perspective that makes the roofline look much lower. The one ad that uses a properly scaled drawing emphasizes the stolid reliability and safety of DeSotos with “7 out of 10… still running”. I can understand why they didn’t use the racier streamlined drawings for that particular advertisement.

For the rest of the car’s marketing, it’s pretty obvious why DeSoto’s marketers went with the drawings. It’s a much better looking car. I think I know where they got the idea for those drawings too. That lower, sleeker look is reminiscent of how car designers do a preliminary sketch of a car, exaggerating for effect. Perhaps consumers 70 years ago were more tolerant of such exaggerations in advertising.

DeSoto Cyclone concept by Alex Tremulis

The drawing in the ad could have originated with sketches at the Briggs body company’s design studio, where Alex Trumulis and Ralph Roberts worked on the Chrysler’s first concept cars, the Newport and Thunderbolt. Chrysler was a bit slower than the other two big Detroit car companies to style cars in-house, relying mostly on the designers at Briggs instead. Like the ’42 DeSoto, the Thunderbolt sports cars and at least one of the dual cowl Newport parade cars had hidden headlights.

If you look at Tremulis’ stillborn DeSoto Cyclone concept car, which was supposed to be Chrysler’s third concept car before World War Two intruded, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Tremulis probably had a role in the design of the 1942 DeSoto. The design patent for the ’42 DeSoto’s front end was granted to Robert Cadwallader,  Chrysler’s head stylist, but it’s not unusual for styling executives to put their name on others’ work. Harley Earl’s name is all over GM design patents for designs rendered mostly by designers who worked for him.

There’s also a bit of similarity between the drawing style in the DeSoto ads and Tremulis’ Cyclone sketch. I doubt that Tremulis drew the actual images used in the ads, but again, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that the ads were influenced by design studio drawings of the car.

In some ways I’m reminded of another Chrysler concept car, by Pininfarina. You may have heard of the so-called Exner-Ghia concepts, idea and show cars that were primarily designed by Virgil Exner Sr’s staff at Chrysler in Detroit and then built in Italy by the coachbuilding craftsmen at Ghia. Before Chrysler picked Ghia they had a competition between that shop and the one of Pinin Farina. Ironically, Pininfarina more or less followed the supplied drawings while Ghia did their own thing, producing the Plymouth XX-500, which looked nothing like a late ’40s Plymouth. Ghis still got the deal because of their outstanding metal work, finishing details, and incredibly cheap by Detroit standards pricing.

The drawings used in the DeSoto ads remind me a little of the original drawing on which Pininfarina’s Plymouth concept was based (well, that and Van Dyke Parks’ work for Little Feat). That car’s been lost to history and it’s nearly as well known as the XX-500. The Peninfarina Plymouth was one of those obscure idea cars that Detroit forgets, but David Fetherston and Tony Thacker were able to track down a concept drawing and a photograph of the finished car for their book on Chrysler concepts.

As you can see, the finished Pininfarina Plymouth had a low, sleek roofline, not as low or as sleek as the ’42 Desoto drawing or as on Tremulis’ Cyclone, but hardly as upright as the production DeSoto (am I alone in seeing some Porsche Panameralike lines from the A pillar back?). As drawn, the 1942 DeSoto was a great looking car, as built, not so much. To be honest, I think it’d be a cool idea for someone like Troy Trepanier or Murray Pfaff to take a ’42 DeSoto and  turn it into a real version of the drawings used in advertising that car.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks – RJS

If you have a spare four minutes and four seconds (plus time for the commercial) take the time to check out the following discussion over at Bloomberg.com. As a layman, I find these kind of discussions very interesting and would like to hear the best and the brightest, many of whom I know to be connected with auto industry, give a little perspective to what seems to me to be a very shallow look on the subject of modern car design.

The active premise of the Bloomberg piece is that American car design lost its way in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, and is now beginning to return to its former glory. There is no doubt in my mind that improvements automotive technology have ushered in a golden age of performance, dependability and longevity, but I am left feeling cold when I hear people talking about how superior the “new designs,” are to the ones that came before.

