Picture a modern suburban soccer mom wrestling this vehicle into the parking lot at the local Starbucks. As if you could steer this thing with one hand (and no place to set down your vente Mochaccino Latte in those B.C. -- Before Cupholders -- vehicles).
10 - 1 that that 'burban is no longer rocking the thriftmaster, especially since it is a floor shift rather than a column shift. Likely has a 50's el camino engine.
Notice the single tail/brake light unit. Let me tell you I have driven several vehicles with this set up and folks don't know what hand signals are anymore, some even think you’re waving at them.
About ten years ago I was driving a 48 Ford pickup with a similar setup and got pulled over by a cop for having a missing taillight. I explained to him that the truck was stock and in our state, one running light was all that was required anyway; he let me go. Moral,… know the law.
@Flathead Smith: The waving back is hilarious; I'm a bicyclist and signal nearly all of my turns, and (especially when turning right) people do tend to wave at me.
@Flathead Smith: My grandmother got pulled over by a cop once (in the '50s sometime) because instead of signaling with her hand she was waving it wildly. When asked to explain herself, she said, "I started signaling for a right turn, but I realized I needed to turn left, so I was erasing the first signal."
I love late '40s and early '50s vehicles. So much style. So little fluff. Air conditioning? You have windows. Radio? You might get an AM Motorola unit (Blaupunkt wouldn't fit a car with FM for another few years after this car was built). Power seats? Cupholders? Infotainment systems? Nope. Just basic get-you-and-your-stuff to where they need to go.
This would make a nice resto-mod,put a new diesel in it and some amenities(like a/c and nice sound system). Ok I am lying to myself.I would leave the body as is.
This is an exemplary non-sport Utility Vehicle. Probably rode just fine with a load, in its' day. And most of what might go wrong on it could be fixed with tools no more sophisticated than a hammer.
Of course, the brakes and bias tires meant you'd be taking your life in your hands every time you set out. But you can't live your whole life packed in bubble wrap, can you?
And the designers of the HHR should have this truck tattooed on the inside of their eyelids. How could they have tried to copy so closely, yet missed so completely?
Too bad this fellow's lost one of his eyebrows. Finding a replacement has to require a nationwide search. But otherwise, the truck looks remarkably intact. Good for another sixty years, easy.
@Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet: I don't think the HHR was that bad. It doesn't have as well integrated of a design as the PT Cruiser, but the front and back end are okay. What I most dislike are the Monte Carloesque fender creases. They don't match the rounded contours of the rest of the car.
@DrLemming: The ran-the-car-through-a-planer look isn't attractive on anything that's not already square. Case in point, the New Beetle above... it originally had round-sided fenders to match its round body, but for '06 VW decided to really screw the pooch.
Ford has the TorqueShift transmission. Also, they were going to call the EcoBoost engine "Twin Force". I like TwinForce better than green-appeasing EcoBoost.
@The Dead Inside Grp. Co. Ltd.: I nominate the Jeep Go-Devil and Hurricane names for a comeback, as well as the Chrysler Fire-Dome hemi. In fact, I don't think it would be bad if there were more F-head and hemi engines out there today.
Good news!
What?
My Dacia Sandero has the improved 'NeuteredHamster' 4 cylinder!
Excellent!
I couldn't afford to upgrade to the WifeMollifier in my Kia Beige. (I'm sure Kia makes a product that should be called Beige.).
Magnificent beast. Oh, I'm sure it's hot, slow, and noisy, and the ride would rattle my fillings, but I'd love one nonetheless. The headlight visors with the Chevy logo are a nice touch - were these official accessories? The HHR was said to be inspired by these Suburbans. I can only conclude that Chevy did a better job first time around.
This particular set of cars is where I run into problems. I'm not really interested enough in either to really give damn. As JayP71 put it, the choice between a root canal and a barium enema. I don't think a barium enema is a kind enough term. I think the choice should be more like choosing between a root canal and forcibly having your toenails removed from your toes. And I don't mean just a trim... I mean like the choice between that, and oh, the rack. And yet... and yet... I think I might go for that Haunted Skoda.
