When I was 18 and slightly more stupid than I am now, I flew my '71 Super Beetle 84 feet through the air. That's how far away the car was from where the skid marks stopped. That's longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
We flipped on both axes, and landed back on the wheels. There was grass stuck between the wheel rims and tires somehow. And I and two friends walked away, to the stunned looks of the gold course across the street.
Good times.
I love Beetles. I have a '73. I don't mind the New Beetle, even. I'd prefer a rear-mounted boxer, but nobody listens to me.
This redesign I don't get. Cute isn't for everyone, but I rather liked that the new beetle was cute. This one has that angry vacuum-cleaner look of so many new cars. I don't necessarily want my car to look like it's going to take my lunch money. There's plenty of aggressive-looking cars out there, and I think there's always room for a plucky, happy-looking car for some folks. One that says "Hey! Let's drive" when you look at it instead of "AUTOTRON MAKE KILL NOW!"
There's an oval window gold Beetle behind John Banner. That proves this was faked on some soundstage in North Hollywood.
Ah, I love that plucky little Beetle.
Oh, and one more geeky fact: the vents on the skirt on the front bumper were for an optional air-conditioning condenser! US market only, since we seem to be the princesses of the global auto market.
This one is definitely a '72. 1972 was the last year of the flat-windscreen-and-dash Super Beetles, and also the last year before the round "elephant's foot" taillights. 1971 had two rear hood vents instead of four, which is how you tell the difference. I had a '71 Super Beetle, and the difference in front trunk space was significant. Using the dead hooker standard, a Super could hold one, suitable fetal-folded no problem, where a standard Beetle may have required some dismemberment.
Also, I flipped my '71 in a wreck, and the cops measured the point where the skid marks quit to the point where the car had landed on the median (wheels down, thankfully) and came up with a distance of 84 feet. For aloft distance, that rivals the Wright brothers' first flight. Plus, teenaged stupid me and my two friends came out unharmed, and I put the still-working engine in my next Beetle, which I have to this day.
The most alarming detail of the whole thing was the grass that was stuck in between the tires and rims. I think that may have happened on impact, somehow.
I loved that car.
If you count masturbating, then I'm having sex with one now!
No, that's not true. I don't really have a hybrid anything.
That is a pretty one. The Scimitar GTE did come out first, and I actually got mine by trading a yellow P1800S coupe for it. I really liked my P1800S, and, as people have noticed, it's beautifully constructed-- all welded, no body seams except for the doors, hood, and trunk. Like a Karmann Ghia. Which looks like it's carved out of soap, but also means in a fender bender there's nothing to unbolt to replace; just lots of work.
The Scimitar is much more fun to drive, though. The P1800S' motor was willing, but this is a surprisingly heavy car, and the 115 or so Swede steeds were a bit taxed.
Now I'm going to floss my Scimitar, since it's yellow and makes a good comparison to this car, and I'm a shameless whore: [jalopnik.com]
That little guy was a monster on the track. Here's to running into angelic tire walls on heaven's motorsports track.
I was taken home from the hospital after my birth in one of these. A convertible one, too. Later my parents sold it to a crazy woman who covered it in wallpaper. Just like all the details of my childhood.
You don't need lots and lots of speed to do this-- sometimes just the magic combo of hard driving and a crappy steel wheel can do the trick. We did it at this year's Altamont LeMons: [www.flickr.com] (MakeWay team, the Escort)
Losing a wheel while driving was less dramatic than I would have guessed. I just stopped, very rapidly. One fun part was while I was sitting there in the middle of the track, I hit the accellerator to try and figure out what was damaged-- and the speedometer went up! Good times.
@nonns:
Ah, but the beauty of the Citroen DS is no floor jack is needed! It jacks itself, much like many of us.
But with hydropneumatics, and not shame.
This amazing car was made by Baron Margo-- I interviewed him for Make: magazine a while ago: [www.make-digital.com]
He's really incredible, and this is just one of a fleet of rocket cars from some other, better age that never really happened.
You know, I saw 8 or more of these, in varying conditions, this past weekend at the big swap meet in Pomona, CA.
I love LA.
There were also some British Ford Anglias, a Messerschmit, and innumerable Beetles, including some nice split-windows.
