(First Posted Sept. 15, 2013)  “Dirtbike.  Psshh.  Really?  Time for the next post…”  No really, don’t leave!  This is not a dirtbike, this is a totally hidden gem that is right out in the open.  In fact, to me, this is one of the best motorcycles ever created and one that is perfect for almost all occasions.  Let me explain…

It had been several years since my last motorcycle; I had since matured a bit more and realized that while each of my previous three motorcycles had been larger, more powerful, and faster than the last one, each one had also been less comfortable than the last and realistically I was not able or willing to risk enough to exploit anywhere near all of the performance anyway.  So I started looking at more standard types of bikes.

Comfort was important.  Reliability even more so.  Cost was a factor as was usability.  I looked all over.  I really liked Kawasaki’s W650, which reminds of an old Triumph more than anything else in every aspect bar reliability (Very much like a Miata compares to a Lotus Elan for example).  In the end they were too new and still too pricey used.  I also liked Yamaha’s TDM850, a somewhat oddly styled tall all-terrain type of motorcycle.  Again, too expensive.  Then I saw a Kawasaki KLR650.  Hmm.  That might work.  Let’s give it a try.  OK, sold!

What is a KLR650?  It is considered a Dual-Sport, at home both on paved and unpaved roads.  Realistically it is not optimized for either but works very well on both.  It was produced almost unchanged for twenty years between 1987 and 2007. They are simple, reliable, cheap, and extremely comfortable.

The thing that changed most often on it is the color it was offered in but even that was not always an annual thing so it is difficult at a glance to tell the age of one.  The engine is a 650cc single-cylinder (called a “thumper”) four-stroke with 4 valves, a single sparkplug and water-cooling.  37hp with a dry weight of 390 pounds is plenty on something like this.  You probably see at least one every week if not more often.  The CC effect will make it so if it has not already occurred….

Mine was the darker teal green with the garish purple “KLR” graffiti-style graphic on the side and a black engine.  I think that made it a 1996 model but honestly am not sure anymore.  I believe it had around 10,000 miles on it when I got it and was in excellent condition.  All of the pictures are ones I found on the internet, I do not seem to have any of my own.

The first thing you notice when you get on one (as I did) is that it seems like you are sitting at the dinner table.  On the most comfortable chair ever.  With lots of padding.  And  suspension!  It just gets better from there.  You sit upright, your stretch your legs to reach the ground, when you put your feet up on the pegs you don’t feel all contorted.  Turn the key, hit the electric start button (from 1996 on) and the big single springs to life.  You quickly realize that although it vibrates a bit, it has tons of character.

You put it in gear and pull away smoothly and all of a sudden you feel like the king of the road.  So comfortable, like the first time you rode a bicycle with full suspension.  Bumps and bad pavement just disappear.  The engine is immensely tractable.  Not superbike powerful, but plenty to more than keep up with traffic and pull away at lights. Cornering on the big knobbies, while obviously not as good as a normal streetbike tire, is better than you’d expect and feels sort of predictably spongy (in a good way).  Stopping is fine with a fair bit of dive as is to be expected.

I used mine for a while to commute to work from Oakland to San Francisco.  Anyone familiar with bad commutes knows this is one of the really bad ones.  The Bay Bridge toll plaza is horrible for a single driver in a car. Lining up and paying the toll is not the problem, it is the metering lights afterwards that slows everything down.  On a typical day commuting on the KLR I would get on I-580 near my house, ride for about half a mile until the merge with I-24, at that point traffic would stop, I would split lanes (legal in CA) at about 10-15mph between the stopped cars until I met the merge with I-80 from Berkeley.

At that point I’d head to the left into the carpool lane (motorcycles OK), go through the tollplaza (free) and through the metering light section (no metering for carpool lanes) and into the part where something like 15 lanes merged into five for the bridge itself.  Keep to the left, cover the brake and be a gear lower than cruising gear and that last merge was no problem.  Over the bridge in seven or eight minutes and then off at the end into downtown and find a spot to park for work.

The downside was the single driver morons that would decide they had had enough and cut into the carpool lane without noticing the cop parked at the tollplaza that would pull them over and hand them a $271 ticket…What they also would not notice is the guy on the big green motorcycle and either make me swerve hard to the side and/or have to hit the brakes hard.  Early on I took to riding all the way on the outside edge of the lane but there were a couple of close calls I have to admit that eventually made me give up riding to work, since I had a young daughter and preferred a longer commute with a better chance of actually getting there in one piece to the alternative…

All motorcycles are great on nice days, this one was great even on gloomy or downright cold days.  KLR’s have big built in hand fairings that keeps the wind off your hands, the little windshield does a pretty good job of protecting the rider as well and the upright seating position means that you can wear a fairly heavy parka style motorcycle jacket comfortably.

If for some reason the bike does tip over, the plastic pieces are durable but easy to replace if needed.  And a couple of scuffs never look out of place on this kind of bike either as opposed to the latest Ducati for example…I didn’t just use it to commute, it was great just around town and even fun on twisty roads.  Just like a car, it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow.

A friend of mine, Bob Cunningham, had a BMW GS1200, the large offroad motorcycle that you see in the Paris-Dakar rallies.  Together we decided that we would take our motorcycles to watch the USA Rally in Laughlin, NV one weekend.  So on Friday afternoon we packed up our bikes into the back of his mid-90’s Ford F150 XLT (6 cylinder, manual, 2WD – an honest working man’s truck…) and drove all the way from the Bay Area to Laughlin.

We got in late at night, but saw the crews working on the cars in the hotel parking lot.  We were beat so went to bed soon after.  The next morning the first stage was supposed to be at 10am on Indian land about 50 miles away.  We unloaded our bikes and set off.  The temperature was just above freezing, it was windy and it was COLD!  We stopped on the way for coffee to warm up and eventually got to the turnoff, which turned out to be a heavily crowned dirt road covered in snow.

We slowly turned on to it and about 100 yards in, Bob went down hard.  He was fine, but his bike had a large ding in the tank and a mirror had broken.  I slowed and tried to turn but ended up sliding into the ditch, still upright.  Eventually we got both bikes back in the middle of the road and kept going.  We each went down one more time at low speed without more damage but it took us a good hour to go a few miles.  However we were both quite warm when we got there from the exertion!

We had a lot of fun watching the rally cars go by us and then continued to follow them on several stages.  During the afternoon we made our way back to the hotel without further incident but wisely decided that on Sunday we would just take the truck, which we did all the way to the rim of the Grand Canyon for that day’s stages.  Later that day we reloaded the bikes which we had left at the hotel and drove back home.

Single-cylinder motorcycles are a bit different from other ones as you are completely dependent on ONE cylinder. We’ve all had cars or maybe motorcycles where one or more cylinders were not working properly, no biggie, the other ones will get you there in an emergency, albeit more slowly.  When you only have one, it must work.  Many guys will carry a spare sparkplug with them at all times just in case the installed one breaks.

These bikes are widely used as a cheap adventure and touring bike.  You can add luggage in all sizes, both soft and hard, there are a million accessories available, and at least one has fully circumnavigated the globe.  In other words, almost infinitely adaptable.  Just like a Jeep Cherokee; built for what seems like forever, not many changes, very customizable and cheap to buy and own, but totally usable in multiple environments.

A few years ago I was pretty sure my motorcycle days were over, now although I am not out shopping, I like the idea of something like this again just to mess around with and have fun around town and in some of the hills here.  I think it’d be a fun bike to try a set of street tires on as well and maybe stiffen the suspension a bit, kind of like making a poor man’s supermotard bike.  Looking for pictures I came across tons of these without knobbies so this appears to be a popular change.

I obviously sold it, but I have no recollection of doing so or who bought it.  I’m not even sure exactly when.  I do know that one day I realized I was not using it enough anymore and it’d be better suited for someone else, at least at that time in my life in the place and space that I was in.

The Urban Dictionary commonly defines a “Cowboy Cadillac” as a fancier, high-end expensive American-branded pickup truck, 4 doors (crew cab), lots of chrome and sporting a fancy edition name.  However, for those of us not necessarily versed in the lingo of today’s urban youth I was able to locate a REAL Cowboy Cadillac a couple of weeks ago in Laramie, Wyoming in the City Hall parking lot as I was securing a permit to improve a property. 

Wyoming is the state I associate most with cowboys these days, maybe not in terms of actual numbers of ranches or head of cattle, but certainly in their embrace of the spirit.  The image of a rider holding his hat while on a bucking horse is everywhere in the state, not just the license plates and welcome signs, but on buildings, stickers, signs, and many other places.  The image on the license plate has been there since 1935 and in fact was the first logo on any license plate in America.  Wyoming is also commonly though informally known as “The Cowboy State”, although its official nickname is “The Equality State” as it was the first state to give women the right to vote back in 1869.

In any case, it’s the least populated state in the union and the second-least densely populated compared to overall land area but the tenth-largest in terms of said land area.  Wyoming has less than 600,000 total inhabitants and its largest city, Cheyenne, has a population of just over 60,000.  Laramie, where this car was found, has about 30,000 inhabitants and is home to the University of Wyoming, whose sports teams are the Wyoming Cowboys and Cowgirls (Go Pokes!).  On a sadder note, Laramie is unfortunately also the place where the tragedy involving Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming native, occurred almost two decades ago.

Rugged beauty abounds, and the roads are generally good, fast, relatively empty and bordered by spectacular scenery.  Forever West, indeed…

Upon spotting this Cadillac deVille and noting the license plate, I immediately tagged it as a genuine “Cowboy Cadillac” in my mind.  While there are Cadillac dealers in the state, Cadillacs aren’t exactly common so this one stood out.

I can’t place the exact year but it is from between 1997 and 1999 (I’m calling it a ’98), and I believe it is the “d’Elegance” trim level, as that level apparently has chrome and gold trim, which appears to be evident at least on the front fender trim (but I could be mistaken, no doubt someone will correct me if so).  The “5” to the left of the bucking horse on the license plate designates the county of registration, in this case Albany County, which encompasses the city of Laramie and its environs (but not Cheyenne, which confusingly is in Laramie County, go figure) so this Cowboy is a local one.

These are my favorite of the near-recent Cadillacs, they still embody the spirit of the size and majesty of the older models but are modern in terms of style and performance.  Powered by a 32V Northstar V-8, this put 300hp and 295 ft-lbs of torque to the ground via the front wheels, which is plenty for rapid and smooth progress across the state.  I can’t readily think of many more comfortable ways to drive across Wyoming from Nebraska to Utah via I-80 or Colorado to Montana via I-25.  Or just around town, for that matter.  Giddy-up!

(First Posted Sept. 22, 2013)  I vividly remember the first time I saw one of these; it was very early in 1990, on I-80 Eastbound around Sacramento, on the way to Lake Tahoe.  It was yellow, and went flying by me. I was mesmerized by its shape…

Prior to that first sighting I had already read everything there was to read about these cars, but their looks are what did it for me.  For some reason, I really loved that rounded shape with the hatchback and the large tray wing on the back.  It just looked “right” to me.

At that point I was still in college, and the $29,750 base price (in 1990!) was completely out of my reach and would be for quite a while.  Apparently I was not alone; these were sold here for just two years, and only 1,730 of them found buyers.  Worldwide production between late 1987 and early 1996 totaled 75,858, so only a very small number came to the U.S.

Fast forward to 2002.  Our stable contained an Audi S4 (in the background below), a Volvo V40 and a Volvo 740 Turbo.  I’d been reading about the Alcan 5000 Winter Rally (www.Alcan5000.com) since its 1984 inaugural and had always wanted to participate.  You need three things for the Alcan: at least one co-driver, a suitable car, and a couple of weeks of spare time for the rally and the necessary prep time beforehand.  How hard could it be?

Before I get ahead of myself, I did not end up taking part.  I did pay the entry fee deposit, but then pulled out after my daughter was born in early 2003, realizing that this kid thing is WAY more time-consuming (but in a good way!) than I’d thought it would be.

Anyway, my buddies, Jim (the guy with the other S4 I’ve mentioned before) and Scott (the guy in Colorado with the S6 Avant I’ve previously mentioned), were willing to drive the rally with me if I provided the car. Half seriously, I started to look around.

I’d always loved the shape of the ‘90-‘91 Coupe quattro but even very used ones were always fairly expensive. One day I found one literally around the corner from my house, owned by a kid that was looking to unload if for about $2,000, which was less than half the next-cheapest one I’d seen thus far.  After driving it around a short test loop, I bought it on the spot, warts and all.

I figured this car would be perfect for the rally.  Full-time all-wheel drive, a lot of weight for such a small car (around 3, 200 lbs) to push it down into the snow and ice, a DOHC 2.3-liter, 20-valve, five-cylinder normally aspirated engine with 165 hp and 157 ft-lb of torque that loved (and needed) to rev to deliver its utmost.  Add in a versatile hatchback body, a very comfortable cabin in both front and rear compartments, and sturdy construction to boot.  What’s more, Audis had won several times before, thus setting a precedent.

Why was this car so cheap?  Well, there was some body damage.  One front headlight was smashed, the hood had a small wrinkle, and the bumper was missing a piece of the surround along with a headlight washer.  The passenger side of the body had a couple of small scrapes.  None of which worried me, for this was going to be a race car!

The engine fired smoothly, but had not been maintained well. There was an oil leak at the valve cover, and the battery did not hold a charge very well.  Also, a wheel bearing was howling.  Fine, I figured, this engine was not that different from the one in the S4 (except the turbo) and it would be easy to sort everything out.

So I ordered some parts (gaskets, plugs, bearing, etc.), found a used hood, and parked the car in the garage until I had the time to deal with it.

I swiped this pic, I would never use a pink pine tree air freshener. I’m a vanillaroma kind of guy….

Mine was Tornado Red with a black leather interior.  Obviously, these came in a variety of exterior colors, but several interior colors were also available; I’ve personally seen them in black, gray, tan, green, and even in blue.  Woe to the guy who needs a trim piece for a blue interior …

These are closely related to the 80/90 four-door-only body style, which also became the basis for the original Audi Cabriolet that came along later in the 90s. U.S.-market cars had the V6 and front-wheel-drive.

