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Automotive Sweet Dreams, Nightmares, Hallucinations and Sleeping Pills

By Jay Flowers

Everyone has a dream car, or in my case dream cars. We also remember some bad dreams; cars we hate to look at and a nightmare to own. Then there are those cars that everyone laughs at and points at; not in a good way. Can you say Aztek. What were the engineers smokin’? And to round out the group, we visit the boring cars that you really don’t notice but when you do, it puts you to sleep.

Part 1 of 4 - Dream On

Let’s start with the sweet rides, the stuff that dreams are made of. My bucket list includes exotics like the Ferrari Enzo, Porsche 911 Turbo GT, Audi R8, Aston Martin Vantage , Lambo Countach, and the Bugatti Veyron. Driving an Enzo would be the closest thing to driving a race car on the public streets legally and feeling like you were breaking the law. How could one not speed even if a cop was in the next lane?

The Lamborghini Countach brings all kinds of bad boy thoughts ever since the poster with the nude girl lying on top of one when I was an oversexed teen before I became an oversexed adult. Aston Martin is a more mature dream of the rich CEO of a multi-national conglomerate on the way to a power meeting.

Last year some rich idiot drove a Bugatti into the bay just off a major freeway near my home. It made the press all over the country. Talk about your 15 minutes of fame. He bought a new one a few months later. I wonder what he pays in insurance. Can you imagine having enough money to do the same bonehead thing he did and still get another one for a cool 1.8 mill? No problem, right.

A simple dream of mine is the 1965 Mustang Fastback that still might make its way to my garage in my lifetime. Then again the 2011 GT might be good enough and a lot more usable. Maybe both. Yeah right, and my wife will make me sleep in it. I don’t know why I love the ’65 ‘Stang so much but I just do. It was the year I was born and it also represented the beginning of muscle cars and the whole freedom, and fun thing that us rebellious people work hard to maintain or at least pretend to. Honorable mention goes out to the BMW 3 series. In the 1980s, it was the car you aspired to have to prove you were upwardly mobile.

Some other sweet rides that come to mind include the new Camaro, Nissan 370Z and the GTR Supercar, 2012 Buick Regal GS (I know that is a strange choice but this is my article), Corvette ZR1, Cadillac CTS, Ford GT, and the new Ford Taurus SHO is sweet in a big four door sorta way. Sure beats the Crown Vic. GM gets credit for the 1971 Olds Cutlass Hurst, 1955 Chevy Bellaire and Nomad wagon, 1971 Chevy Cheyenne Truck. and Pontiac GTOs from 1964, ’69 and ‘08. The 1992 Toyota Supra and the Celica GT from the ‘70s are some nice Toys. Generally I think Dodges are junk but the current Ram Truck is the best yet and the Dodge Challenger is hot but a little chunky. It was a good idea to give Ram it’s own name plate so it will no longer be dragged down by the rest of the line up.

Next up, the nightmares.

Part 2 of 4 - Nightmare On My Street

Everyone has their bad experiences; nightmares or things that go backfire in the night. I have had two. The first one was my first car, a 1977 two door, notchback, gold Chevy Monza. Before the aluminum head blew and left the car worthless, the throttle spring stuck while I was driving on a local street. After I ran a stop sign and the car kept accelerating I finally brought it to a stop. I was glad my dad taught me about putting the car into neutral and braking and then using the emergency brake if necessary. Otherwise, I would have only stopped after hitting a parked car, street light or worse. Our next door neighbor bought the car from us for $250 and was going to put a new engine in it. I do not think he ever finished the project; not worth the time. The second lemon was a new 1994 Dodge Neon. Those hello smiley faces and the promise of economical four door sportiness reeled me in but after four tows to the dealership in the first year, I traded it for a 1996 Explorer which I drove 175,000 miles without a problem.

Here is my list of really scary automobiles that are unreliable, unsafe, or useless or a toxic sludge of all of these.