Acquiring the car wasn't an easy process. Its story, like so many others before it, begins with your renting a truck. And with much labor, digging, a few very unsafe applications of tow rope and a boatload of torque later, you're dragging your new prize, the Skoda, out of the moss and mud that sought to envelope and devour the car completely.
It looks at you forlornly, almost cursing you for the rescue. It seems that the car was where it wanted to be. With a winch, you get the 48 Skoda up onto the flatbed and head home.
And that's when it all started.
You'd awaken in the middle of the night, your dreams tortured by the image of that car staring you in the face. Looming over you, hatefully cursing you for ever having saved it.
And yet, you loved it. You loved its styling.
It'd take more than a few bad dreams to even begin to dissuade you from your restoration of the Skoda.
@Plecostomus will never win COTD... but has a: You begin work on the car, muscling down on its suspension, the car groaning in disgust as it reluctantly submits to you. And as you make progress, the nightmares get worse. You awake with the feeling of an immense weight on your chest, as if the weight of the car itself were crushing you.
Worry begins to creep in-- maybe this car was witness to some ungodly act and still bore the scars of those atrocities.
The front end is mostly junk. You'd be hard pressed to find any kind of parts for this thing, so your best bet is simply to adapt something else. You pirate the front suspension from an 89 Ford Thunderbird, and graft in the independent rear suspension.
Your bastardization of American technologies into Soviet works would have landed you right onto Jim McCarthy's shit list were the Cold War still going on. But the war's over. And the USSR is no more.
The car laments the loss of its motherland.
You know the car can't simply be powered by some Ford or Chevy powerplant.
No, it needs something maniacal. Something insane. Something Soviet.
Your maniacal twang gets the better of you-- as if your project wasn't difficult enough, you decide that the powerplant will be nothing short of a VAZ Wankel Rotary, worked over and roots supercharged.
With a 1990's suspension and a ridiculously powerful and insane contraption of a powerplant, the Skoda finally lives.
The paint that still lingers on its body panels is sanded off, and you paint the car that shade of beige that all the filing cabinets were painted in schools and such back in the 50's.
Now you're left with the upholstery. You contact your Ukranian friend in the port, Yuri, who supplies you with a team of rather unattractive illegally imported Ukranian women to upholster your Skoda in nothing but the finest leather.
The icing on the cake comes as you install a set of black steel wheels with chrome lug-covers.
The Skoda is glorious. Yet, it still looks at you hatefully and forlornly.
It drives great, hauls ass with its ridiculously unique engine note, and the leather interior has you riding in the lap of luxury.
But the bad dreams continue. Now you can see the car, sitting on you, pushing you down into the mud from whence you dragged it.
You wake up, once again drenched in sweat. You drag yourself out of bed and throw on your clothes. Nevermind that it's 1:13AM. You stroll out to the garage, fire up the Skoda and drive.
You don't even feel like you need to concentrate on driving. The car seems to know where it's going. An hour later, you find yourself in an all-too-familiar forest. The car coasts to a stop before a fmailiar looking tree with a rather deep indentation into the mud. You step out of the car and wander over to the mud. You can see a vague hint of white sticking out of the mud in the glow of the headlights. You pull on it, and it comes free of the muck. A human jawbone, fillings and all. And then, you notice the headlights suddenly getting closer and brighter. You'd forgotten to set the ebrake. Your Skoda 13 bears down on you, knocking you down into the muck, pinning you beneath it. It rolls over you, stopping perfectly on top of you like a closing casket.
As you begin to lose consciousness, you find yourself living the dream again, the weight of the Skoda bearing down upon you, pushing you into the mud and moss. The earth reclaiming you.
You dragged the corpse of the Skoda from its grave, and in vengeance, it is dragging you into its grave with it.
Welcome to another kind of project car hell. A kind of hell that awaits those who will not simply let the dead lie.
Semaphore blinkers? You mean like the old Beetles? That's nothing compared to a zippy British Gremlin. Gremlins are cool. Lotii are cool. Can't lose.
Hell, it doesn't even have much rust. Because there's nothing rustable! Hey, maybe this could actually be practical. And let the wiring connectors rust; ferrous oxide is still kinda conductive, and as long as nothing shorts, you'll be fine. Your buddy Ray is an electrician, too. Just in case. Man, this should be a walk in the park.