They all were pretty much loaded. My car had everything but the Pearl White paint, although the used hood I bought actually WAS Pearl White!  Every car had leather, genuine Zebrano wood inlays, a steel sunroof (and later, a glass moonroof), a trip computer, power everything, etc.   Options were limited to eight-way power seats with driver-side memory, a Cold Weather Package comprising heated front seats, windshield washer nozzles and door locks, and Pearl White Metallic paint.  While on the subject of heated items, all early quattros (before 1995 or so) had the “quattro” logo incorporated into the rear window defroster element, which means that on a frosty day the first thing that appears is a large logo at the bottom of the rear window.  Sounds weird, I know, but still very cool to an Audi geek like me…

One interesting feature also found on other Audis of this vintage is a dash switch that turns off the ABS.  Audi figured that under certain conditions (i.e., packed snow or gravel), locked wheels will actually help the car stop faster due to a “wedge”  that builds up under the locked wheels as the car slides.  Once you turned it off, it stayed off until you either pushed the switch again or turned the car off and then restarted it.

Wheels were nice-looking Speedline six-spokes, tires were 205/60-15, brakes were discs all around, and included the previously-mentioned defeatable ABS. Supposedly, top speed was around 135 mph (electronically limited, I believe), and fuel economy came in around 18/24 mpg. All that weight, plus the high torque peak, hurts…

All of them were fitted with a five-speed manual; an automatic was not offered.  The full-time AWD was a TORSEN system (TORque SENsing), which could split power up to a 78/22 to either the front or back; under normal conditions, the split was 50/50.  The rear diff could also be locked via a button that self-disengaged at a set speed, just like in my S4.  These cars did understeer (as did most Audis, until recently) since the engine center was forward of the front axle, resulting in a 58/42% front/rear weight distribution.

I figured out that my car was a very early build as it did not have any air bags (they were added later in 1990), and did have the gorgeous exhaust header like the one pictured above.  All five tubes, which are 800 mm long and 40 mm in diameter, merge into a common flange before connecting to the down pipe.  Very quickly, Audi switched to a not nearly as attractive (but presumably much cheaper) header.

This engine is known as the Audi “7A” engine. Over here it was used only in this car and its sister sedan, the Audi 90 quattro 20v, which also is quite rare and was sold for only two years.  I may not be as up on exactly which engines were used in a 1978 Cutlass Cruiser, but get me jabbering about older Audi products and you can’t shut me up…

These cars are also popular candidates for engine swaps, which most commonly utilized the Audi “3B” engine and the Audi “AAN” engine from the 1991 Audi 200 Quattro five-speed, and the 1992-1995.5 Audi S4/S6, respectively.  Both are turbocharged five-cylinder,  20-valve engines, with the ignition (distributor vs. coil-on-plug) being the main difference.

In Europe, this was offered from the factory as the S2.  That engine obviously overcomes the stock power-to-weight deficit.  Many people retrofit the hood and bumper from the later cabriolet, as it has the updated clamshell design of the post-1992 Euro-market Coupes.

You’re probably thinking that this seems more of a Curbside Classic post than a Cars Of A Lifetime post.  The truth is that soon after I got it, we found out we were having a baby.  I shifted into high gear, gutting and replacing the kitchen and bathroom in our 1920s-era house, finishing a couple of days before Piper was born.  After that, there was really no time to pursue the project.

When the Alcan 5000 Rally in which I was going to take part came and went, in early 2004, I decided I wouldn’t be getting around to doing anything with the car, especially since it was now one of five (yes I had picked up another in the meantime, which we’ll discuss next week.)

I plugged in the battery charger, got it firing and placed an ad asking more money than I had in the car.  A few days later, I got a call and a guy my age came over.  After I explained the whole story to him, he wanted to drive the car with me along for the ride.  We drove it for 24 miles, which just about doubled the miles that I’d driven it since the first time I saw it.

All told, from the time I first saw it to the time it disappeared down the street, the odometer showed I’d added just 47 miles over two years.  I hope the new owner likes it–I know I smiled every time I went into the garage and saw it. And I still love the shape which, to my eyes, hasn’t grown old at all.

(First Posted Sept. 29, 2013)  Working in San Francisco during the dotcom era, I had a job that I found boring but that allowed me a lot of time to surf the internet without any hassle.  Of course I spent much of that time visiting car forums, looking at car ads, etc.  At the time I still had my 1993 Audi S4 and always kept an eye out for what I really wanted…

…A 1995 or 1995.5 Audi S6 Avant.  While they did come up for sale from time to time, mostly they were either nowhere near me, had a very large number of miles, or the color was not right.  Then, one day, I finally found it.  Being sold by Sunset Porsche-Audi in Beaverton, Oregon, was the perfect car.

But first, a bit of history.  Audi had sold the S4 between 1992 and 1994, then when the Audi 100 was slightly updated and renamed the Audi A6, the S4 was renamed the S6 (which made sense since the A4 was being introduced for the 1996 model year in the US).  However, as a bonus, Audi also decided to sell the S6 Avant (Audi-speak for wagon) over here.

Why 1995.5?  Well, as of 1996 all cars sold here were required to be OBDII-compliant.  Audi knew that a new A6 was around the corner and did not want to do the necessary modifications just for this market for what was a very low-volume model.  Hence, the S6 was sold here as a 1995 and after that model year, continued to be sold as a 1995.5 through 1996.

There are 1996 and even 1997 S6’s in Canada, but not in the US.  This was also the last car that was sold with Audi’s turbo 5-cylinder engine, the roots of which go back to the late 70’s, even though in recent years there has again been a different 5-cylinder turbo available in some higher-end TT models.

As far as the Avant goes, it is one of the rarest Audi’s ever sold over here.  A total of 435 were sold over the two years in North America.  Sticker price was just over $50,000 when new and the wagons command a premium on the used car market to this day relative to the sedan version.

Like the sedans, over here they were all 5-speed manuals, with a 5-cylinder 20V turbocharged engine producing 227hp and 258lb-ft of torque that is easily modifiable to well into the 300’s for both numbers without much effort at all.  They came pretty much loaded, the wagons all even included the rear-facing bench that flipped up from the cargo area floor.

There were some minor differences between the 95’s and the 95.5’s on top of all the minor body changes after 1994, most notably to do with the central locking and some minor differences in the dashboard, but also the ABS system was updated to a newer version as well as later cars not having the locking rear differential but gaining a very nice 3-spoke Audi Sport steering wheel that is a popular upgrade to older models.  The easiest way to tell the year is to look for the little nub on the outside of the driver side B-pillar, if it is there it’s a 1995 or earlier car, it has to do with the central locking.

Back to mine – the one I found was Black with Ecru leather and was being offered for around $22,000.  It had 61,000 miles on it and was a one-owner car which had been serviced exclusively at the selling dealership until being traded in on a Porsche.  The car looked fantastic in the pictures and after speaking with a salesman over the phone, everything still sounded good.

I was a bit nervous about buying it without actually seeing it, so I posted a request on the Audifans page for someone in the area who could eyeball it for me.  Very quickly a person in Portland said he’d be happy to do so the next day.  Well, he called me from the lot and basically said if I did not buy it, then he was going to figure out a way to get the money together himself, there was nothing at all wrong with the car, it was like new and visually flawless.

So I called the salesman, we haggled for a bit and in the end I paid around $21,000 for the car.  I put a deposit down via credit card and told him I’d be up on Saturday morning.  I discussed it with my friend Jim and we decided the best thing to do would be to rent a car to drive up from the Bay Area after work on Friday and then get the car and drive back on Saturday.   Which we did, we ended up arriving at the dealership around 5am, it was just getting light, and after walking around the lot we realized the car was locked up inside.

So we napped in the rental and waited for the dealership to open.  Once they did, we went in, introduced ourselves and looked the car over.  It was as described and would not have looked out of place on their new-car showroom floor, it was that clean. The salesman gave me a copy of all of the receipts and had someone top up the coolant as it was a hair low and after doing the paperwork we headed off with the car, first to the airport to drop the rental off and then back South on I-5 towards home.

As an aside, most of the pictures here are from a recent for sale ad for someone else’s car.  My friend Jim saw it and alerted me to it and we both spent some time trying to figure out if it was my actual car.  It turns out it was not but the car is absolutely identical in every aspect to mine.  If you go back to my S4 post from a few weeks ago, my S6 can be seen lurking in the background in several pictures.

I was just in seventh heaven, the car was gorgeous and drove fantastic.  Obviously very similar to my ’93 S4 but different in a few ways, the wagon body has a different rear suspension which reacts slightly differently and of course my S4 had been fairly heavily modified.  When we stopped for lunch, we noticed a slight puddle under car, which turned out to be coolant.  Both of us owning these cars, we popped the hood and quickly realized it was coming from the auxiliary water pump, which continues to circulate coolant throughout the engine after shutdown and has a history of cracking at the connections and requiring replacement.

Since the level was still fine, we continued and made it home without incident.  Monday morning I ordered a new pump, which I installed a couple of days later in a matter of minutes.  It is SO nice to work on a car with which you are familiar and knowing how to do a repair that you had to do on a previous one.  I guess the only thing better is not having to do the repair in the first place!

Over the next few weeks I transferred the turbo, manifold, ECU, Porsche brakes, larger wheels and the other items I had modified on my S4 to the S6 and sold the S4 since that was the deal I had struck with my wife.  Truth be told, having five cars and a motorcycle was a little much for the two of us (plus baby) in a small house without any land and it was time to whittle down the fleet a bit.

The car looked great and performed exceptionally well.  However, over the next year I realized I missed the S4.  While I loved the wagon and couldn’t believe the condition it was in, I was still commuting over the bridge and parking it in San Francisco.  I lived in some fear of getting dinged or scratched and/or deteriorating the car; nowadays I am pretty much over those kinds of things (it’s just a car!) but at the time this car was (to me) something of a preservation item.

I’m not sure if a lot of people will understand this mindset, you have to be a diehard fan of something in particular and know that there are not many like it (although the populace at large would not care at all).  I was also hesitant to drive around in this car with our baby, mainly because I realized how messy the other cars had become and she had a bit of a penchant for car sickness at the time.

The other thing was that while I had always been supremely comfortable in the S4, to be honest this S6 felt a bit different sitting in it.  After checking around, it appeared that Audi had changed the type of leather on the surface of the seats and also apparently mounted the seats slightly higher on the newer cars.  It just did not feel like the same kind of “pocketed” seating feel that I was used to even though the seats were comfortable and technically there was nothing wrong with it.

Eventually I came to realize that while I loved the car, it was time to move on.  Between the nagging  fear of somehow messing it up somehow and the fact that in the end I did like the old S4 better (for no objective reason), I ended up taking off most of the modifications and selling them on eBay for significantly more than I had paid for them (yay to currency exchange fluctuations over time!) and advertised the car for sale.  Fairly soon another Audi fan from the San Jose area came up, looked the car over, couldn’t find any faults and in the end paid me slightly more than I had paid for the car two years prior.

(First Posted October 6, 2013)  As usual I was looking for cars again after selling the Audis…What would it be this time?  I was commuting across the Bay Bridge, so it needed to be comfortable and nice to drive and I was ready for an automatic again.  I recall testing an Acura 3.5RL, a BMW X5, and several other cars but then at the Acura dealer as we were pulling away I saw a nice looking silver car in the front row…

A 2002 Jaguar X-Type.  Ooh, purdy!  One owner, Platinum over Charcoal leather,  just over 20k miles.  I loved the styling, especially the way the headlights looked with the hood kind of draping over them.  The snob in me also really liked the leaper on the hood.  Still, a Jag?  Can’t be reliable.  But worth a test drive which turned out to be very pleasant.  The car had decent grunt, the engine was smooth, the handling capable.  Still, we walked away that day.

Over the next couple of days I read everything I could find about the car and at that time it was still fairly positive.  Everyone seemed to be lauding Jaguar’s new little car, liking the AWD, and while explaining the roots as being from the Ford Mondeo, not seeing much issue with that.  So we looked at it again and I ended up buying it for about $21,000.

Let me tell you, it is a great feeling driving something you don’t see every five minutes.  The car felt very solid, smelled better than any other car I have had before or since, and seemed to be very refined.  Over time these cars ended up getting decontented a bit, but 2002 was the first year and even our 2.5 “base” model had a bevy of niceties.

An excellent and extremely aromatic leather interior, a huge swath of gorgeous wood fronting the dash, power everything of course, and a 5-speed automatic transmission with the standard AWD as well as airbags everywhere including side curtains ones that were not nearly as ubiquitous then as they are today were all included, the only option in the list above being the automatic; yes, a 5-speed manual was available and was actually standard equipment on these cars.

Sitting in the driver’s seat facing the dash, the gauges were extremely nice to look at.  Finished in dark green on early models with thin white lines and a nice simple type face, they were very easy to read and attractive.  The door panels felt solid and the doors closed with a nice thunk.

Moving to the back seat was more of the same.  The seats felt great, it was relatively roomy back there and the baby seat fit just fine.  We drove the car all over the place, rain or shine (or snow in the mountains) and it was very pleasant.

Commuting was good as well, the engine purred nicely, pulled well (but I could see how one would be attracted to the larger, more powerful 3-liter version, especially at higher altitudes) and the full time AWD with a 60/40 rear/front torque split lent the car a secure feeling without losing the rear-wheel drive feel that many other AWD cars seem to experience.

Allison and I ended up sharing the car probably about 50/50; she started working as a Realtor (like many other Californians in the early 2000’s) and this was a good car to show people around in the nicer neighborhoods of the Bay Area.

Looking back on the car it is funny how much negative press the car gets nowadays.  Many people seem to deride it as being based on a Mondeo, in actuality most parts are distinct, but I never felt that being based on a mass-market car was the badge of shame it is made out to be.  Frankly many people who don’t like it seem to have never driven one or even been in one.  Many others wax rhapsodic about any European offering which we never got, including the Mondeo (Yes I know about the Contour/Mystique, not exactly the same car/generation).  Go figure.  The grass is always greener etc., I guess.

Jaguar’s goal was obviously to make some inroads with the A4/3-series/C-class crowd.  Going by the numbers they failed, the car never sold in the numbers envisioned.  They probably tarnished the marque a bit as well by running several $299/month lease specials as well.  A few years after the car was launched, they even made a wagon version, which I personally find to be extremely attractive, in fact it is one of my favorite car shapes of the last 20 years.  The mother of one of my son’s classmates currently has one and I always admire it when I see it.

The engine in our car was a 2.5 liter V6, apparently unique to the X-Type but derived from the Ford Duratec family of engines.  It featured variable valve timing, 4 valves per cylinder, and produced 192hp at 6800 rpm with 180 ft-lbs of torque at 3000 rpm.  The transmission was made by JATCO in Japan.