There were some fantastic designs in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s and when I look back at the clean, classic lines of many of those cars I miss the days when designers used a straight edge as a part of their work. The Chevrolet Vega and Monza, while mechanically problem prone, are still wonderful looking little cars that have aged quite gracefully. The mid 80s Fox Body Mustangs, shown in the piece alongside both previous and later versions, look especially good to my eye. Of course you already know my thoughts on the Chrysler LH cars of the 1990s – I like them so much I put my money where my mouth is and have a 300M Special in my driveway.

My take is that there were some damn good designs in the eras these people are deriding. Sure there were some uninteresting and even outlandish designs too, but that doesn’t mean that designers have spent the last 30 years sleeping on the job. They were trying new things and some of those really worked. So, tell us now, what are your favorite cars from the much derided ’70s, ’80s and ’90s?

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

The Lake Michigan Car Ferry website is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency and the operators of the Lake Michigan car ferry, the SS Badger, which runs between Ludington MI and Manitowoc, WI, have reached and agreement that will allow the historic steamship to continue operating. The Badger is one of the last coal fired vessels operating commercially on the great lakes and its continued operation means millions of trade and tourist dollars for the region it serves. During the summer months, the 6650 ton vessel makes two round trip crossings per day and can carry 600 passengers and up to 180 automobiles.

The SS Badger’s future was cast into uncertainty when the ship’s permit to dump coal ash into the waters of Lake Michigan, something that was common when the ship was constructed in the early 1950s, expired in December of last year. The current agreement allows the company to continue dumping ash into the lake with a 15% reduction for the next two years while constructing a containment system that must be in place by January 1, 2015. After that date, no more ash can be dumped overboard.

Yours truly made the Ludington to Manitowoc crossing in the summer of 2004 and had a wonderful time. Having spent around 5 years as an engineer on large, oil fired steamships in the Pacific, I was excited when, planning a cross country trip, I discovered the ferry service. Instead of driving south through the maelstrom that is Chicago area traffic, I cut across bucolic upstate Michigan and made a leisurely passage in fine weather. Like many other fans of the SS Badger, I am thrilled that this historic old vessel will continue sailing into the foreseeable future.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

Hard to believe someone like me would need a rich fantasy life, isn’t it?

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I love cars and like a lot of people I spend a lot of time thinking about the ones I might like to own. My daydreams live in an odd place, they don’t run towards the higher plane of pure fantasy where the Ferrari and Lamborghini live, and, despite the fact I expect to be buying a new minivan or SUV in the next couple of years, they don’t run to the purely practical, either. No, my fantasies live in that middle place. A place where the cars are interesting and, as unlikely as a purchase may be, still attainable.

I am forever perusing Craigslist and the other on-line classifieds for likely subjects and it has become something of a game with me. Naturally, I wondered if you might like to play along.

The rules of the game are simple. You have a total budget of $5000. You must purchase the car, get it to home and roadworthy for under that amount. Expenses include basic repairs and rebuilds, but just the essentials to get the car roadworthy no new paint jobs or total restorations necessary. If the car is further away than 250 miles (500 miles round trip) then the cost of an overnight motel stay and/or truck transport must be covered in your budget. Because they vary from state to state and would give some players an unfair advantage, don’t worry about fixed costs like tax, licensing or basic inspection fees unless the ad specifically states that the car will need special repairs in order to pass an inspection.

You can find your car from any public source, and links will be appreciated by everyone, I am sure. In the interest of fair play don’t tell us about cars that only you can buy. So if your grandma isn’t willing to make everyone a killer deal on her 1986 Grand National, then you can’t use it here. Also, just to keep things fresh and attainable, let’s not consider ads older than 30 days.

Finally, please also give us some insight into your thoughts. We would all like to understand your logic so we can better make fun of your odd predilections.

I’ll go first. Here are three that I have chosen to start the conversation. They appear in no special order.