So the car ends up in your driveway, casting a mostly-complete, wedge-shaped shadow. You throw a brick behind a rear wheel, just in case, throw it in neutral, and shove your lightweight sports car underneath the carport. At which point it rolls backward onto your foot.
OW GODDAMN GOAT-RAPING NUN SHIT.
Your girlfriend comes running outside, and is fortunately able to shove the car just hard enough to get the possessed sonofabitch off of your foot. Whew. Thanks, hon.
"I don't think this car likes you too much."
You reassure her that it's a car. It doesn't have feelings. And neither does your foot, at the moment.
A few minutes later, your Lotus is where it was supposed to be, the handbrake set, transmission in gear (because you don't trust the handbrake), and chocks on either side of two wheels. Your driveway may be perfectly flat... well, it must not be, actually. Cars can't move themselves.
You get most of the simple mechanical work done, and straighten out some of the cosmetic details, over the course of a couple months. Eventually, you call up your buddy Ray. He agrees to have a look that Saturday, after the ball game.
Saturday, of course, can't come fast enough.
Ray shows up, leaving his F-150 half on your postage-stamp of yellowed rented-duplex lawn, half on the sidewalk, as per usual. Your girlfriend shakes her head disapprovingly, thinking of what your lush of a landlord said last time Ray's truck left ruts in his lawn, but you could care less, disappearing around the edge of the house.
"What the hell IS it?"
You explain that it's a Lotus. Ray scratches his head. "Oh, like an Esprit, or an Elise. Except old as hell."
Well, pretty much, yeah. Eventually.
Opening the hood - sorry, bonnet - causes him to become speechless for the second time since you met him in high school (the first, of course, was the Tequila Incident of '92... or was it '93?). "Shit, man. They weren't jokin' about those British cars, were they?"
You remind Ray that the car's also been submerged by at least one hurricane. He suggests that you drag out the entire bar-fridge.
From there, "Exorcising Old Joe" becomes a near-weekly tradition. You supply the cheap beer, and Ray studies the wiring diagrams, having you hold onto loose ends and such.
One Saturday, Ray (a bit tipsy, but nowhere near drunk) announces that the car should be nearly all set. Great! Time for some finishing touches. You hook everything up over the next weekend, then, late at night, you fire it up.
Starts right up. Second try. You kill the engine, just in case, and start toward the door to tell your girlfriend. You know, the girlfriend that left you a month ago, calling you a "no-good, deadbeat scumbag" and, curiously, a "faggot". Hey, not like you were boning Ray in the back seat, the two of you were just getting the car going. Well, he did kinda look at you funny, but the price was right.
Sigh.
Doesn't matter, though. Now you have all of your free time to get the Elite absolutely perfect. You look up each common failure point of your car, and make sure that nothing (aside from the fiberglass shell) is likely to go to Hell in a handbasket.
Clearly, now, you have to show off your handiwork. It may not be perfect, but a running Elite, even the less fiendish second model, is a minor miracle. A street-legal one? Even more so! And thanks to some good old junkyard-scrounged Japanese electronics, connectors, and wire, you should be all set on that front. A Maaco BRG paintjob, and you're on the road.
Once you get it registered (by a confused clerk) and inspected (by an amazed mechanic), it's off to the circuit for you. There's a local all-make car show coming up, and you can't wait.
The big day comes. You pull in, and are halted by an attendant. "Various makes, that way."
But there's an Elan over there, and an Elite-
"Yeah, that's British cars."
This is a Lotus Elite!
"Are you kidding? Elites are rounded fiberglass bathtubs. This is... well, okay, it's fiberglass. But it's no Elite."
You open the door and spit. Philistine. Aiming for the end of a row of Sunbeams, Triumphs, and MGs, you pull into your rightful position.
Fewer than ten minutes pass.
"Hey, man, that's one badass Gremlin! What's the nose off of?"
It's a Lotus.
"No way, I know a Gremlin when I see one. You're pretty damn funny, though. I like it!"
Sigh.