All X-Types were built in Halewood, England, which was originally a Ford plant, but given over to Jaguar when the X-Type began production.  In later years, the Land Rover Freelander was built there as well.

Our car was extremely reliable.  It was covered under a bumper to bumper warranty up to 4 years / 50,000 miles which we never had occasion to use.  The servicing of the car was covered by Jaguar for the same period and my wife still to this day has fond memories of how well she was treated every time she took the car in, in fact she has asked for another Jaguar several times just based on the service experience!  I took it to British Motorcars (the SF dealer closest to my work at the time) a couple of times myself and had to concur, it really was a great experience, leagues above anything else I had experienced before.

I’m not one of those people who is always washing their car, in fact I would probably fit in very well in Eugene, OR in that regard, but this car was one of those rare cars where it was a delightful experience.  It’s hard not to sound like some sort of freak, but the curves of a Jaguar, especially over the headlights on this one, are simply fun to wash.  As a result this car stayed cleaner than most of our others.  My current ride is the only car that I’ve enjoyed washing more, but that story will have to wait a while longer…

Not that it was all tales of fun and frolicking, there were bad times as well, however none were the car’s fault or mechanical in nature.  Once Allison was pulling into a parking spot with a bit of gusto and somehow got too close to the rear step bumper of a large pickup truck, heavily denting the right rear door and fender.  A few days after that the front left corner picked up a heavy scrape from our rock wall.  Our insurance company picked up the rear damage and we paid the body shop a discounted rate to fix the front at the same time.  It looked good as new when it came back, thank goodness.

Our daughter, who I have mentioned was prone to carsickness, did not find this car to be a cure for that.  I specifically recall an incident of projectile vomiting on the way back from Lake Tahoe in the curvy section coming down the hill.  Not a fun thing to try to clean at the roadside several hours from home but I suppose it is one of those “essential parenting experiences”.  All hail cave-like solid black European interiors for ease of cleaning!  (My apologies if you are reading this over Sunday breakfast, and yes, I felt similar at the time to how you do right now).

Another time, while we still lived in Oakland, some neighborhood kids thought it might be fun to see what happened if they threw a rock at the car.  Well, the window shattered.  Getting it replaced was not difficult bit picking the hundreds of little pieces of glass out of the interior sucked.

Although the car was great, I did start to get nervous about the time the warranty was getting close to running out.  That is what constantly reading internet forums dedicated to your car will do for you.  In the end Allison’s parents were looking for another car and ended up buying it from us.  They put another 50,000 miles on it before replacing it, however they never had any issues either, just a mechanic that frankly was taking them to the cleaners every time it needed servicing.  There is nothing special about the technology on this car that should make it more expensive to repair or maintain than the average car.

I recall one weekend about two years after they bought it we met them in Las Vegas, we had flown and they had driven the car.  I ended up driving it that weekend looking at condos and the temperature was a record 125 degrees Fahrenheit.  The car did not break a sweat, but we sure did!

A week after they had agreed to buy it but before they had picked it up, we took it to a local mechanic for something minor, I do not recall what it was exactly. However when it was ready they asked my wife to back it out of their shop (which is weird in and of itself), as she did, somehow one of the mechanics let the rollup door slam down on top of the car and then quickly lifted it back up.  She got out and since she is short could not really see the top but was assured it was fine.

When I got home I immediately noticed the large dent with two square edges across the roof of the car.  She explained what happened and I called the owner of the repair shop who denied everything.  I kind of lost my temper and suggested that my wife show the car to her entire mom’s group and explain what happened and why they should not take their cars to that mechanic.  He then agreed to look at the car again, and after looking at the roof, measuring the bottom of his door and speaking with his mechanic agreed to pay for a paintless dent repair place to remove the headliner and fix the damage.  After a day’s work it was perfect again and it went down to Orange County to the in-laws who were none the wiser.

Maybe I’m the only one, but our Jaguar never left us stranded, the electrical system was flawless, the car was a pleasure to drive and own, and overall I would not refuse to own another.  (But it would definitely be the wagon next time)!

I was walking across the Home Depot parking lot the other evening when I noticed something a little amiss out of the corner of my eye regarding the Olds Ciera parked up front.  Once I turned my head completely, whoa!  This called for a slight detour on your behalf, my faithful readers.

It’s very likely that the owner of this car had a little (or maybe not so little) mishap during one of the more recent snow events.  Replacing the front end with new parts would be expensive, and looking for and scavenging used parts from a Pull-Your-Part wrecker would involve laying on the ground in the cold, which is only comfortable and desirable for our Canadian CC contributors.  For us more civilized (and softer) folk down here, why not just fashion something from the goods on aisles 12, 22, and 31 at the local Home Depot instead?

The 2×6 bumper beam is probably just as solid as whatever was there before.  The pieces of masonite siding as lighting backer plates I’m not too sure about holding up while careening down I-25 at 75-80mph but maybe it’s just a local driver; however the dual ratchet straps holding this assembly over the hood are likely solid enough.  As a bonus they kind of look like dual black metal banana slug hood ornaments.  Hopefully the Olds doesn’t burn oil, un- and re-strapping might be a little annoying, but judging by how many of these are still plying the roads of the American Midwest there don’t seem to be too many maintenance and longevity issues.

The wicked-looking 3″ screws are probably overkill but at least they aren’t pointed the other way.  Perhaps a proper bolt and nut setup (hardware on aisle 5) would be an improvement.  A couple of zip-ties (available on aisle 8) to tame the wiring would go a long way towards possibly making this a Mr. Goodwrench approved modification.  Or perhaps just Homer approved.  Extra style points should be awarded regarding how the owner managed to mount the whole thing using what appear to be the original bumper brackets.

I did walk around the back to be sure there wasn’t a matching rear setup, however it all appears stock, although this may be the first trailer hitch I’ve ever seen on a Ciera.  In any case, this sight made my late night shopping trip a little less mundane, have any of you seen any “creative” repairs lately?

(First Posted October 13, 2013)  With the Volvo V40’s lease being up soon, and a general desire for something with more space, we started to consider our options for our next car.  Living in Lafayette, CA, a somewhat upscale East Bay suburb, there were a lot of large SUV’s roaming the landscape.  We were with small child which means we were with a lot of accoutrements that generally had to go with us, so yes, a large SUV made sense on many levels, especially since we were not contemplating minivans at this point…

Soon I found what appeared to fit the bill – A 1999 Land Cruiser with only 30,000 miles for $33,000 from a private party just north of Berkeley.  I spoke with the seller and he said it did not get driven much, he commuted in a Camry and used the Land Cruiser on weekends, otherwise it was always garaged.  So far, so good.

The next day I drove to take a look.  Sure enough, both Toyota’s were in the 2-car garage (an amazing feat for a Californian, as almost nobody uses their garage for their cars.  Houses without basements naturally relegate the garage to being used as the storage unit…)

The Land Cruiser was Atlantis Blue Mica over Tan leather.  The bumpers and rub strips were a graphite color which set off the blue nicely.  The body and interior were in perfect condition.  Basically it was like new.  He had every receipt, it had only ever needed normal maintenance, no accidents, exactly what we were looking for.  I drove it, but even before then was pretty sure I would be buying it.  Sure enough, five minutes later I found myself haggling the price down to $31,500 and promised to come back the next day with a cashier’s check after leaving a deposit.

The next day was the big day.  We transferred the title, handed over the check, and I drove back home in our new car, uh, truck.  Oh what a feeling!  Driving the Land Cruiser after a few years of relatively low cars was like being Captain Stubing on the Bridge of the Pacific Princess.  A panoramic view with a feeling of steering a very large piece of machinery beneath you.  Every switch clicked with that Toyota precision, every dial rotated with the right resistance, the seats were as comfy as a La-Z-Boy with armrests to fold down into position.

The generation of Land Cruiser is known as the 100-series.  In the U.S. it was introduced in 1998 with a new V8 engine; a first for the Land Cruiser.  The engine is the 4.7liter that was eventually used in various other large Toyotas, here it was relatively low-powered with 228HP at 4800rpm but 302 lb-ft of torque at a still relatively high 3400rpm.  The vehicles weighed over 5000 pounds so it definitely took a bit of a push of the accelerator to get it going.  But it would definitely go once the engine was on the boil.  Alas, it did require premium unleaded which I find a bit ridiculous for something of this size (and thirst).

One thing I noticed and eventually looked up was that the badges looked dark-colored.  Everyone is familiar with those hideous “Gold packages” that were all the rage once upon a time, it turns out that Toyota also had a factory option for the “Black Pearl Package” which is what ours had. I have to say that although I would not spend the money on it from the options list when new, it did look nice.

Land Cruisers sit pretty high, my wife at 5’2” obviously used the running boards and the grab handle to get in, but I also found myself using both items regularly and I am almost a foot taller.  Once inside, you sit surrounded by nice leather, a smattering of good looking wood trim, and a sea of buttons, dials and displays.  Everything falls right to hand.

The back seat is also very roomy and then there is a somewhat unconventional third row that is split in half and when not in use can be folded up against the sides of the cargo area.  We ended up removing them and storing them in the garage most of the time, they weigh a LOT and are somewhat of a bear to schlep around.  Folded up they still took up a large chunk of the cargo area as well.  Below is a picture with them installed.

We only ever had two things go wrong with it, the first was an oxygen sensor.  I didn’t want to deal with it so I told my wife to just have the dealer fix it when she was having the oil changed.  I won’t be making that mistake ever again as the bill was over $400.  The other item was a taillight bulb, this is a common Land Cruiser malady, and in our case it was one of the tailgate lights that was out.  It was simple to take the trim panel off and soon we were all lit up again!

This is the same vehicle that the Lexus LX470 is based on, the differences being mainly in the grade of leather inside and the suspension tuning along with a few cosmetic doodads.  I realized that the wheels on our Land Cruiser are actually the Lexus ones, I have no idea how that happened or when, perhaps the prior owner had them swapped or something.

Interestingly, the median income of the Land Cruiser buyer (from new) was higher than that of the Lexus buyer and was the highest of any Toyota model.  I assume those people sent the hired help to get it serviced as the service experience was generally abysmal.  Well, the actual service was fine, but the average Toyota dealer’s service waiting area left something to be desired.  A far cry from the Jaguar dealer’s service area, that’s for sure.

We had it around the time of Hurricane Katrina, and were shocked by the increase in gas prices in the Bay Area at the time.  Now they are even higher of course but that was the first modern-day shock to the average SUV driver’s wallet and many people dumped their guzzlers soon after.  We tried to take it in stride but definitely planned our trips a bit better.

It was not helpful that the Land Cruiser was the best way to get our daughter to nap, so there were plenty of 20-mile drives to nowhere in the afternoons (Average of $7 per trip in gas I am ashamed to say I calculated).  This was also when I switched jobs and began a 42-mile each way commute so I was not going to drive this thing for that.

We did use it to visit the in-laws for holidays in Southern California several times, the dog rode along comfortably in the back, our daughter was in her carseat, the luggage and stroller(s) rode in the other side of the backseat and in the cargo box we had on the roof.  It was a great road trip car except for the thirst. Around town it would get between 12 and 14mpg the way my wife drove it, and on the highway maybe into the high teens.

It was VERY nice to be able to lift our kid into her seat more or less laterally, putting a baby or small kid into a normal car and then reaching around to faster their belt(s) is very hard on the back and not appreciated by those that haven’t had to deal with all the car seats / child carriers etc.  Yes, a minivan makes it even easier somehow, but we were not (yet) ready to give in to that.

I once responded to an ad on Craigslist offering a free Keter plastic 6×6 garden shed, free for the taking, similar to the picture above.  Since we could make good use of such an item I immediately called, told the guy I was coming over, for some reason decided to take our daughter, and drove all the way to San Rafael on the other side of the San Francisco Bay.

Once we got there I realized that the shed was much larger than I had envisioned (not sure what I was thinking), the panels were all about 3’x7’ in size and there were many of them.  Since my daughter was in the back seat, I folded the other side down and then jammed a bunch of the panels in next to her.  However there were still several panels left, so we tied them to the roof.  It ended up being a large stack well over a foot tall, all held down with basically a thick twine.  Needless to say it was a total nightmare getting back home.

I took back roads the entire way, except I was forced to take the San Rafael Bridge across the Bay, which we did at 40mph with the hazard lights on as the panels were flapping and slapping around on the roof rack and I was very concerned that they would come off.  After about a 2-hour return trip in total, we made it back and I reassembled the shed in our yard, where it presumably still stands today.

Eventually we moved closer to my work, going from a 42 mile commute to a 2 mile commute was heaven.  The only problem was that our new house had a bizarre S-shaped driveway along with being on a grade on a very narrow street and was extremely difficult for many people to navigate backwards.  That along with a large garage that had dual single doors in it made my wife very nervous about damaging the car to the point that she decided she wanted something smaller.  (Note to regular readers of this COAL series – take note of the garbage cans in the picture above, they will make an important follow-up in a couple of months…)

It took several months to sell the Toyota, not because anything was wrong with it (it was still in excellent shape, somehow) but rather that nobody was looking to buy something this large with gas prices the way they were in California.  Eventually a guy came by and bought it for his son for $23,000, we were quite happy to have gotten that much for it at the time.

It’s a shame they never offered these over here with the turbodiesel available elsewhere, it really would have been a great overall truck then, but in fairness when it debuted gas was still cheap.  In the meantime the Sequoia has taken over the Land Cruiser’s price point and the Land Cruiser’s sticker price is now firmly in Range Rover territory, which is probably appropriate.

Show of hands, who checked out the Cadillac Seville STS before looking more closely at the white car?  You’re a true CC’er.  But this post is about the white, ahem, excuse me, “Morning Frost” car – a sight that was completely unexpected on 3rd Street (Hwy 287) in downtown Laramie this Friday morning.

I figured that for many of us this might be the only time we ever get to see one of these, and there is no need to wait twenty years before someone sees one curbside somewhere.  While Aston’s aren’t really “rare” anymore, what is rare is a new one that doesn’t look exactly like every other has has looked like for the last two decades.  While they are all pretty, they have also become pretty familiar, so the slightly less subtle changes they have been making (at least to the rear and sides) are welcome. Progress, dontcha know…

Traffic was mighty thick this morning (at least five cars visible in total) and moved exactly at the 30mph limit.  We all drove in lockstep for about seven or eight traffic lights but I was never able to get any closer to or in front of the Aston.  I did hear it taking off impatiently every time only to be thwarted at the next light.  The lights in Laramie do seem to be timed, but timed so they turn red every time you approach one.