1994 Subaru SVX Coupe – $2,850 OBO (Hamburg, NY)

AWD Coupe LSI model. Boxer 3.3 6 cyl 230 horsepower Approx 120,900miles

Automatic, Moon-roof, Dual exhaust, Power windows/locks/mirrors/power driver seat, Leather seats good condition. Also has new battery, breaks, power steering, timing belt, axel shafts, motor is phenomenal/very reliable vehicle all the way around! Some rust on doors as can be expected with its age. Starts right up.

This Subaru sits less than 30 miles from my house. It is well under my budget and it is a model I have been interested in since I saw one on the street in Japan back when they were new. They look cool and the performance numbers seem decent. The downside is that I don’t know much about them and I am not really all that excited about a sporty car with an automatic transmission.

I understand that Subarus have a tendency to be complex and fragile. This car is an odd ball and I am sure parts would be tough to get. Still, the price seems right and I have never been inside of one. I would, at least, go look at it.

1987 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z – $4500 (Pittsburgh, PA)

Clean Daytona Shelby Z. Turbo, 4 cyl, 5 speed, AC, 71k miles, perfect seats, good tires, fires right up, etc. NO rust! Just needs a battery and inspection.

It’s no secret that I am a sucker for Turbo Dodges, but the truth is that the Daytona rarely makes it onto my short list. To be honest, I have always thought they were a little overwrought and tried too hard to look like the Chevrolet Camaro of that era. This little car, however, jumped right out at me as a killer deal. If it is as clean as it looks in the pictures, I am confident that I could travel the 180 miles to Pittsburgh, drop in a battery and drive it right home.

Bonus points that this is a real live turbo Dodge with the manual transmission. There are more pics on the ad, including several interior shots, of which I have added just one, below. The inside looks just as pretty as the outside, don’t you think? I always wonder about cars like this, it’s 26 years old, why wasn’t it used? If it was here in town, I would be over there like a shot.

The only downside to this car that I can see is that it was right about 75K miles that the head gasket in my Turbo Shadow let loose. I would be worried that I could be stuck doing one on this car before too long as well. That said, I have a lot of experience working on these cars and I know that I could do the work by myself. Still, at $4500 this is close enough to my ceiling that I would be a little worried about my budget. Also, I would almost be ashamed to bring it up to Buffalo and expose it to the elements.

1981 DATSUN 280ZX 5 SPEED – $4300 (Ogden, NY)

1981 DATSUN 280ZX. 5 SPEED, 6 CYL, One Owner, 98,300 Original Miles, No Winters, Great Condition ~ $4300.00 ~ OFFERS WELCOME ~

Wow! No, seriously, Wow! This is a drop dead gorgeous little Datsun. It looks pretty nice in the photos and other than a cracked arm rest I don’t see a single problem here. Sure, it’s not a 240Z and it isn’t a turbo or a Special Anniversary Edition, but it is a head turner in a stunning color I haven’t seen in a long, long time. I love the fact it’s a stick.

This little girl sits less than 60 miles from me right now. If it was closer, I’d go over to take photos and maybe finagle a test drive. Man, my wife would be mad at me if that came home. It would be hard to tell the seller “no” though.

OK, you’ve seen my three choices. I could sit here a lot longer looking for obscure deals but if I did that I would never get to see what you come up with. Let’s have some fun!

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

My 1988 Shadow on trip up Stevens Pass a few months after I purchased it.

I was young, stupid and hopelessly in love. The girl, as has so often been the case in my life, hardly knew I existed but, regardless, I was determined to win her. Even in those pre-internet days, real advice for young men was in short supply, especially if you were too embarrassed to ask about such things, so when someone told me women were attracted to power, I listened. If power is what women wanted, power I could get. Fortunately, it happened to be on sale at my local Dodge dealership.

The little car was take-your-breath-away gorgeous as it sat on its raised turntable in the dealership window. In the growing dusk of the February evening, the bright lights of the downtown Dodge dealer drew me and my 15 year old Nova away from the curb and towards the glass. I stood there, nose pressed against the window, like a child in an old movie taking in the Christmas display at a department store. The showroom’s lights shone down from above and struck jewel-like fire from every crease and corner of the car’s sheet metal.