Let’s start with the General . That will make it easy. The Chevrolet Corvair, Vega, Monza, Chevette and the Hummer H2 Truck, Pontiac’s Fiero, GM’s X bodies 1980-85 (Citation, Phoenix etc. ), Cadillac Cimarron, Oldsmobile diesels, Somerset/Calais and Buick Reatta. The Corvair sold well for Chevy despite the war that consumer advocate Ralph Nader waged on it for safety issues following over 100 lawsuits from drivers. The Vega and Monza (my lemon) suffered from poorly designed engines and components and overall quality problems. The X bodies were GM’s very expensive try to compete with the Japanese at offering a front wheel drive, fuel efficient, compact. Too bad the cars just fell apart after a couple of years and after several recalls. The Citation X-11 Sports version was pretty cool though. Question - why did GM think Americans were stupid enough to spend thousands of dollars over the price of a Chevy Cavalier for a Cadillac Cimarron that was a Cavalier with a vinyl top? Us ‘mericans are sometimes dumb but we ain’t stupid.

Ford’s claims to shame include early Pintos, Tempo/Topaz, EXP, Probe, Mustang II, Excursion and the Lincoln Blackwood. Lesson learned by Ford should have been learned by many other companies, do not short cut safety. A lack of a real bumper on the Pinto led to the bomb on wheels. That is sad because the Pinto was a nice little car. The Tempo and Topaz were slow, plain and were Found on Road Dead and Needed Repair Daily. The EXP was suppose to be the sporty version of the Escort but it was uglier and seemed to breakdown more often. Mustang II was just a bad idea. Why water down the pony car. The Suburban is as large as most people could handle. Ford thought they would one up with the Excursion. The Excursion is just too big and should have been reserved for Greyhound bus duty. The Lincoln Blackwood was overpriced and of no use to anyone that actually would use the truck as a truck. The Blackwood was reaching out for too small of a niche to say the least. Chrysler’s worst junk; Sebring, Crossfire, TC , and Neon.

The exporters brought us the king of crap, the Ugo. It was the cheapest new car you could buy but they should have paid the poor loser who was stuck with it. Dishonorable mention goes to the overpriced Land Rover Discover, several Jags, early Kias and Hyundais, and the French Renault LeCar. The 1970s Japanese cars while heralded for quality were rust buckets. Low grade steel that just disintegrated in America’s snow belt and coastal areas. The little trucks seemed to be the worst with the truck bed’s external cargo hooks rusting away and spreading down the side of the fenders.

Well if this was not bad enough, wait for Part 3, Hallucinations.

Part 3 of 4 Hallucinations – what were they thinking and what were they smokin’?

Case and point, my 1979 Olds Cutlass Salon 4 door. The rear end of this thing was bigger than Aretha Franklin’s ass and the door frames had chrome rain sills above the windows. A real nerd mobile. The Cutlass Supreme and Monte Carlo were really popular at my high school but I could not afford one. The Salon was very clean and a nice deep chocolate brown. I convinced myself that it was the next best thing to having the Supreme. That was just before Oldsmobile began naming several different cars Cutlass so they could fool other geeks like me. I hated every time I had to drive that car anywhere especially the beach and to school. I refused to drive it to the prom so I traded it with my parents 1981 Brown Chevy Malibu. My date did not even notice. All brown GM four doors were the same to her.

There are a number of ugly cars that I managed to avoid putting in my own driveway. The Pontiac Aztek. The Aztek is the Swiss army knife of automobiles and Pontiac’s last disaster. The Aztek shares the GM ugly seat with the Chevrolet Lumina APV aka minivan, the original Chevrolet Avalanche, and the 2007 Monte Carlo (ol’ big butt). Ford brought us the Edsel. The Chrysler group is responsible for the Jeep Compass, 1962 Plymouth Valiant, and Dodge Caliber. The Compass is just a dud. It has no personality except ugly. The Caliber and the ’62 Valiant fall victim to the designers trying too hard with many lines and creases without a common goal.

The Subaru Baja, Datsun F10, Suzuki X90, Honda Crosstour, AMC Matador, Studebaker Blackhawk, GMC Envoy XUV. Honda Accord Crosstour all fall victim to bad design. I think the Crosstour just might be the son of Aztek. Sorry Honda.

AMC has always been the butt of jokes for the Pacer and the Gremlin but I like them. The really ugly AMC is the 1974 Matador Coupe. It was considered a great styling revolution for its time according to Car and Driver Magazine. I don’t see it that way at all. Maybe the auto journalists were all passing the jug and rolling their own.

That about does it for my uglies. Did I mention the Aztek?

Next up, sleeping pills on wheels.