I spent a little time on the Aston Martin website this evening and still cannot figure out how to tell if this particular example is powered by a twin-turbo V8 producing 503 hp or the twin-turbo V12 producing 608hp.  I did see that the starting price for the (relatively) poverty-spec twin-turbo V8 is an eye-watering $198,995.  Plus destination, I assume.

What is interesting is that Aston actually offers their cars in a wide range of attractive colors including blue, red, green, and many others.  Of course “some people” still pick the white one, just like their plumber’s van.  It’s alright, I’m just a little jelly…

However, I’m not nearly as impressed by supercars as I used to be, nor do I really aspire to ever own one anymore, but I do like and appreciate that this person chose something a little out of the ordinary.  Aston Martin obviously has a very rich history and has produced some absolutely stunning and iconic vehicles (don’t look up the Cygnet).

Choosing one, I believe, does set you aside from the norm at least a little bit relative to the more “normal” choices such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, and perhaps some of the more rarified Porsches I suppose.  Then again, this one might just be rounding out the collection.

Actually, upon reflection, I take that bit about not aspiring to own one back a little bit.  If I had to replace my Porsche and I wanted something vaguely similar but different that fulfilled the same purpose and I had a bit more money to spend, I think I could make do (oh, the suffering!) with a decade-old Aston Martin Vantage V8 like the one pictured above.  It’s simply about the looks.  As with the Porsche I could easily find myself in the garage sitting on a stool just looking at it.  The bonus of course is that if you’re happy doing that, there is no worry about things breaking when driving it…

Outfitted with temporary plates from the State of Tennessee, our subject car has seen a great roadtrip of around 1300 miles so far; I assume it drove up Hwy 287 just like I did this morning and it kept going north on Hwy 287 after I made my turn to go hang some cabinets and continue working on some drywall issues in my rental property with two houses on it that cost a lot less than this car did…Granted, however, the Aston looks in better shape (currently).

I’m not entirely sure where Hwy 287 goes beyond downtown Laramie, but it’s likely that the ultimate destination for this car is nearby as I-25  and I-80 will take you to more major metropolitan areas far more efficiently and almost as scenic as where this road goes…Then again, it could just be an international student at the University of Wyoming just like at many other campuses these days.

Oh, and as for the Seville STS, I’ll keep an eye out for it, Laramie apparently has more Cadillacs than I gave it credit for.  Great green color, too!

(First Posted October 20, 2013)  I used to play a game on Craigslist.  Ok, OK, I’ll be honest, I still do.  I will search “Cars For Sale – By Owner” and put in a price range from $10-$1000.  Then I will see what pops up that is interesting.  Then repeat for $1001-$2000 and so on.  It’s a good way to keep up on top of the used market but every once in a while you see something you didn’t want to see…

And so it went with me.  Back when I had my 1986 VW GTI, the next step up was the 16v version of the same car.  (Actually, at that time, VR6 swaps were getting press, but I digress).  Anyway, even though I loved my GTI, I would always stare hard at any 16v that drove by.  More power is always better, right?

So one day, many years later, I saw an ad for a 1988 VW GTI 16v for around $1,400.  The miles were under 100k, the car seemed OK in the ad.  I called my buddy Jim for his opinion.  As always he said to go for it (that’s why I like calling him for advice), weirdly enough, he was looking for a project GTI of his own, but an older 8v like the one I had.  So I drove to where the seller was and took a look and a drive.

You all know where this is going, I rarely see a car I don’t like, so some money (less than asking) changed hands and the car was mine.  The next day I got my wife to drive me back and I picked it up.  I have no pictures of my car, everything here is from the ‘net, it is almost impossible to find good pix of a stock one of these!  (Funny though that my other GTI kept popping up on Google from the old COAL a few months back).

When VW introduced the Mk2 GTI in 1985, they only offered it in 8v guise over here.  However, the Scirocco was already available as a 16v and it was an obvious upgrade path.  Sure enough, in 1987 VW dropped the 16v engine into the GTI and now had a 2-model range with the older GTI getting decontented into a VW GT (no “I” in the title, but the same old 8v engine but losing its rear discs along with some other changes).

The engine was a DOHC 1.8l four-cylinder with a 16-valve head.  It produced 123hp at 5800rpm (a gain of 21, which sounds ludicrous today), 120lb-ft of torque at 4250rpm and still had the somewhat notchy but close-ratio 5-speed manual transmission, no automatic available at any price.

The additional power was nice but in reality the 8v’s torque curve was better, so people are torn as to which they prefer. With just under 2300 pounds to haul around, both these engines do just fine, and the handling is superb to boot.

The 16v got more changes than just the engine.  The antenna became one of those cool at the time stingers at the rear of the roof, and the area under the bumpers was painted black.  The wheels were the “teardrop” alloys and the tires were wider (205/55-14).  Two new colors debuted, a Blue Mica as well as a Dark Red Mica.  Mine, however was the ubiquitous Tornado Red.

Inside, the seats were a different pattern with a velour cloth seating area reminiscent of the original US GTI (’83-’84) but with black vinyl bolsters.  The steering wheel was a retrograde change, replacing the very nice older 4-spoke with the four round horn buttons was a different 4-spoke with a hideous center portion, the texture of which did not match the surrounding texture one whit  (VW had the same issue in many of its models in the late 80’s and early 90’s).  At least it was leather-wrapped.

Options included AC, sunroof, cruise control (rare), a couple of radio choices, a power window/lock/mirror package (extremely rare), metallic paint and that dealer favorite, floor mats.

Other than that, pretty much the same.  Even the headlights were still the square ones, the double-rounds would not be installed for several more years, but was always a popular upgrade.

So what did I do with mine?  Mainly just drove it around for fun and enjoyed the nostalgia of owning a car very similar to one I’d already had but supposedly improved upon.  It did need a few things – as with my old one, the seat bolster was worn out on the driver’s side.  Back on Craigslist I found a guy about an hour away that was unloading a set of seats the same as mine.

Of course his had the same issue on the driver’s side but the passenger’s was good.  So I met him halfway (literally and figuratively) and took the passenger seat off his hands.  Back at home I disassembled my driver’s seat and the new seat and mix and matched the best of both to create a much better seat for myself.

This MAY have been an easier way to get to the waterpump…

The temperature gauge would get to reading higher than it should as well and I noticed some coolant loss. Eventually I traced it to the waterpump so I ordered a new one.  That was a job and a half – since my car had AC, the compressor had to be moved and various other items removed leaving still almost no access to replace the waterpump.  It took me a couple of days in my garage but eventually I managed it.  Problem solved.

The smallest problem was one that occurs on many of these VW’s (and Audi’s too, same part) – the locator clip for the hood rod was broken.  At the dealer I looked at one and decided I was not going to pay the $4 charge he wanted for a tiny piece of plastic.  I found a place online that had them for about 25c each.  Along with oil filters and a couple of other maintenance parts I needed another couple of dollars of parts to get the free shipping.  So I just ordered about ten of the clips. Then at work I posted one on eBay for $3, shipping included.  It sold within minutes.  So I posted the rest and sold them, sticking them in an envelope with first-class letter postage.

I then contacted the vendor and asked him how many he had and would a volume discount be possible.  In the end I bought several hundred for about a dime each and sold about a hundred on eBay before getting bored of the whole thing.  The money went into my daughter’s college fund.  I actually still have a couple of bags full of clips, if anyone wants one (or a dozen) let me know!  (I know, I must stop hoarding this stuff, I can’t believe I moved it halfway across the country a few years ago) – Update 3/18/18:  I still have them, in fact a bag is on my desk right now as you read this.  I’m well in the money on them at this point, so getting rid of them is a low priority.  Then again, college is looming for my oldest so maybe I need to reactivate that ebay account after all.

Anyway, the GTI was a nice diversion away from the “grown-up” cars we currently had in the stable but with work, a house and a family, it eventually got less and less use.  One day while moving the cars around in the driveway again I realized I’d gotten out of it what I wanted and placed an ad, it sold fairly quickly and is a fun footnote on my car list…

(First Posted October 27, 2013)  After having divested myself of the fun-but-flawed GTI 16v and gotten the in-laws to agree, in principle, to purchasing the Jaguar, I once again got to go car shopping.  I knew I wanted a wagon, and was fairly certain I wanted another stick-shift–and AWD would be a bonus…

But nowhere near the bonus GM was offering in those dark days!  To be fair, I’d been a fan of the Subaru WRX for some time and was only slightly bothered by its somewhat peculira “bug-eyed” looks; however, I also was a big fan of the Mazda6 wagon, which I found very pretty.

I drove a couple of examples of each, later realizing that GM was advertising the Saab 9-2X Aero with an additional $6,000 off the previously announced discounts during their 72-hour “Toe-Tag” sale, wherein everyone got to pretend they were Rick Wagoner’s daughter on her sixteenth birthday. If one liked the WRX, the Saab now offered the same thing for less, and in a much better-looking package!

From where did this unholy spawn emerge?  Well, as we know, Saab lost its independence when it was acquired by GM.  At first, GM was sort of willing to let Saab do its thing, but that quickly came to an end.  The 9-3 became Opel Vectra-based (but still with such significantly different engineering by Saab that it is basically a very different car–which, from what I understand, angered GM.)

GM then decided to make Saab try to be everything to everyone: first by using a Chevy Trailblazer platform to make the 9-7X, and then turning the Subaru Impreza wagon (GM owned 20% of Subaru at the time) into the 9-2X and 9-2X Aero (in contemporary Saab-speak, ‘Aero’ identified top-of-the-line Saabs).

While the standard 9-2X used the naturally aspirated Subaru 2.5-liter flat four, the 9-2X Aero used the WRX’s 2.0-liter turbo mill, the main differentiation between the two versions (as with the Subaru) being the hood scoop.  The “X” in the name denoted AWD, a first for Saab.  The differences between the Saab and the Subaru are, however, much more than what appears at first glance.

For example, all sheet metal and plastic forward of the A-pillar is different, the tailgate and rear bumper are different, and so are all the lights. The rocker panels are more aggressive, and the roof does not have any rails.  Inside, the differences continue: the seats are different, the door cards have been redesigned, and there’s thicker, nicer carpeting aboard, along with extra sound-deadening and other under-the-skin items that make it quieter and more comfortable to live with.

The steering rack came from the WRX STi, and the suspension had been re-tuned–meaning that almost any mechanical accessory designed for a WRX or STi would work on this version as well.

When I went to drive it, I took my father-in-law along as he was visiting for the weekend.  I think I scared him a bit, for it was quite a powerful car for the time.  Having 227 hp at 6,000 rpm and 217 lb-ft of torque at 4,000 rpm in a 3,250-lb. package made for a sprightly little screamer of a car.  Coupled with the grip of all-wheel-drive, cloverleaf on-ramps were a fun way to spend time.

Truth be told, it was a little bit laggy–especially in the heat of a California summer, with 91-octane being the highest-octane fuel available–but so long as you kept the turbo spooled up, the good times would roll.  Soon, Subaru would increase the size of the turbo engine specifically to address that issue, and the 2006 version of the 9-2X Aero supposedly got this upgrade as well, but very few were produced for 2006 before GM ended production after selling their stake in Subaru.

The one I ended up buying was Desert Silver in color.  It is sort of a champagne shade, one that at first glance looks like the other Saab models also available in that color; however, when you put it next to a 9-3, you’ll see that it’s a slightly different shade. I am not sure if that was by design–Saab advertisements of the day featured that color across the range, so I’d have thought it all matched.  Anyway, I liked the color. It was a bit different.

Inside, either cloth or leather was available. What’s more, someone had decided it was a great idea to have black bolsters and very light colored seating surfaces…uh, not in cloth, please; I can’t even imagine trying to keep that clean.  So, I got the leather.  Mine also had 16” alloy wheels (not the optional 17”s), heated seats and Xenon headlights (which were included in the Premium package along with leather).  Other than that, they pretty much came standard with everything you’d expect.

The flat four made a great little noise and was a fun car to drive.  This was during the days of my 42-mile each way commute across the Bay, so my routine was to wake up early and drive down the hill around 4:30 AM to the bagel shop. There, the owner would open the door for me to buy two piping hot bagels straight out of the oven and a large coffee. Then I’d be on my way, ideally getting to work around 5:30 AM. The goal was to leave by 3 PM and beat the traffic on the way home, which rarely happened.

A better way to get home was to take the surface streets from I-880 up into the hills of Oakland, to Skyline Avenue, then drop into the canyon to take the back way to Moraga and Lafayette; there is a fabulously twisty (and empty) stretch of road that twists and turns, with lots of elevation change that makes it a blast to drive with a small, quick car.  In the Saab, it was wonderful, a great way to de-stress from work, and on the drive home I probably took that route at least three times a week.

I started to pick up a few accessories: a cat-back exhaust added some more of that great warbling noise of the flat-four, and an STi intercooler did a bit better at managing heat than the stock unit.  I also managed to score a set of the 17” factory alloys with tires to complete the package.

My two-year-old daughter fit into the back seat OK, and a few times we took the car to Tahoe instead of the Land Cruiser.  It did great in the snow, as expected, and was fun to drive up in the mountains.  Piper (my daughter) never vomited in it, so that was certainly a bonus!  But overall it was not a very roomy car, however with a bit of planning when packing, adequate for our stuff.

My gas mileage hovered around 20 mpg. Most of my driving was done on the freeways, but since I also spent a lot of time idling in bridge traffic or hooning through the hills, the mpg would likely be better in a more normal scenario.  The car was completely reliable, with no faults at delivery and none in the first 15,000 miles that I had the car–actually, they were the only miles I put on the car since buying it, because about eight months later I’d had enough.

The car was fun, and also a good driver, but not the perfect commuting car.  Sadly, it was not photographed much either; the best photo I could find featured only a quarter of it in the background. Hence, these pictures are of representative samples taken from the ‘net.

What it was, though, was a fantastic resale car.  Since GM had stopped offering asinine rebates on them, they commanded a premium over a WRX in the used market, due not only to their differences, but also the perception that the average 9-2X owner is a little less likely to beat on the car than the owner of a WRX.  I ended up selling the car for several thousand more than I paid for it, even including tax and registration.