Inside, the dealership smelled like stale coffee and fresh rubber, ambrosia for my lovelorn heart. The building itself was a brick, post World War II structure, and despite a fresh coat of paint and a bright red neon sign, it looked its age. Still, inside it was neat and clean and, unlike the newer flashier showrooms on the edge of town, the old building had the aura of history about it. Challengers, Chargers, Darts, Coronets, and dozens of other famous Chrysler products had graced this space and their spirits lingered. The current generation of cars were products of a newer, leaner time, but their link to that impressive history was, thanks to a clever advertisement, a tangible thing to me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2.2 Shadow Turbo looked even better from inside the showroom and the sales person ushered me adeptly over, unplugged the turntable and bade me to sit in it. The little car’s charcoal gray high-backed bucket seats sat me up straight and tall and its upright cabin gave me good all around visibility. Out the windshield, with the exception of a small raised power bulge immediately in front of the driver, the hood sloped away into nothingness, its edge lost below my line of sight. The experience was new to me, and made the car seem surprisingly modern.

Inside, my overall impression was one of squareness, angles and straight edges. The gauges were set in a small pod. I found them simple and easy to read. Under my right arm a storage box rose up tall enough to use as an armrest. This was connected to a short console that held the 5 speed stick in a square rubber shift boot. Before that was another small storage compartment that opened to reveal two smallish cup holders. Above that, a black plastic center stack held the ash tray and cigarette lighter, the cassette deck, heater controls, a few idiot lights and a special gauge that measured turbo boost. It was an efficient cockpit and if not luxurious, at least it was pleasant.

The cover and an image from a copy of same brochure I gripped with sweaty palms way back in 1988.

The 1988 Dodge Shadow came in several two and four door versions, 2.2, 2.5 and 2.2 turbo, automatic and 5 speed. There were a couple of trim levels with the top of the line being the 2.2 Turbo Shadow ES which got, among other things, a color matched grill, a small rear spoiler, and its own distinct wheels. The car I was sitting in was just what I had imagined at home when I had poured over the sales brochure. A two door coupe with all the performance goodies, the 2.2 turbo with manual 5 speed, the high-end 4 speaker AM/FM cassette and a nice looking set of aluminum wheels, nothing else. I wanted to go fast, so who needed anything more? This was a factory hot rod in the flesh and I knew then that I must own it.

A day or two later I came back to the dealership with my father and together we completed an unremarkable test drive of the non-turbo 4 door demo. When the car was deemed satisfactory, I watched in rapt silence while my dad negotiated the details that left my bank account $256.05 poorer each month but my spirit immeasurably richer. Under my watchful eye, the salesman and a couple of mechanics then rolled the bright red coupe off the turntable and took it into the shop where they conducted their final pre-delivery inspection. After what seemed like hours, the car emerged, the salesman presented me with two sets of keys and I roared off into the sunset.

Coming and going, another shot from the brochure.

That night on the not so mean streets of Everett the little car and I went looking for trouble. The first victim was a kid in a Pontiac Fiero. His passenger made the mistake of laughing when I pulled up at a stoplight, revved the engine at him and, after an impressive front wheel drive burnout across the entire intersection, their laughter was replaced by shock as my tail lights receded into the distance. An hour or so later, a mid ’80s Camaro fell in similar fashion. The car was all I dreamed it would be. Many more adventures, many of which will eventually be written about here, followed.

In the six years I owned the little car, I racked up 140K miles. I made an epic road trip from Seattle to New York, on to DC and then home again – with the transcontinental return leg taking just three days. I also took two trips from Seattle to LA and back without stopping for anything more than gas and fast food. On those long drives the little car stormed over mountains, followed the courses of winding rivers and shot across the great plains of America, each time carrying me home in surprising comfort and without a problem.