"Daddy, Daddy! Lookit the Gwemlin!"
"I wonder why they've parked it over here, Billy? Here's the owner, I'll ask. ... So, did you put a Rover V8 in it and end up over here by trickery?"
No, sir, it's a Lotus Elite.
"Lotus wouldn't build anything that ugly, would they? Wow."
You write a quick "back in 10" on a sheet of notebook paper, leaving it on the dash, then grab a warm bottle of Guinness from the back of the car, shove it into your coat pocket, and go for a walk.
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
About ten years ago I was driving a 48 Ford pickup with a similar setup and got pulled over by a cop for having a missing taillight. I explained to him that the truck was stock and in our state, one running light was all that was required anyway; he let me go. Moral,… know the law.
07/25/09
Good on ya for knowing the law.
07/25/09
It's not awesome in Atlanta traffic.
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
Of course, the brakes and bias tires meant you'd be taking your life in your hands every time you set out. But you can't live your whole life packed in bubble wrap, can you?
And the designers of the HHR should have this truck tattooed on the inside of their eyelids. How could they have tried to copy so closely, yet missed so completely?
Too bad this fellow's lost one of his eyebrows. Finding a replacement has to require a nationwide search. But otherwise, the truck looks remarkably intact. Good for another sixty years, easy.
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
07/25/09
***But you can't live your whole life packed in bubble wrap, can you?***
Sure you can... see?
07/25/09
And...
07/26/09
BTW, have you seen my lawn dart set? They make a really cool sound when they pop bubble wrap.
07/25/09
07/25/09
Ford has the TorqueShift transmission. Also, they were going to call the EcoBoost engine "Twin Force". I like TwinForce better than green-appeasing EcoBoost.
07/25/09
I always thought that "POWERSTROKE" was a fairly hilarious Ford product name...
@jesusonthedashboard
Ibid to that
07/25/09
07/25/09
Sure, I'm right there with ya... and along with: "THRIFTMASTER", I'd like to nominate: "NEUTEREDHAMSTER", "HOONSTOPPER", and "WIFEMOLLIFIER"
07/25/09
I can picture that day:....
Good news!
What?
My Dacia Sandero has the improved 'NeuteredHamster' 4 cylinder!
Excellent!
I couldn't afford to upgrade to the WifeMollifier in my Kia Beige. (I'm sure Kia makes a product that should be called Beige.).
07/25/09
07/25/09
Mine won't have any vise grips to open doors or roll down windows, though. I am using all my vise grips to hold brake calipers on.
07/25/09
Besides - chances are this beauty has drums all around, so you can keep the Vise Grips on the doors where they belong.
07/25/09
05/11/09
05/11/09
05/11/09
05/11/09
05/11/09
Acquiring the car wasn't an easy process. Its story, like so many others before it, begins with your renting a truck. And with much labor, digging, a few very unsafe applications of tow rope and a boatload of torque later, you're dragging your new prize, the Skoda, out of the moss and mud that sought to envelope and devour the car completely.
It looks at you forlornly, almost cursing you for the rescue. It seems that the car was where it wanted to be. With a winch, you get the 48 Skoda up onto the flatbed and head home.
And that's when it all started.
You'd awaken in the middle of the night, your dreams tortured by the image of that car staring you in the face. Looming over you, hatefully cursing you for ever having saved it.
And yet, you loved it. You loved its styling.
It'd take more than a few bad dreams to even begin to dissuade you from your restoration of the Skoda.
-this comment continued after the jump-
05/11/09
Worry begins to creep in-- maybe this car was witness to some ungodly act and still bore the scars of those atrocities.
The front end is mostly junk. You'd be hard pressed to find any kind of parts for this thing, so your best bet is simply to adapt something else. You pirate the front suspension from an 89 Ford Thunderbird, and graft in the independent rear suspension.
Your bastardization of American technologies into Soviet works would have landed you right onto Jim McCarthy's shit list were the Cold War still going on. But the war's over. And the USSR is no more.
The car laments the loss of its motherland.
You know the car can't simply be powered by some Ford or Chevy powerplant.
No, it needs something maniacal. Something insane. Something Soviet.