It remains one of my best vehicular purchases from a monetary perspective, but even if it hadn’t been, I enjoyed my time with it. When a commute is as bad as mine was, you either need a sensory-deprivation chamber, or something fun, despite knowing that its fun characteristics could eventually grow tiring.  Cars are my passion, so frequent change is OK for me, as you’ve no doubt realized by now.

The young man I sold it to needed a ride to pick it up. In an interesting turn of events, I picked him up at his house (about forty miles away) in my new car in order to bring him to my house and hand the Saab over to him.  The interesting thing was that at first he could not understand my choice to replace the Saab, but over the course of the ride he began to appreciate and understand it…but that is a story for another day.

(First Posted November 3, 2013)  It’s weird. I very much consider myself a Ford man when it comes to the domestics,  yet my buying history puts me fairly firmly in the General’s camp.  I’m not sure why that is, but every once in a while a GM car comes along that makes an impression on me.  And so it was with this one, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way…

For several years after my friend Don moved to Chicago, it became an annual ritual to visit there and go to either the Chicago or Detroit Auto Show.  One of the Detroit years, Don had purchased a new (to him) car, a 1997 Buick Regal GS.

Even though I’d had the LeSabre T-Type previously, I didn’t pay much heed to Buick’s newer offerings; however, driving/riding in that car from Chicago to Detroit and back impressed me.  The power was plentiful, the comfort level was good and the size was right.  Oh, and the heated seats were cozy.

So, several years later while pondering what might be a good car for my long commute, I came across one for myself, this one a 1998 model  from the second year of production.  The one I found was a one-owner car whose fanatical owner had every receipt, several copies of the brochure, the window sticker and a full set of official GM shop manuals (the three-volume set) even though he went to the dealer for everything…in short, a PERFECT seller!

The car had about 50,000 miles on it, and the price was very reasonable.  We met in Palo Alto, between both of our work places, where a deal was struck quickly.  We drove to my bank, I had them draw up a cashier’s check, and then we drove back to his house in Morgan Hill (a bit of a trek), where he found the shop manuals and more brochures and insisted on filling the tank (on his dime) before I left with the title and the car.

Finished in Navy Blue (The pic makes it look purple; it was not) with a gray lower section (hey, the same as our old Land Cruiser!), this car boasted a gray-leather interior and the standard GS non-chrome alloys.  I find the shape of this fourth-generation Regal body (shared with the Century line) to be very attractive and modern, with styling that wears well to this day.  The “Regal” script on the sides is (and was, to be frank) a little passé, but otherwise I have no complaints regarding styling.

These are part of GM’s “W”-body line, and were built in the Oshawa, Ontario plant, which was (is) one of GM’s highest quality plants.  At this time Buick was always near the top of the quality charts, in no small part due to this assembly plant.  The platform was shared with the Oldsmobile Intrigue, Pontiac Grand Prix, and Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo.  Of that bunch, I think I would pick the Buick every time.

The “GS” is a storied designation that harkens back to some very memorable Buicks. At least this modern version was not totally neutered for marketing purposes–the engine is based on Buick’s successful 3800 V6, but the GS version also sports a supercharger.

Officially designated as the 3.8L L67 Series II Supercharged, it generates a stout 240 hp and 280 lb-ft of torque; it was no slouch, and could spin its (front) wheels on demand.  I suppose it goes without saying that it was equipped with an automatic, a four-speed in this case.

Inside, the GS was pretty much loaded.  The aforementioned leather seats are heated, there’s an eight-speaker sound system, dual climate controls and power everything, leaving little to be desired.  The engine sounded good, and the supercharger whine was just-enough there to let you know the engine was a bit different.  The interior, while a little plasticky, is fairly competitive for the times and attractively styled.

Driving across the Bay Area in this every morning and evening was peaceful.  Very comfortable on the freeway, but still fairly competent in the corners, it was a good high-speed commuter that also was painless when the traffic stopped.  As a bonus, a Buick Regal is pretty much invisible to the police, especially around San Francisco, which is filled with much fatter ticket-bait.

I started hanging out on the Buick Regal GS forum and realized that the car could be made even better.  It turns out that there is a handling package available for the Impala and since it is the same chassis, is a direct bolt-on for the Buick.

I decided to order it from Flow Chevrolet, one of the larger GM dealers with an internet presence that sells a lot of factory performance add-ons, and could not believe that for under $200, you got a kit with front chassis braces as well as thicker swaybars delivered.  These prices are a far cry from what you’d be paying for any import’s parts, with which I was more familiar.  The kit sat in my garage on a shelf waiting for “that day with the spare time…”

Since I was driving a fair bit, it eventually came time to buy tires, and I decided to keep it American.  What could be more American than a nice set of B.F.Goodrich Radial TA’s?  The Tire Rack delivered them quickly and my neighborhood tire shop put them on.  They looked wider than what was on the car before even though the size was the same and were all-around good tires for the price, which was very competitive.

For July 4^th of that year, I took the week off and we (myself, my wife and daughter) decided to go on a road trip.  We headed up to Mendocino County, where we spent the first night, then headed north to Ferndale where we spent another night.  We then drove through a Redwood tree (it fit!) After that we drove up the Oregon Coast, stopping in several little towns along with taking a tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Eventually we got to Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River where we stayed at a great little boutique hotel named the Cannery Pier Hotel that as the name implies was built on the old cannery pier right next to the River.  (I highly recommend a stay if you are in the area, the hotel is extremely nice).  I was quite surprised to wake up in the morning and look out to see a giant container ship passing by what seemed like only several feet away from the window!

We crossed the river and eventually made it to Seattle, long one of our favorite cities and once again had a wonderful time there, this time with our daughter.  After a couple of days, we’d had our fill and decided to take I-5 back home with a stop in Portland.  By mid-day of the second day we were back home.

The Buick was great the entire time except on the last day the turn-signal stalk stopped working but intermittently.  It was a weird issue, sometimes the signal would work, sometimes just nothing.  Obviously either a contact or a wiring issue within the stalk, I suppose.

By this time the Buick had over 80,000 miles on it and the day after we got back I decided to try placing an ad on Craigslist for a price higher than I had paid for it just to see if there was interest.  Sure enough, I quickly got a call from a guy who was thrilled to find it in the condition it was in, even with the wonky turn-signal stalk.

He ended up paying me a couple of thousand more than I had paid the year before so it worked out great for me and he was thrilled to have the car.  I still look at the Regal GS whenever I see one with fond memories; great car, good times (except for the miserable commute), but just what I needed at the time.  The formula was set for my next car.

(First Posted November 10, 2013)  I’ve always had a thing for the understated car – To wit, my Audi S4/S6’s were nothing special to those not in the know, the Saab 9-2X was a visually tamer WRX, and the Buick Regal GS, well, does the general public see a Buick and think “Supercharger”?  No.  So the 400E makes sense, let me explain…

I’d long been a fan of the W124 chassis since back when I saw my first 300E in high school around 1985. Classically elegant design, but very modern compared to the larger models at the time – but clearly building on the 190’s design language.  Built to the standard that used to define Mercedes and offered in the U.S. with 6-cylinder power and, for a while, an optional Diesel engine as well.

Then, in 1992, Mercedes decided to expand the range.  The car that got all the press was the 500E – basically a 300E with a 5-liter V8 engine, wider track (and fenders to match), many luxury features (Oh, and a price of $88,000.  In 1992.  Doh!)  However, the 500E was born along with a little brother at the same time, the 400E.  If you were willing to take a car that was externally visually identical to the 300E but still had V8 power under the hood, for $60,175 (base price in 1992) this could be yours. Over the next 4 years, 15425 buyers in the U.S. acted on that impulse.

I was perusing Craigslist again and came across this one being advertised by San Francisco Toyota of all places.  Asking $9200 the car had a total of only 32,000 miles on it!  I called, thinking it might be a typo but they confirmed it.  I then ran a CarFax and confirmed that the car was one-owner car from Belmont (the city I worked in) and had been maintained at Autobahn Mercedes, also in Belmont.  Clearly this was a car I had to see.

The next day after work I headed up to San Francisco.  The car was as described, that is, like new.  White with gray interior.  Excellent paintwork.  Flawless interior.  Gleaming chrome highlights. There was no wear on any parts that I could see, the only negative is that it was missing its floormats but the visible carpets were pristine.  Everything seemed to work fine and it drove great.  I tried to bargain them down, but they were not budging.  In the end I got a couple of hundred off but, truth be told, it did not really matter to me, it was unlikely I would find another car in the same condition anytime soon and I had gotten more for the Buick than I thought I would.

Not to sound like a snob, but there really is something special about being behind that large wheel and looking down the hood through the Mercedes hood ornament.  The car made me feel special.  The car itself felt special for that matter.  Solid, like carved from a single piece of iron.  Doors that really did close with a thunk and did not have any residual vibration afterward.  You slam the door and it shuts into place and that is that.

So what is a 400E and what differentiates is?  Well, as mentioned previously, externally it is the twin of the 300E besides the badges and a different wheel design.  Inside they all got leather (instead of the still excellent MB-Tex), the wood trim is Burl-Walnut instead of Zebrano (which I actually like better, the Zebrano looks more “real”), automatic climate control (more about that later), dual air bags, and some other goodies.

Engine-wise it sports a 4.2liter 32-valve V8 producing 268hp@5700rpm and 295lb-ft of torque at 3900.  Backing this up is a 4speed automatic with the traditional gated shifter that now everyone seems to have imitated.  With weight being just over 3800lbs, this was quite a fast car.  What is surprising though is how nimble it felt.  Once familiar with the car and anticipating its tendency to be a little slow to downshift you could very easily exploit small gaps in traffic.  Its party-piece though that I never got tired of was the way it accelerated onto a freeway.

The San Francisco peninsula has several freeway on-ramps that are very long, sometimes taking over a mile to merge with the traffic proper of which I used one all the time.  Curving onto the onramp you’d put your foot down and the engine would just start to howl with a glorious noise towards its 6000rpm redline, upshift and do it again.  The thing is the rush of power never seemed to stop.  Once on the freeway passing power was prodigious.  You could hit the throttle at 80 and get pushed back in your seat, then next thing you know, you’re doing well over 100 and at risk of heading to jail…but the car was still pulling as hard as before, you just wanted to see how much longer it would last.

Car and Driver (my 4/92 issue is in front of me) says it is clearly the 500E’s little brother but in many ways almost its equal. If you did not drive the 500E, you would not miss the additional power but the extra $27,000 in your pocket would go a long way towards tempering any remorse.  I freely admit that the 500E is something special and would still love to have one but the 400E is a true gem.

I recall that a few years earlier I had seen a 400E at an auction I used to attend and was looking at it, marveling at its condition.  Only when I got into the still pristine-looking driver seat did I notice that the example in question had over 200,000 miles on it.  Without a question, these cars were built for the long haul and with proper maintenance could last almost indefinitely.

As maintenance and repair goes, not much was needed and for what was, quality German OEM supplier parts were (and are) readily available at all sorts of inexpensive internet sites.  I recall that one day the car began to run very sluggish and was significantly down on power.  I tracked it to the dual distributors, one of which had a visible crack, so I ordered two and replaced them. They are located in a weird position (I thought) facing forward on the front of the engine but replacing them was straightforward.  For good measure I also replaced the spark plugs and the leads since if nothing else they were probably fairly old.

Another time (and this is no fault of the car of course) we were driving on the freeway and saw something small spinning through the air towards us.  Before we had time to even register the item beyond noticing it we heard a very large bang, obviously there had been an impact, but it was not obvious what had happened.  After a few seconds I realized that the passenger mirror was no longer attached to the door so we pulled over.  Turns out it was dangling by its power cord and the back was shattered as was the mirror face.

My best guess was that it was some sort of metal bar or a wrench that fell off a truck heading the other way and came over the divider.  A very scary incident, it easily could have come through the windshield.  However, half an hour of Ebay time and I was able to find another mirror painted the correct color for a reasonable sum which I installed the next week.

Those missing floormats were easy to replace with new factory items and I also ordered another key since mine only came with one for some reason.  The costs for both items were very reasonable for what I’d consider an expensive car.

I also replaced the standard 15” rims and tires for a set of 16” pseudo-AMG rims from a newer model E-class.  At the time I really liked the look, nowadays I would either stay stock as the standard items look great or go whole hog with a set of classic thick-spoke AMG alloys and lower the body a bit.  My pictures show both wheel styles so you can compare.

The early 90’s were a bit of a transition time for the E-class – 1992 was the first year for the lower side cladding.  Other than that the body was the same as before.  However in 1994 the front end changed slightly to incorporate a bodycolor frame around the grille (mine was bolted to the leading edge of the hood), the rear taillights got smoke-color turn signals and the 300E became the E320, the 400E became the E420 and the 500E became the E500 without any changes to the engines for the V8 models.

I loved the inside of the car.  The seats were so solid and constructed with actual springs inside, they just feel different than the foam-stuffed seats you get nowadays in everything.  Small quirks abounded – The button on the dash that when you hit it, the rear headrests slammed back onto the parcel shelf (so you could see better when reversing).  Putting them back up required doing it manually, no button.

The passenger side mirror was power operated.  However the driver’s side?  Manual!  I guess they figured you are sitting right there, just extend your hand and move the little wand…I loved that in that class of car, such an anachronism.

The other thing I liked was the climate control.  Mercedes for many years used these large thumb wheels.  When you had the system in “auto”, instead of nowadays in the average car where you have to stab the button 25 times to go from low to high or vice versa, you’d just hit the wheel quickly and dial it around.  What was nice is that it also controlled the fan speed, so if it was blowing too hard, you just turned the temp a bit closer to ambient and it would blow softer (or the other way around).  Very nice and probably my favorite “automatic” system ever.  (I generally can’t stand automatic climate control and usually just set them to manual, I much prefer manual controls from the get-go)…

Lastly, one of the things that Mercedes did was that no matter which version you go, you did not get a bunch of blanks for options that you did not get.  There are dozens of variations of center console panels, no button meant that you did not get a cutout for it.  Nice but no doubt expensive.

When I got the car in 2005 we were still living in Lafayette with my 42-mile each way commute.  Within a year we ended up moving to Belmont where I worked, trading for a 2-mile commute.  The car barely got warm but also due to the short drives revealed its real V8 thirst, usually averaging around 11mpg around town (High teens to very low twenties on the highway). Even though gas prices were sky high, the reality is that I did not have to drive very much, so blaming that would be a bit of a cop-out.