I must confess that my Shadow was not always trouble-free. Early on I broke the core support beneath the front motor mount by doing burn offs and generally acting like a hooligan – something the car seemed to encourage. At 80K miles, I also replaced the head gasket, on my own with simple hand tools, but who thinks of things like that when you are in love? The car and I fully bonded, and together we made quite a couple.

Today I am older, a little wiser and every once in a while I even get asked for advice. Unfortunately, I still can’t tell you much about women, but I can tell you about power. If you ever need some, try the Dodge dealership. You might find the love of your young life there, I did.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

1969 Chevelle SS

A few weeks a go I had the opportunity to watch part of the Barrett Jackson auction. I found myself captivated by the colorful commentary that went along with each sale. Every car had a story and the commentators spent a great deal of time telling us about them. They also discussed the cars’ performance, available options and recited the original production numbers, contrasted by telling us exactly how many of those cars survive today. It turns out that many of the cars I regularly used to see back in the 1970s are extremely rare today. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, however, after all, I had a hand in making them go away.

By the time the 1980s got into full swing, around 1983, people were good and tired of the 1970s. The ‘70s had been pretty rough on the average American. We had our pride hurt when Saigon fell, we lost faith in our political institutions thanks to Watergate and we were embarrassed when our embassy was stormed by a bunch of kids in Iran. To make matters worse, we had gone way overboard on cheesy variety shows, bell bottoms and the cocaine and now we had one hell of a hangover. It was, we collectively decided, better if we just put the past behind us.

In 1983 I was a junior in high school and, with the economy still in a shambles, jobs in small-town America for kids my age were few and far between. Fortunately, my mom and dad weren’t stingy and I had enough money in my pocket to play Defender at the 7-11 and to put gas in my 6 cylinder Nova, but I aspired to bigger things. I wanted to build a fast car. It was my search for a job and my attempt to access to cheap parts that led me to form a friendship with the local hot-rodder.

Already married with three kids, Tim Harris was only about a decade older than me. He was the kind of guy who lived and breathed cars; the kind of guy who forever smelled of old crankcase oil and Dexron II. As a neighbor, he drove down your property values. His yard was filled with half stripped cars, disembodied engine and racks of body parts. Naturally, I thought he was the coolest guy around.

Easy Prey

The owner of several Chevrolet Vegas in his younger years, Tim had begun collecting parts to keep his own cars running but soon found that people were willing to pay a handsome premium for the parts they needed to keep their own cars going as well. Before long, Tim had an established business, buying up and parting out Chevrolets all over the county and, luckily for me, his business had grown to the point that he needed someone to help him. Since I was willing to work for a pittance, and bought most of my parts from him anyway, I got the job.

Tim had me do all sorts of work around the his house. I hauled wood, dug ditches, ran barbed wire and helped dismantle the cars he brought home. He worked me hard, but sometimes I got to ride along as Tim went to pick up one junker or another and, as we drove, he taught me the tricks of his trade. Like most money making ventures, the underlying idea was simple, the execution was not.

The process began in the driver’s seat and we drove about ceaselessly scouring the area for possible purchases. A potential buy was always a car that was sitting. Signs of a sitting car included a layer of dirt, pine needles or leaves on top and a patch of longish grass or other debris underneath. Flat tires were almost always good for us while an open hood or ongoing body work were usually not. With the economy in a protracted slump and high gas prices at the pump, that part was easy.

It took real skill, however, to know what you were actually looking at. I have, it turns out, a photographic memory and I soon developed an encyclopedic knowledge of the cars of the 60s and 70s. I knew their shapes, options, trim levels, possible power trains, even more esoteric things like whether or not they might be hiding disc brakes under their hubcaps. I could look at a car from the seat of the van and instantly report what it was. Tim would do the other important part, the mental math that told him just how much profit our find might actually bring. If a car was worth it, we knocked on the door of the house.

This system worked surprisingly well. Tim was a cash buyer and a great many people were swayed by the sight of his money. Together we purchased some of the great cars of the era.

One that should have been allowed to escape.