The meet in general is a bit too full of the usual old-white-guy-overchromed-50s-nostalgia-pictures-of-James Dean-and-Elvis-in -the Edward Hopper-painting crap, but the VW section is full of good stuff.
Make:Way team here. I'm ecstatic with our finish. Especially after so many commentators told us that not only would we not finish, we'd end up a gritty paste that other teams could spread on crackers after the race.
Our little Escort held up great, and took plenty of beating. We had zero mechanical issues with the engine/drivetrain, the only unplanned stop happening when my driver's side front wheel decided to cut out early and go bouncing off the track. The center of the wheel ripped out-- I've never seen anything like that.
We were pretty slow, but not the slowest, and we just stayed on that track. And once, for a brief, magical period of time, we were actually ahead of the V8olvo. Ephemeral, yes, improbable, sure, unsustainable, definitely-- but still beautiful.
It was a blast. We'll be back.
The rumor of our garage burning down is an exaggeration.
We don't have a garage. We have a tarp. And, at best, it got singed.
Make:Way is undeterred. Don't worry, Escort lovers (the automotive kind): we'll make you proud. Or nauseous. Or both.
After reading through all these brutal (due to the sharp, painful nuggets of truth in them) comments, I thought maybe I should take a break from feces-talking to do a bit of explaining.
First off, to everyone pointing out interesting things you can get for $500, you're right. There are some out there. But, generally, those are the lovely yellow corn kernels in the larger overall turd-- there's certainly some in there, but by and large, it's crap.
Which leads me to one of the main reasons we decided on something as improbable as the Escort; see, we're representing the first non-automotive magazine team at LeMons (except maybe for the Redbook team) and one of the big points of the associated article is that building a racing car can be great fun, and even dorks who normally build Zip Drive best pals and LED tooth inserts should try getting their hands dirty in the exciting world of automobiles. So we wanted to pick something that we thought would be the kind of car almost anyone could probably find. Nothing too exotic or obviously sporting, as the point is to turn it into as much of a racecar as possible, given limits of the platform, time, and money.
And I may be nuts, stupid, or an exciting mix of both, but I think we can pull it off. This race isn't so much about outright speed as it is just keeping on that track doing laps, and this goofy little Escort is actually very capable of that.
I don't think anyone's wrong saying it'll handle like a fish on linoleum, or it's comparatively slow, or flimsy, but, and maybe it's the Stockholm syndrome talking, but I think it's going to be less slow, dangerous, and unmanageable than everyone thinks.
So, hell yeah I think we'll do more* laps than the V8olvo. Why the hell not? We've taken the car from an tragically slow, unsafe shitbox to an only embarrassingly slow, roll-cage fortified, loud as hell RACING shitbox. And you know I know what I'm talking about, because I have zero racing experience to get in the way of my deluded visions.
So, taunt if you want, but all I ask is that you quietly throw out a prayer to St.Jude and cheer on the Make car, bringing bringing together two brother factions of geek.
*more, meaning I'm talking ex recto but we'll sure as hell try.
Attention, candy-assed safety kids:
If you could loosen your bike helmets and put down your hand sanitizer for a moment, you'd note we're not relying on the toy bumpers that came with the Escort-- we've made a brutal jail of a grille in the front that's a nightmare of tempered steel, and we're adding a bumper from a massive old Rambler, from the days when pedestrian safety was for the car, not the walker.
If you could loosen your bike helmets and put down your hand sanitizer for a moment, you'd note we're not relying on the toy bumpers that came with the Escort-- we've made a brutal jail of a grille in the front that's a nightmare of tempered steel, and we're adding a bumper from a massive old Rambler, from the days when pedestrian safety was for the car, not the walker.
You can mock us and cheer on the Jalops all you want, as they place that V8 in an engine bay it was never meant to fit-- and then when it comes time to wager, you should really think about the reliability of an untried engine swap by pairs of soft new-media hands, more at home caressing a mouse than a socket wrench.
It's 600 miles. Lots of time for our little Escort to buzz by the smoking heaps that had so much fun passing us in the first 20 laps.
Yeah! Now I'm off to source more cheetah blood to rub on the block.
The wisdom of this was even clear 42 years ago: look
Well, since we're talking Atari, I guess I can sort of justify this self-serving link: [www.boingboing.net]