However, coupled with the fact that while most would consider it a largish car, the back seat was surprisingly snug, our second child was on the way and fitting a car seat base with a rear-facing car seat was a challenge.  But the reality is that I was always looking in many different directions so the car’s time had come, no matter how good it was.

I ended up selling it to someone who had one years before and regretted selling it.  It had around 70,000 miles on it when I sold it for $7,700 and represents one of the better purchases I made.  The new owner (like me) felt he could not do better or find a better one easily so he quickly paid me and left.  It was quite the car and made a definite impression on me.  And no, they do NOT build them how they used to.  Not Mercedes anyway.

I ran across this mesmerizing General Motors production the other day and thought it was interesting that GM definitely internally acknowledged the import threat quite early in the 70’s.  I think it gives a lot of context to the time for those that were living in areas where the domestics ruled at the time.  If nothing else, the excellent footage of fleets of early 70’s Datsun pickups and workers unloading VW 412s and Audi 100s via dock crane is worth seeing, along with new Vegas folding into their trains.  As are the images of small import dealerships such as Stevinson Toyota in Denver, which is now a mega-dealer around here.

Growing up in SoCal, I thought it was normal that the imports seemed to outnumber the domestics on the roads.  Not until I was a little older, when I had reason to visit the American MidWest did I realize that the situation was drastically reversed in other places.  In high school and college in the 80’s to early 90’s, for example, I did not know a single person that owned a Chevy Cavalier.  When I happened to get one as a rental in the early 90’s, I was sort of thrilled, it was a new experience!

GM was obviously well aware that the imports were starting to eat their lunch, and this video is a fine piece of internal education that does two things – First, before travel became very easy and cheap, it explained what was going on at the edges of the country to the internal workforce, much (but not all) of which obviously worked in the MidWest.  Second, it verbally acknowledged that the competition was not in fact junk and was in many cases very well built and exhorts the GM workforce to work hard and take pride in their product.  Left unsaid but clearly implied was that things needed to improve or the situation would deteriorate more and quicker than it already was.

(First Posted November 17, 2013)  After having moved in order to remove a long and burdensome commute, I found myself with all sorts of extra free time that allowed me to contemplate once again driving for pleasure rather than from necessity.  Of course, this presented the perfect excuse to (1) get the family car count back up to three, and (2) purchase something somewhat frivolous, in this case a 1992 Mazda Miata…

Everyone knows the Miata, which in 1989 debuted to rave reviews and accolades from the motoring press the world over– all of which, in this case, were justified.  The car really was a little wonder that for a very reasonable price provided a very fun experience.  That price became even more reasonable with age and mileage; in my case, it was well under $3,000 for a rust-free car with about 100,000 miles and no accident history.

This picture actually contains a “COAL Clue” for next week!

I cannot recall the exact circumstances of the actual purchase, but I do recall re-reading everything about the Miata I could find and deciding that an early car would be my best bet.  I did not have any specific requirements in regard to options, except that it had to have a manual transmission.  I ended up with the last year of the initial series (1992) with the 1.6-liter four-cylinder (which became a 1.8-liter starting in 1993) and a very basic spec, option-wise.

Mine was “Classic Red” (which had faded a bit on the car’s plastic front and rear bumpers) and came with 14” steel wheels that I did not care for.  I promptly replaced them with a set of 14-inch “Daisy” alloy wheels, bought for $100 from a gentleman in San Francisco who seemed to be running a Miata dismantling operation in his living room; there were parts everywhere, and for cheap prices. He said he currently had about a half-dozen Miatas in various states of (dis)repair.

U.S. Miata sales for 1992 totaled 26,636. Red was the most popular color, with 11,729, almost half of the total, wearing that hue. Also available were blue, black, white, silver and yellow.  While yellow was part of a special edition (and the most valuable today), silver is actually the rarest color; only 1,475 silver Miatas were sold that year. Quite a contrast to more recent years, when almost every car has silver as one of its most popular colors.

The 1992 models look just like ‘90s and ‘91s – the differences include a rear cross brace added to the underside of the rear suspension and a remote trunk release.  The only option I am aware of my car having is air conditioning.  It had been a while since I’d had a car with roll-up windows, and it was a refreshing change.  I was reveling in the lightness…

This picture has a “COAL Clue” for two weeks from now!

About that: Everything you hear about how these things handle and go is true.  While not the most powerful car out there, a Miata seems much faster than it is.  You sit very low, cocooned in a cockpit that seems 7/8-scale and where everything falls perfectly to hand.  You feel every bump and ripple in the road, but not in a bad way.  I suppose this was accentuated due to the lack of power steering, but it was so easy to turn the wheel that the car really did not need it.

The steering was wonderfully direct, and my commute down the curvy hillside roads to my work was a delight.  The drive back home was even better, as I was able to do it pretty much full-throttle most of the way while trying to perfect a couple of tight corners.

Although my car was basic, Mazda equipped them all pretty well at any level.  The seats were a very nice grade of grippy black fabric, the carpeting was just fine, the glovebox had a lock, there was a driver’s side airbag, remote releases for the fuel and trunk lids, and the gauges were large and easy to read.

On the outside this first generation has pop-up headlights; often they sag a bit with age but it is a simple adjustment to return them back to the flush position.  The door handles are delightful little chrome finger-pulls.  The attachment pegs for the optional hardtop are also attractive little chrome items up in front of the trunk lid.  The trunk itself is fairly shallow and small but you CAN fit a set of golf clubs in there, not much else though.  The trunk also contains a mini-spare and a small Panasonic battery specifically made for the Miata.

My daughter was now in preschool and moving into a booster seat so we got a red and black one to match and I used the car to pick her up on nice days.  She said it was like a roller-coaster which was true. The top was very easy to take down and put back up, I was able to do it while seated in the driver’s seat.

Many say that since there is a plastic rear window it is better to place a towel between the folded part but I just let it go, it turns out replacement roofs are on the order of $300 or you can retrofit a roof with a glass window if needed.  The roof itself was fine on mine, it sealed tight even when there was a bit of rain.  But mostly it had the top down, since it was not my primary car and I was in California, what’s the point otherwise.

A fair number of people seem to dislike Miata’s or call them “girl’s cars”, but if you look it is hard to find a female driver of a Miata, especially an older one (Miata, not lady).  The truth is they are fantastic cars, reliable, easy and cheap to fix, inexpensive to modify, even the consumables (tires, filters, etc.) are dirt cheap as either the size of the item is small or they are produced in abundance, usually both.

Working on the car is not difficult but it is a bit of tight squeeze in the engine compartment, especially as the oil filter is kind of hidden.  I found it easiest to just take the front right wheel off and reach through the wheel well to get at it, since my hands are sort of meaty.  I do not understand why any car manufacturer would not make the oil filter the absolute easiest thing to remove and while they are at it do it so it stays upright without spilling while removing it.

As stated above, through 1992 all had a 1.6 liter, 16valve, DOHC 4-cylinder engine producing 116hp@6500rpm and 100lb-ft of torque at 5500rpm.  I had the 5-speed but an automatic was available.  The power was not abundant but as long as you were not afraid to use all the revs, it was there and the car could certainly hold its own.  A low weight of 2216lbs certainly helped, it is interesting to note that the easiest way to “add lightness” is probably for the driver to go on a diet, especially as I contributed almost ten percent more to that weight…

For me, it was mainly an in-town car, I took it across the Bay a couple of times and it was fine, if not anywhere near as comfortable as our other cars (obviously).  It always got excellent fuel mileage, was a doddle to park anywhere and just put a smile on your face while driving it.  It was a fun car and a great way to experience a convertible, eventually it was replaced with a car both very different and very similar that I’d wanted to own for a long time…(Note:  Prior to reposting this COAL, I checked the license plate in the CA smog check database, as of last spring, this Miata is still on the road.  For the last few years it has failed its first smog check but then passed upon retesting.)

(First Posted November 24, 2013)  The merger between Nissan and Renault seemed to spawn more adventurous styling on the part of Nissan, with one of the first results in the US being the Murano.  Since the first commercials played on the TV featuring one in kind of a Metallic Orange color, my wife had said she really liked it…

I asked her what she liked about it (the way it looked, and I agreed, it did look fabulous and very distinctive when introduced) and said that maybe we should go drive one.  The response to that was along the lines that she did not care what it drove like, she liked the way it looked and presumably it would drive like any other car.  I’m sure an army of engineers and technicians had painstakingly developed this new model and weighed various powertrain choices etc., if they only knew.

Anyway, the date of this story is a couple of years after the Murano was introduced and we were thinking of replacing the Land Cruiser at that time, having moved and not really needing such a large truck.  My boss happened to have a Dark Blue Murano with Black interior which was precisely the color combination that Allison said she liked the best.  I approached my boss as he was known to switch cars even quicker than me and had sold several to others at work.

He was receptive and we struck a deal – I recall paying around $17,000 for the car which had about 22,000 miles on it and less than two years old.  The price was significantly less than fair market value at the time and one of the few things that worked out well in that job.  I gave it to my wife for Christmas, she had an idea it was coming but nothing definite.  She was pleased to say the least.

The Murano was Nissan’s first “Crossover”, introduced in December of 2002 as a 2003 model.  They were only available here with Nissan’s ubiquitous 3.5liter V6 producing 245hp and 246lb-ft of torque and a CVT transmission, with either FWD or AWD.  The basic platform is the Altima, but you can’t tell.

My boss was not one to deny himself anything on an options list, so ours was fully loaded with AWD, leather, navigation, power everything, even power adjustable foot pedals (the first time I had seen that in a car).  I can’t think of any options that we did not have.

The outside of the vehicle is certainly distinctive, with that wide sculpted chrome grille at the front and the upswept rear end with the glass that has a little cutout where the Nissan logo goes on the metal right below it (the Buick Enclave now does something similar).  Wheels were 18” and were quite large for the time, giving it a look that was certainly not lacking in the wheel to body ratio.

My wife liked it, I drove it a fair bit but was never really enamored of it.  A lot of people say they dislike Continuously Variable Transmissions but I thought that aspect was fine.  Nissan did send us a letter telling us that the warranty on that component would be extended to 100,000 miles after some people apparently had issues.  That warranty extension goes a long way toward me being confident that CVT’s should work fine.

The engine was powerful enough, the sound was not bad, but it was just not inspiring to drive around town.  I felt that the wheels and tires kind of pounded over bumps and the ride was sort of jiggly and not smooth at all. It did not handle very well either, I just seemed to slide around in the seats while the car went around corners not very happily.  On a longer distance trip it was better but not anything to look forward to.

Many things can be solved with a new set of tires and the standard Goodyear’s were starting to look fairly ragged after our first year.  I was surprised to see that there were exactly two tire options available in the size needed, either the same Goodyear’s again (very pricy) or a Kumho Solus tire at a much lower price point.  I gave them a shot and while they were no worse than the Goodyear’s they were not any better either.

While it looks fairly compact on the outside, on the inside it is quite large.  The back seat especially felt extremely wide and I recall had a fore/aft adjustment as well which was nice.  (Looking at the pictures again I now think maybe I was thinking of the recline function instead, if anyone has one, please enlighten us).

This is the car that we brought our first son Max home from the hospital in, NO problems with the car seat in this one and it was a good car to take passengers in, lots of people space.  Cargo space behind the rear seat is not bad either but a bit strangely shaped.  Fine for groceries or other stuff, not great for the dog though.  We did take to carrying the cargo box on the roof for trips to give more space for our stuff.

The inside has a bit of a different look as well.  Ours was black (as mentioned) with metal accents.  The metal (brushed aluminum) was actually real as we dinged one of the pieces on the console somehow. The instruments were in a motorcycle-style binnacle that was perched on the dash ahead of the wheel.

The passenger side had a fairly large expanse of plain plastic/vinyl/mystery dashboard material ahead of it.  I’ve never been a fan of orange instrument lighting and this was no exception.  It just looked sort of cheap to me, even when the lights are off it wasn’t much better as the instruments were still orange.

Overall it was very reliable, the only thing I recall is the battery failed while parked at the local train station which was easy enough to rectify. There had been no sign of battery issues prior to this which seems weird.  It started fine that morning, we drove down the hill to the station, took the train into San Francisco and when we came back, the only thing we heard after turning the key was the solenoid clicking.  I guess I expect the battery just to seem weaker for a while before failure but then again this is the first battery I’ve had to replace in a long time.

My mother visited to watch the kids for a week while Allison and I went on a trip somewhere, when we got back it turned out that our famous downhill spiraling driveway had claimed another victim.  Somehow Mom had backed down it and swung wide while turning and instead of stopping and trying again, apparently said “Damn the Torpedoes…” or something similar and kept going while the front bumper took out some juniper plants and ripped the bumper itself apart and off its mounting brackets.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I was getting gas and when I pulled out from the pump decided to make a hard right turn to go behind the gas station building. I did not notice the large concrete bollard and nailed it with the passenger side rear door, continuing until I had crushed the rear wheel well also.  Not good.  Somehow I convinced the insurance company to handle it all as one claim and it spent about a week in the body shop before coming back in pristine condition again.

When we sold it my wife was sort of sad to see it go, I myself was very ambivalent about it but very happy that I sold it for quite a bit more than we paid for it.  I can’t say it was a bad car at all (it was not), it was competent but just not a standout in any way (except for the styling).  It looked great and ten-year-old examples still look fresh when I see them around but there was just not that much character beneath the surface.  Sometimes beauty IS only skin deep, I guess.

Is there anything more intertwined with driving than music on the radio?  Whether it’s Sammy Hagar’s “I Can’t Drive 55” or the Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe”, there is something for almost everyone.  Since I learned to drive, there are several songs, albums, and/or artists that are forever inexorably connected in my mind to various distinct periods in my life and the drives during which I listened to them; when I hear them now my mind always goes back to those times…

I received my driver’s license in October of 1985, and was a big fan of the early “alternative” and New Wave scenes.  My first concert experience was a month later – Thompson Twins with OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) and the Moderns as the opening acts.  At the time, OMD had just released their album “Crush” and I was listening to the tape anytime I was in my ’79 Mazda 626 after finally getting it as my own. The video is a bit “cringey” as I view it now but at least they’re driving around and hey, I was sixteen, cut me some slack…I went on to own their whole back catalog and nowadays they are known and very respected as one of the pioneers of early electronica.