At one house, Tim scored a 1968 Chevy II with a 250 HP 327, a Muncie 4 speed and a positraction rear end for $300. It had been sitting for a while, but together Tim and I compression started the engine by rolling it down a small hill. The old car fired up and ran strong. I laid a great deal of rubber at every stop on the way home. Naturally, I was in love and wanted to save the baby blue car, but Tim would have none if it. In less than a month every part of value was sold and Tim and I hauled the stripped carcass to the recyclers in order to make room for the next victim.

So it went with dozens of cars and Novas, Camaros, Chevelles, Impalas and dozens upon dozens of late 60s Chevy trucks were sacrificed one piece at a time to the great god of commerce. Like a 19th century whaling operation, we stalked our prey, made the kill and then hauled the beast ashore where we stripped away every usable bit one piece at a time before taking the final remains to a place where they were rendered down into smelter fodder. There was one exception.

One that did get away.

The 1965 Impala SS 396 was truly a thing of beauty. Canary yellow with a black vinyl top, we found her on four flat tires and with a surprising amount of moss on the cement slab beneath her. I could see the cold calculation in Tim’s eyes as we walked around the dignified old girl, big block engine, SS wheel covers, disc brakes, all the trim pieces in good condition, flawless interior. This car was ripe for the picking. Tim ended up paying just $500 to an elderly lady who confessed she just wanted to be rid of it.

Once the title was in hand, we spent a few minutes getting the car prepped for the trip home. I pumped up the tires with a small compressor, checked the oil and water, and then we started the old big block using jumper cables. It ran rough at first but soon settled down and when we were ready, Tim let me go ahead while he followed in the van.

The old car was nice inside and the big engine ran well. The transmission shifted smoothly, and not for the first time I noticed what a really fine car it was. It did seem to wander around a bit out on the road and it had a fair amount of play in its steering, but old Impalas, especially big block cars, had a tendency to wear out suspension bushings. It was a minor problem, and I made the trip home without incident.

After parking the car, I got out and gave it a good serious look. I was still there when Tim pulled up a minute later. “This is a nice car.” I said.

“Yeah,” answered Tim, “A really nice car.”

“You think maybe someone would just buy the whole thing?” I asked.

“I could get more from parts than I could the whole thing.” Tim replied.

“It wouldn’t be right though.” I said.

‘I know.” Said Tim, “I know.”

The next week Tim put an ad in the paper and an elderly gentleman made the trip out to where we lived in the country to buy the car. Tim got $900 for it and seemed happy enough as the old car rolled down the driveway and away into the afternoon. But as it faded into the distance, he turned on me, “I could have made more money if I hadn’t listened to you.” he said accusingly.

“Somebody has to be your conscience.” I answered.

His expression lightened and he smiled. “I know.” said Tim heading for his van. “Come on, let’s go find something else we can make money on.” I paused a moment, then laughed and went with him, always ready to drive home another piece of history.

Teddy Roosevelt refusing to kill a captive bear.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

Note the date of publication is 1914, not 2013

While following the he said he said back and forth between the New York Time’s James Broder and Tesla’s Elon Musk, over Broder’s unsuccessful drive from New York to Boston in a Tesla Model S, it seemed to me that one important factor affecting consumer acceptance of EVs is being obscured by all the Sturm und Drang of the NYT and Musk both working this story for maximum bad publicity for their respectless enterprises. That factor, ironically, is why Tesla set up the media road trips in the first place, the fact that EVs will need a publicly accessible charging infrastructure if they are going to be seen as anything other than town cars. The Model S press trips from DC to Beantown were supposed to demonstrate Tesla’s expanding network of locations equipped with Tesla’s “Supercharger” quick charging stations.

That need for public charging stations has been obscured by other issues in the discussion of electric cars, which it seems to me have been focused more on range than anything else. Tesla is not unwise to create it’s own charging infrastructure for its customers because the simple fact is that if you could recharge an EV as quickly and as conveniently as you can refuel a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, and if you could find a charging station within your EV’s range, range becomes more of a non issue. Let’s face it, how many owners of gasoline cars really consider range on a single tank of gas when buying a new car? As long as you can get ~300 miles between fill ups, the vast majority of car consumers don’t really care about range. Gas mileage yes, but I’d bet that total range is only important to a minority of gas/diesel drivers.