Part 4 Sleeping Pills On Wheels

Who needs Lunesta when you can just buy a Toyota. After my 1987 two door black Grand Am was totaled, I picked up a 1993 white Corolla. We had just had our first baby and needed something cheap and reliable. The Corolla fit the bill but was the most boring car I ever had. It was on clearance to make room for the all new 1994 model which was even more boring. My Corolla was a stripper without a radio. I went to Circuit City and had a cheap radio installed which was the only interesting part of the car but the reception sucked. I could not wait to trade it for the Neon but we know how that turned out (see Part 2). The current Corollas are better than in the past but still blah.

Toyota has a knack for boring designs; the Camry is the librarian and accountant special. The Solara is part boring but also a nominee for butt ugly. Something is not right about the backend. The Avalon is a comfortable living room on wheels.

Nissan Stanza from the 1980s was a very bland forefather to the Ultima. The Stanza was not competitive with the Accord, Camry or the Taurus. The 1995 - 97 Sentra also puts me to sleep but so does the current Versa. Yawn.

Oldsmobiles were someone’s father’s boring car and any of them built after the mid 1980’s had no performance aspirations of any kind. The Oldsmobile Achieva, the Cutlass Ciera, numerous Delta 88s and 98s just had no personality.

The Suzuki Verona, Pontiac G6, the Saturn LS1, a number of Volvos, Ford Falcon (the mother of the Mustang) and the Dodge Aspen car and more recently the Aspen SUV are all plain, plain Janes. The best thing about all these cars is if you didn’t like them, you probably will not remember.

Yawn. Good night. Time for bed.

The New GM, Did They Get It Right?

By Jay Flowers

Looks like we have all survived 2010 without a new Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer in our garage. Who knew that we could get by without having one or two of these “stellar” new vehicles? The real question is how did GM fare? Did they dump the right organizations and are they building the right vehicles?>

Expense cutting and greater focus on core products was the major thrust behind the changes and should be. Buick has not been a strong player in the states since the 90’s or perhaps the 80’s but it has strong sales in China and cutting it from the line up here risks sales there. I just wish they would have held onto the Solstice or Sky as the only American roadster. All of the development investment is down the drain and Mazda maintains a roadster monopoly with the MX5-Miata. The Pontiac G8 GT is now history and with it goes the only strong, fairly affordable American V-8 Sports Sedan. The Dodge Charger is gutsy and fun to bully around in but it is not a premium driver’s car. The G8 was much closer.

Overall, GM sales are up 22% 2010 through October but based primarily on increases in truck and crossover sales. It looks like losing Hummer was a good thing since the truck sales were not negatively impacted. Fairly stable gas prices have boosted truck sales but any price increases would hit Hummer hard. Also, the “Go Green” push does not bode well for GM’s image. The Hummer noose was tightening around the General’s neck.

If we, the general public, were considering a G5, G6, G8, Vibe, Solstice or Torrent (doubt it), what did we buy instead? Was it a Chevrolet or a Buick or something else? The G6 represented 57% of the Pontiac sales in 2008 with 119,706 of a total 208,790. Hyundai is gaining market share especially with the new, stylized Sonata. Since Saturn leaned toward value oriented customers with no haggle pricing, I would think that Hyundai and Kia picked up some of those potential customers. Nissan, Mazda and Subaru have also seen healthy increases. Bottom line, the shrinking of GM’s middle and lower priced offerings exposes GM to more losses to the imports.

Sales for GM cars for 2010 through August were down from 2009 though Buick and Cadillac sales are up. Of course, August 2009 was the big Cash for Clunkers “fire sale” which does skew the results. I can see that some of the Buick increases may have been the result of Pontiac’s post mortem and maybe a few people bought a Caddy CTS that would have considered a G8. In contrast to this negative line of thinking, September and October sales have made a strong rebound. Through October, GM has sold over 85,000 more vehicles this year with half the number of brands! Maybe this upturn is just reflective of the overall increase of automobiles due to pent up demand or maybe GM is on to something after all.

I think GM sales of new cars would have continued a downward spiral without dumping some baggage. GM is building better automobiles today and costs are down. They are making advances towards getting out of the US Government’s bed and GM’s image is improving but it has a long way to go. Long term turnaround prospects are unknown and dicey. The General may still be too big and they still need a game changer against China, Japan and Germany. Will Buick be around in five years? Who knows, but I would consider buying one now and I would not have said that just two years ago.