High School wasn’t a necessarily fond memory for me but whenever I hear anything from that album it takes me right back there and to all the John Hughes and similar “Brat Pack” movies of the time, which generally let me identify with at least one of the characters in a positive way (which, in hindsight, may have been the point of the often large ensemble casts…).

Over the next couple of years there was obviously much driving about to nowhere in particular with friends as happens with newly minted drivers.  For some reason, whenever it rained (not that often in the Los Angeles area) we usually ended up piling into my friend Ken’s 1980 Datsun 200SX.  He was a big fan of The Cars at the time, and often would have something of theirs playing.

Somehow I have identified driving in the rain with The Cars’ music, to the point that I often enjoy listening to their music on a rainy day but generally don’t choose to do so on other days.  Specifically, “You Might Think” and “Since You’re Gone” seem to be the two songs that I associate most closely with these memories.

College started soon enough, in the summer of 1987 for me (yes, I started five days after graduating from High School), and U2 had released their “The Joshua Tree” album earlier that year.  I had been a casual fan of theirs prior to this, but “The Joshua Tree” was truly something seminal, I had that tape on auto-reverse constantly in that first summer of college.

From the lengthy opening goose-bump inducing chords of “Where The Streets Have No Name” to “With Or Without You” all the way through to “One Tree Hill” and “Mothers Of The Disappeared” this is one album that I enjoy listening to over and over all the way through more than any other U2 album before or after and always brings back memories of long flowing drives up and down the California coast.

Vying for my attention in the first year of college were two other great acts – first was New Order with their “Substance 1987” compilation.  Released in August of 1987, this is a compilation of their singles since their previous singer Ian Curtis committed suicide while they were named Joy Division, thus ending that band but the remaining members carried on as New Order and successfully changed their sound over time while still being true to their early days.

At the time my favorite song on the album was “Perfect Kiss” which I would rewind and play over and over, but “Ceremony” and of course their signature song “Temptation” have since pushed their way to the forefront to still be a couple of my absolute favorites of all time that I can and do listen to at any time along with a couple of others not on this collection such as “Age of Consent”.  At the time, I was also a big fan of the more dance oriented numbers such as “Bizarre Love Triangle” and “True Faith” and while I still appreciate them, I prefer and still constantly play the others.  But just like U2 above, New Order’s “Substance” and the songs on it take me back to my favorite memories and drives in college.

The second act to play in the background of much of my driving time during this era was The Cure’s “Standing on a Beach”.  Yet another collection, this very interesting band released this compilation back in 1986 after being a band for a decade.

Changing dramatically throughout, songs vary from the moody “The Forest” and “A Hanging Garden” to the melodic and poppy “The Love Cats” and a long-time favorite “Close To Me”.  I’d often put this disc on when I wasn’t sure how I was feeling and on a long drive back down to L.A. from San Luis Obispo or back would allow me to feel an entire range of emotions in just over an hour’s time while it played.

Of course the rest of college and the beginning of my career encompassed much more music and many various acts that I was a fan of at different times, but the next act that I strongly identify with driving came more than a decade later when I first traveled to Colorado in my 1993 Audi S4.  The Strokes had recently released their “Is This It” album and the song “Last Nite” was receiving heavy airplay on the radio.

I had purchased the CD recently before leaving and played it constantly on this drive to Colorado and back.  I don’t listen to it much anymore but when it or any other Strokes song comes on the radio, I always turn it up and enjoy the memories of that drive in very early 2002.

In mid-2004 The Killers released their first album “Hot Fuss” and it quickly became a favorite of my wife’s and mine.  We tend to not really listen to music at home for some reason but always do in the car.  Our daughter was born a bit over a year earlier and we traveled a lot via car in those days and listened to this album all the time, both because we really enjoyed it and also since it was invariably loaded into the CD player or changer and we were usually too lazy to swap it out.

Today, whenever my daughter (now just turned 15) and I are driving somewhere and an early Killers song comes on the radio or I have the CD in the player, she always says she likes the music and that it reminds her of “her childhood”… I think the song “All These Things That I’ve Done” is my favorite with its very abrupt tonal and tempo change in the middle, but really all the songs are fantastic.  That particular song is being used in a commercial for something or other currently so clearly I’m not the only fan…

The next seminal period in my life came when we moved to Colorado for good in 2010.  I had become a big fan of The Toxic Airborne Event prior to this and while driving four truckloads of stuff as well as both our cars out from California had their self-titled debut with me every time.  “Sometime Around Midnight” and “Wishing Well” especially still immediately take me back to those long, usually lonely, drives through the American West.  Their guitarist has a lot of U2’s sometimes haunting sound in him, maybe that’s something I identify with.

I did take my older son (He was three years old at the time) with me on one drive and my daughter twice (she was seven) and they can identify this CD as from the “Big Move” as well.  I actually have three copies of the CD as I twice forgot to take it with me on the flight back to CA and couldn’t bear to be without it for the next drive out and the time in-between trips.  Yes, I have/had iPods but even today prefer to actually own and handle the music myself for some reason.  My wife and I have since seen the band about a half-dozen times and while still a big fan, I feel a significantly stronger connection  to their early work.

I’m a huge fan of all kinds of music ranging from Tom Petty to Cracker to David Bowie to The Clash to Yaz(oo) as special favorites, but the above were the ones that really make me “go back” to specific periods in time associated with driving.  The latest one is probably Lorde’s “Melodrama” album of last summer that I am listening to a lot while driving back and forth to Laramie to work on a house up there.  “Green Light” is my standout favorite, it somehow sends a shiver down my back when I hear it and reminds me of Laramie which is a strange connection but just due to the drive.

I surprised my daughter with tickets to Lorde’s Denver show last month and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, I knew she was a fan too but didn’t realize she knew every word to every song as we played it on the way down and back.  Good times.

I assume I’m not the only one for which this is true, so is there any particular music or album that you prefer to listed to in the car or that you associate with a certain event or time in your life?

(First posted 12/1/2013) Clarkson once remarked: “You can’t be a true petrolhead until you’ve owned an Alfa Romeo”, a sentiment with which I would agree.  Obviously this is easier in places where Alfas are still available new (Update: Yay, that now includes us!), but the pleasures and heartbreaks can still be experienced on the used market over here…

Alfa Romeo Spider.  One of the cars which I wanted the most when I was a freshly licensed teenager in he mid-80’s.  I just loved the looks of the thing.  I had seen “The Graduate”, which probably did more for Alfa in the U.S. than anything else, but I was just as (if not more) influenced by the scene in “Fletch” when Chevy Chase takes the stolen ivory Spider on a romp across Southern California’s freeways and streets.

The Miata had been sort of the test case as to whether I liked the actual concept of owning a small convertible, I had always pined for the Alfa though.  One day I saw an ad for a reasonably priced one locally and decided to take a look.  It was silver with a burgundy interior, a combination I had not seen before.

I love a red interior and this did not disappoint in that regard.  With about 130,000 miles and a price tag of $3000, I could not turn it down and went to the bank to get a not so fat stack of bills to trade with.

While many like/prefer the original “boat-tail” Spiders, I prefer the lines of the mid-80’s version.  Having started my driving career in the 80’s, this is the era of cars I identify with most.  I love that large soft rubber spoiler on the trunk, and the big bumpers don’t bother me in the slightest.  The car was originally styled by Pininfarina and was on the market from 1966 to 1994.

Inside, the mid-80’s Alfa continued with basically the same interior it had since the beginning, the large wood steering wheel is fantastic to sit behind and use, the gearshift seems to come straight out of the dash and the controls, knobs, and buttons are scattered haphazardly across the console with obviously no regard for ergonomics.  Later in the 80’s the interior would be significantly revised but would lose a lot of character in the process.

Compared to the Miata, well, I won’t kid anyone, the Miata is a better “car” than the Alfa, no doubt about that.  It’s also significantly newer of course. The Alfa is roomier in the cabin though and has a more “raw” feel to it.  Driving along some curving lanes is a delight in both cars, but the Alfa sounds better at full song.

Yes, the Spider is basically an old car that was kept in production for many years with updates over the years.  Alfa though was always very innovative in their engineering.  For example, most people believe Honda had the first production automobile with Variable Valve Timing.  Not so.

Nissan actually had it before Honda but Alfa Romeo had debuted it in the Spider in 1980, way ahead of the Japanese.  Fuel Injection was a feature of the U.S. market Spider since 1969.  Disk brakes were fitted from launch, etc.

The engine was a 2liter 4-cylinder generating 115hp and 117lb-ft of torque.  It is happiest in the upper part of the rev range and while not the quietest engine, has a noise that sounds great.  A 5-speed manual was standard, although the last models produced in the 90’s could be had with an automatic, but really, what’s the point of that?

By the mid-80’s, the Alfa had gained Bosch electronic fuel injection to replace the SPICA mechanical version.  Many people know someone who had a cousin and her aunt had an Alfa and it was generally considered a piece of junk.  I believe that since the Alfa was not particularly expensive to buy and tended to depreciate rapidly that many were serviced by people not familiar with them.

Messing with unfamiliar mechanicals without knowing what you’re doing certainly can aggravate whatever condition may already exist.  The Fiat convertible (completely unrelated) suffers from the same issue.  Many say that driving them regularly in a spirited fashion seems to keep them running fairly well.  The “Italian tune-up” theory at work!

Mine was the Spider Veloce version as opposed to the Graduate version.  The Graduate was indeed a nod to the movie and was a decontented version of the Veloce.  The Veloce had the beautiful 5-spoke Campagnolo Daytona alloys (magnesium, only weighed 12 pounds each), power windows, leather seats vs. vinyl, canvas top vs. vinyl as well as some other goodies.

When I got mine, it had several small cosmetic issues.  The power antenna was missing; a quick search on ebay found a replacement, installation was easy through the trunk.  Also somehow one of the headlight trim rings had gone astray, another easy fix.

Mechanically mine was fine.  The only problem it did have was an issue with the vacuum sensor.  One day I started to notice a loud whistling noise coming from under the rear parcel shelf.  Five minutes with a Philips and I was under  there and another five minutes on Google revealed that the problem was a silver device that apparently no longer held vacuum and would disable the VVT.

It was easy to order a replacement and install it, solving the issue.  Again this is one of those cars that the internet has made much easier to keep healthy at a reasonable cost!

For me, a big part of the appeal was just looking at it.  Somehow I never get tired of this design.  The way the headlights look upright and alert, the small dainty hood that is hinged at the front and the huge flat trunk lid that I believe is actually larger than the hood all just look right.  For me it was very much a fair-weather car, I would drive it down the hill to work and back on nice summer days and pick up my daughter from school in it.

Around the time our second child was born I decided it was time to move on.  I advertised it on Craigslist and the man who bought it was much like me, he’d always liked them and it was very much an impulse buy to satisfy an itch he’d had for a long time.

Alfas are great cars, very interesting but very misunderstood, especially in the U.S.  There is nothing fundamentally wrong with them that makes them bad cars, (to the contrary) it is more a problem with the typical owner.

(First posted 12/8/2013) Yes, I can admit that I loved our minivan and was saddened when it involuntarily left our lives too soon at too young an age.  For many years we had denied that a minivan might be a good idea.  Neither of us had grown up in them (although both families had a VW Bus).  Then, in 2007, we took a trip to Canada.

It was a driving vacation through Ontario and Quebec with our 4-year-old daughter and infant son where we decided to give a minivan a try.  After reserving one in advance, when we arrived at the Toronto Airport Rental Car Counter we were assigned a dirty Chevy Uplander which we rejected on the conventional wisdom that one must always reject the first offering (No Thank You Monty, I want to see what’s behind door number Two!).  Second up was a brand new Dodge Caravan.  Bingo. The trip turned out great and the minivan did very well.  The seed was planted.

A year later we were notified that a third child was on the way and we really started looking at vans.  This being the Bay Area meant that the only choices really were the Sienna and the Odyssey, although nowadays I’d find it hard to choose between those as well as the Mopar and Kia product.  We were looking for used, as new ones were not in the current budget.  The wife told me to go forth and decide what I liked, she did not want to be bothered with the selection even though it would be primarily her car.

Before I left I was sure I would prefer the Odyssey, but after driving both was astounded to note that I preferred the Sienna.  Simply said, the seating position was better, the Odyssey felt a bit cramped around my head.

I looked all over and eventually even on eBay where I found one that ticked all the boxes including being local of course.  Being offered by Fremont Toyota across the bay, this was a 2005 Sienna XLE with Toyota CPO coverage, only 27,000 miles on the clock and a Buy-It-Now price of around $18,000.

I spoke with the salesman who had listed it and then drove over there to check it out.  Although a relatively young example, it did have a few more scuffs inside than I was expecting but nothing that I figured was worse than my kids would inflict on it in short order, so I bought it since the price was more than competitive.

2005 was the second year of the second-generation Sienna.  Powered at the time by Toyota’s 3.3 liter 24-valve DOHC V6 with Variable Valve Timing (expanded to a 3.5 in later years) and backed by a 5-speed automatic, this generated a stout 230hp @ 5600rpm with 242 fl-lbs of torque @ 3600rpm to motivate a curb weight of 4300 pounds that was more than adequate for anything that was required of it and could leave many a wanna-be stoplight racer behind.

All Siennas of this generation were built in Princeton, Indiana and were either FWD or AWD, ours being FWD.  Toyota still offers AWD, I am surprised Honda never did and that Chrysler gave up on it, I see a lot of the AWD Toyotas here in Colorado now and would figure there is enough of a market for two players.

Siennas were available in various trim levels, ours being the XLE, one step below the Limited.  Ours was fairly loaded including leather (a must with kids), 17” alloys, side-curtain airbags, the JBL stereo system, power sliding doors and the piece-de-resistance, the power rear hatch which was a feature that my wife especially came to love.  The color was officially called Phantom Gray Pearl, which is kind of a brownish charcoal color, and looked good paired with the Stone (gray) leather inside.

What looked less good is the god-awful orangey fake wood that Toyota thinks makes a minivan look upscale.  Uh, no, it kind of clashed, but I will admit it looks much better (but still not very good) paired with the tan/taupe interior.  I also think the exterior styling is a bit awkward especially around the front quarters, it’s a bit pudgy looking.  The Odyssey looks much more aggressive in this regard.

The tires that were on it when we got it were not very good either, they were Big-O brand Euro-Tour tires that had minimal grip and were noisy to boot.  Having learned my lesson with the Murano, I replaced them with a set of better tires, but cannot recall what exactly they were.  It did help tremendously in both aspects so was money well spent.

