There are cars, and then...

[Rob C]

Listening to this, thinking the Route 66 thoughts etc, it struck me yet again that no-one in his right mind would write a song about an Austin Cambridge, a Morris Minor or the M25. I don't think I can even come up (from memory, and not via Internet cheating) with paeans for Rollers or Bentleys, but XKEs have figured in some, mainly as cars to beat with your hotted Lincoln, Cobra or Stingray or whatever. In song, at any rate, and the concept of a luxo like a Lincoln doing anything much is a little bizarre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4RUXrbLVYA

Why is this, why did it all happen for the States? Because the Americans thought it worth putting into song? I think there's something else going on.

Rob C

[WalterEG]

Rob,

I suspect that the indigenous terrain may have some bearing on this.  My Melbourne cousin, an off-road rally champion and motor mechanic, always used to say that in Australia we should only ever buy and Australian designed car, or an American designed car, because they were the only two countries with vast endless emptinesses to traverse and the mechanicals had to be designed for to cope with hours of open road at speed.

Add to that the post-war opulence of the Excited States and the rise of customising and there begins the foundations of a cult upon which could be embroidered an entire culture.

On the other hand, the Ford Anglia had to await the rise of Harry Potter, where quirkiness was the order of the day, to enjoy its day in the sun.

Curious also that Bob Dylan should get so much flack for doing a Chrysler commercial for broadcast on the Superbowl (whatever the hell that might be);  he is accused of selling out.  I watched the commercial and it would be classified here as a community service announcement endeavouring to generate interest in the flagging auto industry in America.  All in the same week that the last car builder in Australia, Toyota, announced that, like Ford and the General, they would be closing down antipodean manufacturing in 2017.

Where has the excitement in any new production car gone these days?


Go figure,

[Rob C]

Rob,

I suspect that the indigenous terrain may have some bearing on this.  My Melbourne cousin, an off-road rally champion and motor mechanic, always used to say that in Australia we should only ever buy and Australian designed car, or an American designed car, because they were the only two countries with vast endless emptinesses to traverse and the mechanicals had to be designed for to cope with hours of open road at speed.

Add to that the post-war opulence of the Excited States and the rise of customising and there begins the foundations of a cult upon which could be embroidered an entire culture.

On the other hand, the Ford Anglia had to await the rise of Harry Potter, where quirkiness was the order of the day, to enjoy its day in the sun.

Curious also that Bob Dylan should get so much flack for doing a Chrysler commercial for broadcast on the Superbowl (whatever the hell that might be);  he is accused of selling out.  I watched the commercial and it would be classified here as a community service announcement endeavouring to generate interest in the flagging auto industry in America.  All in the same week that the last car builder in Australia, Toyota, announced that, like Ford and the General, they would be closing down antipodean manufacturing in 2017.

Where has the excitement in any new production car gone these days?


Go figure,

Yes, I heard that on the news today. My initial thought was surprise that Australia, a huge land with a small population (I'm told small - needs more Elles, perhaps?) could have ever maintained an indigenous car production, because as far as I know, Holdens never went anywhere else and neither did the southern Fords. If that means that Australians support the home companies, that makes a lot of sense.

New cars: excitement - only, I suppose, if you can afford cars that I certainly wouldn't spend the dosh buying. Then it's also an age thing: today, I think of economy and low-mileage transportation. There are no more trans-continental trips on the horizon for me, AFAIK, and the streets here on the island preclude a large car; even the Fiesta I feel too clumsy for some of the village streets. Okay, folks still run big Mercs etc. but they do get scraped a lot, as do the walls at most intersections. Towns historically designed for carts and as defences against Moorish pirates don't run many straight lines. The straightest one I know runs from the Port of Pollensa here to the inland town of the same name, but the Romans were probably to blame for that - the pirates came later, so maybe the Romans didn't have to think of defence that much.

;-)

Rob C

[Misirlou]

In song, at any rate, and the concept of a luxo like a Lincoln doing anything much is a little bizarre.

Rob C

Heresy! Hot Rod Lincoln is a favorite song of mine, and damn hard to play too.

Actually, the song refers not to a Lincoln sedan, but to a light Model A body with a huge Lincoln V8 stuffed into it. A formidable combination in the early days of the hot rodding culture. Certainly much quicker than any stock vehicle commonly for sale at that time in a typical US town.

I used to have a '61 Cadillac sedan that I bought for $288. I beefed up the suspension and brakes, rebuilt the engine and transmission, and added modern electronic ignition and fuel injection. When I finished tuning it, I had my mechanic run a smog test on it. It burned so clean at idle that it was well within CA emission standards for new cars, and this all happened in '92. We figured it probably made about 350 HP. Did 0-60 in about 7 seconds, and yes, it cruised the interstates in style.

Also had an XKE, and it was rather exciting as well.

[Rob C]

Heresy! Hot Rod Lincoln is a favorite song of mine, and damn hard to play too.

Actually, the song refers not to a Lincoln sedan, but to a light Model A body with a huge Lincoln V8 stuffed into it. A formidable combination in the early days of the hot rodding culture. Certainly much quicker than any stock vehicle commonly for sale at that time in a typical US town.

I used to have a '61 Cadillac sedan that I bought for $288. I beefed up the suspension and brakes, rebuilt the engine and transmission, and added modern electronic ignition and fuel injection. When I finished tuning it, I had my mechanic run a smog test on it. It burned so clean at idle that it was well within CA emission standards for new cars, and this all happened in '92. We figured it probably made about 350 HP. Did 0-60 in about 7 seconds, and yes, it cruised the interstates in style.