This is nothing new. Like 3D photography and movies, this is not the first go-round with EVs. Electric cars and were marketed more than a century ago, at the dawn of the automotive age and soon enough electric car companies, electric component makers, trade organizations, tire and battery companies, and publishers rushed in to help EV owners find a charge.

The EV side of the auto industry understood that drivers of EVs would need public charging facilities at the same time that it promoted electric cars as suitable for touring. The Electric Vehicle Association of America even published a charging station guide to the Lincoln Highway, America’s first attempt at a coast to coast road. Since the longest distance between charging stations was about 120 miles, well beyond the range of any contemporary electric car, it’s doubtful than any early electric automobilists completed the entire route, but the EV industry did what it could to dispel the image that electric cars could not be taken on long trips. Tesla is doing the same today.

The fact that the Electric Vehicle Association agreed on a standard charging plug that was used by most EV makers made things a little easier. In the photo above, the charging port on a 1922 Milburn Light Electric is being held open so you can see the terminals in the photo above. The photo below shows a similar charging port, though closed, on a 1914 Detroit Electric runabout.

By 1912, the Detroit Electric Car company, the most successful of the first wave of EV makers (it has only been in the past year that the Nissan Leaf surpassed the Detroit Electric as the most successful EV ever, in terms of total sales) had both standalone charging garages as well as combined sales branches and charging stations in Detroit, Manhattan, Chicago , Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Cleveland, Evanston, Kansas City, and Minneapolis.

In 1914, the New York Electric Vehicle Association, in conjunction with Automobile Blue Books started publishing route guides for “electric touring”, that mapped the locations of charging stations and provided suggested touring routes.

The guide was updated, apparently annually. In an emergency, drivers of electric cars could get a charge from electric streetcar or trolley wiring – as this Tom Swift story relates.

While General Electric sold  mercury arc rectifier based residential chargers to EV owners, the majority of the more than 14,000 chargers that GE sold a century ago were sold to public facilities like hotels and parking garages.

The Exide battery company, perhaps the major EV battery maker in the early days of the automobile, set up its own storage and charging garage (many city dwellers didn’t have residential parking for their cars) and “battery depot” in New York City.

In addition to public charging facilities, taxicab companies that operated electric cabs set up their own charging garages and had chargers installed for their drivers’ use at hotels they serviced.

As was shown 100 years ago, broadscale consumer acceptance of electric cars needs a publicly accessible charging infrastructure. It’s unfortunate that the war of words between Mr. Musk and the New York Times is obscuring rather than illustrating that need.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Today, I was in Odaiba, the man-made island in Tokyo Bay. The island is known for its futuristic buildings. Today, it was home of the Japan Classic Car Association’s New Year Meeting. It celebrates the imported car. During the next days, I will show you the nicer ones. We start with the Americans, and a Dodge.

The tonier places in America, like Pebble Beach and Hilton Head, are known for their Concours d’Elegance, something the organizers wanted to bring to Tokyo. It looks like it was damaged in transit.

Some of the first cars in Japan were American, just like this early Dodge Brothers model.  The first car made in Japan, in 1902, was powered by a gasoline  engine, hand-imported from the U.S. by Komanosuke Uchiyama. Five years later, he produced the first entirely Japanese-made car.

Detroit pretty much owned the Japanese car market before the war. Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors all had production plants in the island nation.  Between 1925 and 1936, the Big Three produced 208,967 cars in Japan. Japanese automakers, and there were many, made only 12,127.

Cars imported to Japan, mostly from America and England, did set the style for Japanese cars.

After the war, American makers liked to use their British subsidiaries to export cars to Japan. This is the egg crate grille of a Nash Metropolitan Roadster, built between 1953 and 1961 at Austin’s Longbridge plant.

Except that this Nash has the steering wheel on the left. Must have been the export model.