This vehicle obviously became the family car, being used every day and for every trip, and really came into its own when grandparents came to visit.  Loading everyone into one vehicle for dinner out or a trip to the aquarium is what these things excel at, far better than most 3-row SUVs and so easy to load kids into with car seats and/or having to latch someone’s belts/harnesses.

While both the Sienna and the Odyssey of the day had an optional 8th seat that fits between the two seats in the middle row (ours did not have it), and both are able to not use it and then decide if you want the seats right next to each other leaving a walkway on the right (door) side or the walkway in the middle, only the Sienna let you actually slide the seat laterally across positions.  In the Odyssey you have to take the seat out and reinstall it again in the center.  Those seats are heavy, after removing them a few times I now totally understand the appeal of Chrysler’s Stow’N’Go.

The summer after our third child, Riley, was born, we decided to go on a real road-trip.  However, having traveled with the three kids on shorter trips before, we did it a bit different than you might expect.  My mother flew out and took our daughter back with her to Colorado for a week.  Then four days later I set off in the van.  Alone.  Three days after I left, my wife was planning on flying out with the two boys, then Piper and I would pick them up and we would generally drive back towards California on the theory that if the kids drove us (OK, me) nuts we’d just drive home faster instead of cutting a round trip short…

Anyway, so I took off alone in the van.  The first day I made it all the way into Utah and was pleasantly surprised to note that the Bonneville Speed Week on the salt flats was underway.  I turned off and became a spectator for a while which was fascinating.

I noticed they were only using one lane of the salt and the way I had happened to have parked the van was right by the start line of the unused lane which is where these pictures were taken.

She wants to run!

I spoke with some of the people there and it turned out that the salt in the unused lane on the right was apparently slower than on the salt on the left.  Obviously moisture content changes the consistency of the surface, so they elected to mainly run on the faster side that day.

The rear wheel was about a foot wide. No stand needed, it would rest upright.

After watching some cars and motorcycles start their runs I decided to drive to the far end of the track, which involved driving a long loop around and then on the salt for several miles until the real pit and camp areas came into view.

I learned later that this streamliner set a record that day

Walking around there was fascinating, such ingenuity and creativity on display.   I wish I had more pictures of that Mercedes wagon below, it was stunning (and their tow/push-car).

The push car was just as interesting as the racer.

Afterwards driving back towards the interstate I had the van up to about 80mph on the salt.  It is spooky driving on the salt as it is such a large featureless plain that one has no sense of distance or speed. On a road you can see the side of the road go by to gauge your speed, not so on the salt.  A very interesting phenomenon.

I reached Golden, CO the second day and met up with my daughter again.  After spending the night, we drove up to Rapid City, SD to pick up the rest of the family as that was their destination airport.

After doing so, we spent a couple of days in the Mt. Rushmore (The Big Faces, Daddy!) area, then headed west to Devil’s Tower (Close Encounters…), which is just as awe-inspiring as Mt. Rushmore but in a totally different way.  Both sights are must-see’s if the opportunity ever presents itself to you, dear reader.

Great monument, excellent walking tour, you get quite close. Highly recommended.

After that we headed on to Cody, Wyoming, one of the gateways to Yellowstone, after which we decided to go up to Idaho and take in the area around Boise.  Then it was back towards home again.

Devil’s Tower. We did not see Richard Dreyfuss.

I must say, our travel strategy did work out well, with an infant, a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old it was good to know that we were headed towards rather than away from home when the inevitable irritations set in, although I will agree that everyone was fairly well behaved even if some of the distances were rather vast without much scenery at times.

The author at work.

The van did great.  It was a stellar interstate cruiser and with the larger wheel/tire option did very well around turns as well, not nearly as much floating and bobbing as a large SUV would have had and much better road manners overall.

Gas mileage was in the high teens, largely as I was flogging it fairly mercilessly at times, which brings me to one of the few pet peeves I had with this car.

Just like the Land Cruiser we had, this one also asked for premium gasoline.  Why?  I cannot fathom a good reason for asking owners to spend extra at the pump.  Just detune the engines a bit to let them run well on regular.  I know I could just use regular and the engine would compensate but then I’d feel as if I was not getting the power I had paid for.  It’s annoying though as I equate premium fuel with a performance engine, not anything installed in an SUV or Minivan.

Are we there yet?

We obviously also used the van every time we made the slog down to Orange County to visit the in-laws, and being a van this was also great for trips to IKEA and for my home remodeling projects.  It is JUST possible to fit 4×8 sheets of drywall in the back and close the hatch if you take out the center seats and move the front seats all the way forward.

When you are 6’1” like I am this leaves you in a somewhat precarious driving position with the seat all the way forward hoping that the airbag does not go off but it’s doable for a couple of miles home from Home Depot if you like living on the edge (of the seat).

When we took it to our local independent Toyota mechanic for a routine service he noted that one of the rear shocks had blown recently, most likely a result of me jamming an entire flat-packed IKEA kitchen in the back and then crossing the San Mateo Bridge to get it back home.  The van was quite overloaded and hitting the bump stops over larger undulations in the road.  Replacing the shocks with a set of KYB’s made it ride smoother and corner better than it had before so that worked out well in the end.

At this point we had owned the van for about 2.5 years and had put about 40,000 more miles on it.  We had made the decision to uproot our lives and move to Colorado and start over from scratch.  California seemed stuck in a budget quagmire, the local schools were constantly in trouble financially, and after twenty years my chosen career was not anything I wanted to continue with any longer.  As we were getting the house ready for sale over a period of a few months (early in 2010), we did a lot of work to it.

A few episodes ago I mentioned some garbage cans in a picture that I said would play a part at a later date.  Well, we had a very large double-decker deck rebuilt and changed some landscaping at the same time.  As a result the garbage cans were temporarily moved from the side of the house under a cantilevered section to a spot between the Sienna and the wooden fence.  The painter we hired to stain the deck started his work and at the end of the first day of this large project tossed the rags into the trash can.  In the middle of the night my wife awoke to a noise and sent me to investigate.

Upon doing so, I saw that our 60-foot pine tree was fully engulfed in flame along with the fence and the front part of the van and the conflagration was threatening the deck and house itself.  I hollered back to my wife to call 911 and get everyone and the dog out the back which she did while I turned on a hose from the upper deck and tried to put out what I could.  The fire department showed up soon after and doused everything but could not get the van to stop burning until they used their large saw to literally cut the hood in half and also tried spraying the inside dash area where smoke was billowing out.

The rags loaded with stain had spontaneously combusted and started burning inside the plastic garbage cans, melting them and then the flames jumped to the fence on one side and the van tire on the other side.  As bad as it was, thank goodness the trash cans had not been next to the house itself under the cantilevered section, it could/would have been much worse.

Car-B-Que

The van was a sad sight the next morning.  The front half was a charred mess and the sliding doors and power hatch were not working, even manually, anymore, I suppose something electrical had remained in the locked position.  I salvaged what I could and the insurance company had it dragged down the driveway via a winch onto a flatbed a couple of days later.

Note the melted large wheeled garbage can where the fire started

The only good thing that came of it was the adjuster that came out and looked at it asked me if it was “loaded” after he saw it had leather to which I said yes and he then left.  A few days later we were offered a check for several thousand more than we paid for it a few years earlier, it appeared the adjuster had just checked ALL of the options boxes including Navigation and on-board DVD players and Sienna values had gone up since we bought it.  We took the check and ran to the bank.

Genuine “smoked” headlight lens

It’s too bad minivans are not considered “cool”.  The combination of utility, usability, and convenience is pretty much unmatched by anything else.  At the end of the day what matters is what works best, for folks with more than two kids to discount a minivan just because of image is asinine although I see it all the time (we did it too).  Often it seems people don’t learn that lesson until after the kids are so old that it no longer makes a difference.  Anyway, I loved this van and have no shame!

While obviously the significance to us is less than the real Western Wall in Jerusalem, this wall of former Curbside Classics can also be regarded as a significant site (to those followers of our little religion).  So please grab your hymnals, anoint yourself with a dab of 10W-30 (preferably Quaker State), have a small cup of ATF and a (deodorizing) wafer at the ready and step closer to this altar of our faith, my dear disciples…

As some of you know, I’ve been spending a bit of time going back and fort to Laramie, WY over the last few years and usually pass by an enormous scrapyard just southwest of the intersection of I-80 and Hwy287.  Well, today was the day that while seriously pressed for time, I felt a calling.  So I decided to take a closer look and somehow ended up on the backside of the yard between it and the railroad tracks.  I’m not sure if I was on yard land or railroad land but there was a dirt road and no fence, so let’s bow our heads and go!

The opening shot was of a chunk of the “wall”, here are several overlapping snippets of the same wall in more detail.  It goes on for probably a quarter mile or more and isn’t just one layer, it appear to be many multiple layers deep.  I’m not sure if the yard is a junk yard or more of a scrap and metal recycling yard as many of the vehicles appear to be extremely complete with clearly saleable items attached.  However I don’t see any good (or remotely safe) way of dismantling this structure to ever do anything with the vehicles besides just tear them apart and crush them.

I kind of wandered from right to left (Hebrew style I suppose) and am now noticing what you may notice too – many regular cars, and relatively few imports, which was (and is) a large part of the vehicular makeup of the area.

In this shot I can see a BMW 320i in that ubiquitous powder blue color and of course a Volvo 200-series as well as an 80’s Toyota Celica on top along with a cross section of at least twenty years of Americana.  Maybe this is where all those CC’s that used to litter your neighborhood ended up.

Perched on top is an early Subaru wagon and a blue 90’s Toyota Tercel (the puffy style) to the lower right which itself is crushing a Subaru sedan in a fetching shade of dark brown.  I think it’s a fairly high-spec but early model judging by the white metal wheels.  Of course the Suburban at the bottom dominated the scene but check out the two almost identical charcoal Chrysler minivans.  Do the differing hubcaps denote the difference between Plymouth and Dodge or just different years of one of them?

Whoa!  Behold the high priestess of the highway and byway, a Southwind Motorhome.  Right below is the van that had all the free candy your mother warned you about.

Methinks there is a Honda Civic peeking out backwards near the upper left but other than that it’s all American here.  I’m guessing the green paint has something to do with perhaps a demolition derby (?), that barbaric sacrificial ritual.  Maybe the green paint is the mark of the beast.

At first I thought we had ourselves a Mitsubishi Mighty Max, but instead it’s a later model Dodge Ram 50 in the midst of the choir section!  The poor Bronco at the bottom didn’t stand a chance against the weight of the world piled on top of it but notice the Four-Door-Sportscar (Nissan Maxima) crashing the party and coming over the top!

Blocking the view is a Winnebago Indian.  One wonders if it and the Southwind from before are locals or if they were in transit when something awful befell them and they were left behind on this trail of tears.

At this point I hopped back into my car and went further down and found kind of a car junkyard (with a fence) and then turned around and took in a few more unfenced sights.  Here, the first-generation Acura Legend Coupe caught my eye in what I think is my favorite color that it was offered in.  Is that a blue Ford Focus sedan on top sort of sitting inside what’s left of a silver or silver-beige Camry?  Also that may be a Cadillac Catera all the way at the top judging by what I can see of the taillight panel.

This one’s sort of random, I didn’t think I was going to use all I shot, but then they all seemed interesting after reviewing them more.  Here there’s a 90’s Cadillac Seville (Pearl White, middle-ish), and a mid to late 80’s Honda Accord on top mixed in with more prosaic vehicles, all stacked like cordwood.  Still, nothing newer than mid-90’s as far as I can tell, so all CC, all the time.

What are the two magnificent beasts mounted on top of each other at the left?  I haven’t spent enough time in Indiana lately to readily identify them definitively but I know you will think it’s obvious.  Same with the red truck cab peeking out from the center.

My last shot for today includes the Winnebago again and repeat performances from a slightly different angle for some others.  I hope you enjoyed this little worship service at the altar of the departed from the highway, and hope that all pictured rest in peace beneath the enormous Wyoming sky.

While I’m certainly no artist nor any kind of art critic, I can and do appreciate an art car when I see one.  We have no shortage of them on our pages, and while most are interesting expressions of the artist’s inner psyche (or just someone being very bored), some could perhaps just as well have been done by a curious 8-year-old who found the stash of psilocybin mushrooms in the drawer.  In opposition I hereby present to you what I believe to be a Modern Art take on the art car.

On the other hand, maybe the dude just had a ruler, an abundance of blue tape, a few cans of leftover paint and is a doctorate student in one of the more exacting disciplines taught at the University of Wyoming.  Yes, another sighting of something in Laramie, this time directly across from the somewhat beat set of houses I perhaps foolishly acquired after consuming too much of the “special” eggnog around Christmas.

Anyway, the canvas is a somewhat rare 2-door Jeep Cherokee Sport of the XJ generation, pre-facelift.  I’ve always liked this trim level, especially with these wheels which I think date it as a very early 90’s model but someone will know for sure.

I believe the owner lives in the house in the background, or perhaps I am just making a connection between all the rectangles.

Check out my own neighbor’s sweet little 1947 Willys in the background with the tarp over it.  One day it’ll be untarped and I will be there to capture it.  The Blazer behind the Cherokee is interesting as well.  In fact the whole neighborhood is one of those CC-intense experiences.

But back on topic, what is this style or influence?  My first thought was of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian but his works are generally (but not always) much brighter and vivid.  But what if this Jeep had started out white or red or yellow instead of Charcoal Gray?

Then the term “Cubism” came to mind.

While the colors are (generally, cubism is a wide genre) closer to the subject, the rest of it isn’t at all correct, I was thinking way too literally.  So in what style, if anything, is this Jeep?  Or maybe there is no style and I need to quit thinking about it so hard and just enjoy it for what it is.

Ooh, it looks like the canvas has been damaged a bit at the lower rear.  I fear that may not be restorable but if the current owner is the artist then perhaps he (or she?) can wield the brushes again.

That fiberglass hatch looks cracked so…maybe it’ll just stay as is and hopefully at least gain a replacement tail light.

It’s definitely more subtle than most art cars, but perhaps it’s more of a “thinking man’s” piece.  What exactly the thought is, well, of that I’m not sure but then again that’s how I perceive a lot of art until I read the little placard (which in this case was missing unless “4.0 Litre High Output” has a deeper meaning).  Thank you for allowing me to be your ill-informed docent!