Also had an XKE, and it was rather exciting as well.

http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/6545209_orig.jpg

http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/5759303.jpg

The Lincoln was shot in '79 in Nassau - at least, I think I remember it as a Lincoln belonging to the exiled late Shah of Iran... could be totally mistaken, though.

The Jaguar was caught in Puerto Pollensa a couple of summers ago. It's only the belief in the arrival of next summer that keeps any of us going here.

Rob C

[Misirlou]

http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/6545209_orig.jpg

http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/5759303.jpg

The Lincoln was shot in '79 in Nassau - at least, I think I remember it as a Lincoln belonging to the exiled late Shah of Iran... could be totally mistaken, though.

The Jaguar was caught in Puerto Pollensa a couple of summers ago. It's only the belief in the arrival of next summer that keeps any of us going here.

Rob C

My E-Type ended up in Australia after I sold it. Someone converted it to right hand drive, and changed it from its original silver blue color to a gunmetal gray. And now it's for sale for $170K (AU). Makes me very sad.

[Rob C]

As I seem to remember it, when the E-Type came out in Britain, it was selling for more or less £2280. When I bought my Fiat X1/9 in '98 I paid over £3000 for it and I then bough an Alfa at over £4000 about two years later. Inflation destroys all relative values, and collectability makes it far, far worse!

Sadly, XKEs were always beyond my means and I wouldn't dream of buying stuff like that used. I bought one used car, a Fiat 127 that had seen less than a year of previous ownership, and we had it in the UK for a couple of years to use on return trips there. My son 'looked after it' but in the event, the insurance was far too high when I had to transfer the thing's registration area to city-centre Glasgow instead of rural Perthshire which, for a while was legally accurate and much less expensive. As I was picking up all the bills, it had to go.

I see the reasons for city insurance being high: on one return trip I discovered the boot prints on the roof. Ironically, I live on a small island now where not much happens, but insurance is sky-high because, the company tells me, of foreign tourists driving hire cars. My Fiesta costs me just under 500 euros a year. I think that's pretty steep for what it is, and an average of perhaps three kilometres a day...

Rob C

[mbaginy]

Wasn't Chris Rea singing of the M25 in his "Road to Hell"?

[Johnny_Johnson]

(Deleted)

[Rob C]

Wasn't Chris Rea singing of the M25 in his "Road to Hell"?

I really don't know, Mike - he isn't one of the guys I listen to on a regular basis. In fact, I can't think of a single number of his that rings my memory bells. But that's not really criticism of him: I lost all interest in contemporary music with the arrival of the cold enema of punk.

Having just lost all the BBC tv programmes this week due to the new satellite broadcast footprint, I guess I won't be following anybody else, either. Why the BBC never thought about selling licences to expats and other interested people in the old European reception area is beyond me; of all the many thousands of expats here, I doubt more than a few loonies and terminal alcoholics would baulk at paying for such a service which, for the likes of us, is the only dependable information link to what's going down back in the old country. We may not live there, but our lives are still very much involved with the politics and banking services, quite apart from the cultural dependencies. Buying English newspapers is an adventure in dumbing down to the danger level. The Sunday Times still cost 5 euros as it did five years ago, and you don't even get the real deal - just bits of it, so I abandoned that too.

We still get Sky News, but for how long I don't know. But it sucks, anyway: ever since the start of the English floods there is no other news at all, and even the daily finance programme at 7pm UK time has been shelved in favour of pictures of inflatable boats. Some opinion it must hold about its viewers... It lends an entirely new meaning to the notion of London/southern Englishcentricity!

Rob C

[davidedric]

Well,  there was the ballad of Mini Cooper.........

"My name is Mini Cooper and my dress was white as snow,
but  a rally driver found me and a-rallying we did go. "

Unfortunately,  it gets rather rude after that 

Dave

[Rob C]

Well,  there was the ballad of Mini Cooper.........

"My name is Mini Cooper and my dress was white as snow,
but  a rally driver found me and a-rallying we did go. "

Unfortunately,  it gets rather rude after that 

Dave

Certainly sounds promising!

;-)

Rob C

[Misirlou]

Right after I bought my E-Type, in '83, I met a couple in a bar in the small town back east where I grew up. As it turned out, the wife of that couple had grown up in rural Scotland. Next to Mike Hawthorn. Who used to take her on drives in the nearby countryside, in his D-Type, when she was quite young. Can you imagine?

[Rob C]

Right after I bought my E-Type, in '83, I met a couple in a bar in the small town back east where I grew up. As it turned out, the wife of that couple had grown up in rural Scotland. Next to Mike Hawthorn. Who used to take her on drives in the nearby countryside, in his D-Type, when she was quite young. Can you imagine?

There you go: I didn't even know Hawthorn had ever set foot up there! I shot Jackie Stewart once at a Motor Show in Glasgow on behalf of Dunlop and, I think, Britax safety harnesses, and did once shoot some fashion at a track near Edinburgh during a meet where Stewart was doing a demo in his then racing machine - which he managed to stall at the start of the circuit - much to the amused commentary over the tannoy.

It was bitterly cold and windy; God help the poor girl with me, but she was being paid, just, so I suppose that was all right.

Rob C