This is a Ford Prefect, built in the UK.

It looks like the 100E (1953 to 1959). Its steering wheel is at the right left, I mean, it was left at the right side. Next to the Prefect sits a BMW 2002, the predecessor of the 3-series. I had one of those, also in Bavarian Blue.

Wedged between a Porsche and a Triumph, a Shelby GT350. When this car came to Japan, the glory of American imports in Japan began to fade, and the Europeans took over. We will look at them tomorrow.

This is the fantastic Shanghai SH761 parade car from the Shanghai Car Museum in Shanghai. It was made in 1970 and was used to show high ranking foreign visitors to the masses. The visiting dignitary would sit rather uncomfortably on a hydraulically lifted rear bench in the back of the vehicle. The ‘royal seat’ was so high that the curious populace could see all, down to the buttocks. The visitor was supposed to wave his hand and smile to the adoring masses…

The Shanghai SH761 was a gigantic hand-made machine. It was based on the platform of the much smaller Shanghai SH760A sedan. The engine came from the SH760A as well, a very old 2.2 liter six-cylinder with just 90 horsepower. Weight was about two ton and fuel consumption about 13 liter per 100 kilometer. Shanghai Auto claimed a 100km/h top speed, but during parades the car wouldn’t go any faster than five.

The elevated rear bench was beautifully crafted with red leather and lots of chrome. The handle bar on the front bench was especially constructed for the honorable visitor to hold onto with one hand. The other hand was for waving. The bar was no luxury, if the driver took a corner a bit too fast or tight the visitor could easily fall out of vehicle. It is unknown whether this ever actually happened.

The beauty continues on the driver’s side. Red leather again and a shipload of wood. The steering wheel, controls, dials and pedals are all straight from the SH760A. The gear lever is mounted to the steering column.

A very long rear deck but upon inspection it turned out that it could not be opened. No space for luggage in the SH761! Probabl;y for safety reasons … who knows what those dignitaries hide in their suitcase …

This very vehicle is also the subject of an intense controversy. Chinese experts of old Chinese cars disagree passionately about the origins of this SH761. The fight is rather simple: the believers say this is a real 1970′s SH761 parade car. The non-believers say it is a fake, made much later.

This is what I know for sure: Shanghai Auto Works made 14 SH761 parade cars between 1965 and 1971. From these 14, only four survive until today. The whereabouts of these four vehicles are well known and well documented. The SH761 in the Shanghai Car Museum suddenly popped up in 2010 when the museum opened, making it surviving car number 5. The experts were astonished! Biggest problem is that the museum’s parade car looks rather different than the other four.

This is a certified member of the vehicular Gang of Four, housed in the China Classic Car Museum in Beijing. (More about this museum later.) As you can see, the front is very different. Lights, grille and bumpers all differ. The back is different too with much more simpler square lights. The base bodywork however is very similar.

Once again the Shanghai car. The non-believers basically say they didn’t know about the vehicle’s existence, and therefore,  it must be fake. Not a very strong argument indeed, but it is strange that the vehicle managed to stay under the radar for so long. Interestingly, the museum says this SH761 is one of two, like some kind of special series within the already special SH761 series. If true, there must be another one, but did it survive? Nobody knows.

The believers say the vehicle is technically so similar to the other well-known cars that it must be real and made in the 1970′s. The museum doesn’t help its cause by being very secretive about where they got the vehicle from, making proper identification difficult.

Well, I have seen, touched and smelled the Shanghai car and the definitely-real Beijing car. Except for the differences in design both vehicles seem so similar that it is almost impossible to believe the Shanghai car was made at a later time. But I am not sure. The Chinese experts are not sure either. The fight between the believers and non-believers has basically turned into a stalemate because none of the parties can prove the other wrong. The controversy will likely continue for a while…

Thanks to Erik from ChineseCars.net for the tip and specs!

Dutchman Tycho de Feyter runs Carnewschina.com, a blog about cars in China, from Beijing, China. He also collects die-cast models of Chinese cars.