Your maniacal twang gets the better of you-- as if your project wasn't difficult enough, you decide that the powerplant will be nothing short of a VAZ Wankel Rotary, worked over and roots supercharged.
With a 1990's suspension and a ridiculously powerful and insane contraption of a powerplant, the Skoda finally lives.
The paint that still lingers on its body panels is sanded off, and you paint the car that shade of beige that all the filing cabinets were painted in schools and such back in the 50's.
Now you're left with the upholstery. You contact your Ukranian friend in the port, Yuri, who supplies you with a team of rather unattractive illegally imported Ukranian women to upholster your Skoda in nothing but the finest leather.
The icing on the cake comes as you install a set of black steel wheels with chrome lug-covers.
The Skoda is glorious. Yet, it still looks at you hatefully and forlornly.
It drives great, hauls ass with its ridiculously unique engine note, and the leather interior has you riding in the lap of luxury.
But the bad dreams continue. Now you can see the car, sitting on you, pushing you down into the mud from whence you dragged it.
You wake up, once again drenched in sweat. You drag yourself out of bed and throw on your clothes. Nevermind that it's 1:13AM. You stroll out to the garage, fire up the Skoda and drive.
You don't even feel like you need to concentrate on driving. The car seems to know where it's going. An hour later, you find yourself in an all-too-familiar forest. The car coasts to a stop before a fmailiar looking tree with a rather deep indentation into the mud. You step out of the car and wander over to the mud. You can see a vague hint of white sticking out of the mud in the glow of the headlights. You pull on it, and it comes free of the muck. A human jawbone, fillings and all. And then, you notice the headlights suddenly getting closer and brighter. You'd forgotten to set the ebrake. Your Skoda 13 bears down on you, knocking you down into the muck, pinning you beneath it. It rolls over you, stopping perfectly on top of you like a closing casket.
As you begin to lose consciousness, you find yourself living the dream again, the weight of the Skoda bearing down upon you, pushing you into the mud and moss. The earth reclaiming you.
You dragged the corpse of the Skoda from its grave, and in vengeance, it is dragging you into its grave with it.
Welcome to another kind of project car hell. A kind of hell that awaits those who will not simply let the dead lie.
05/11/09
05/11/09
But thanks for reading my pile of shit anyways. :)
05/10/09
Hell, it doesn't even have much rust. Because there's nothing rustable! Hey, maybe this could actually be practical. And let the wiring connectors rust; ferrous oxide is still kinda conductive, and as long as nothing shorts, you'll be fine. Your buddy Ray is an electrician, too. Just in case. Man, this should be a walk in the park.
So the car ends up in your driveway, casting a mostly-complete, wedge-shaped shadow. You throw a brick behind a rear wheel, just in case, throw it in neutral, and shove your lightweight sports car underneath the carport. At which point it rolls backward onto your foot.
OW GODDAMN GOAT-RAPING NUN SHIT.
Your girlfriend comes running outside, and is fortunately able to shove the car just hard enough to get the possessed sonofabitch off of your foot. Whew. Thanks, hon.
"I don't think this car likes you too much."
You reassure her that it's a car. It doesn't have feelings. And neither does your foot, at the moment.
A few minutes later, your Lotus is where it was supposed to be, the handbrake set, transmission in gear (because you don't trust the handbrake), and chocks on either side of two wheels. Your driveway may be perfectly flat... well, it must not be, actually. Cars can't move themselves.
You get most of the simple mechanical work done, and straighten out some of the cosmetic details, over the course of a couple months. Eventually, you call up your buddy Ray. He agrees to have a look that Saturday, after the ball game.
Saturday, of course, can't come fast enough.
Ray shows up, leaving his F-150 half on your postage-stamp of yellowed rented-duplex lawn, half on the sidewalk, as per usual. Your girlfriend shakes her head disapprovingly, thinking of what your lush of a landlord said last time Ray's truck left ruts in his lawn, but you could care less, disappearing around the edge of the house.
"What the hell IS it?"
You explain that it's a Lotus. Ray scratches his head. "Oh, like an Esprit, or an Elise. Except old as hell."
Well, pretty much, yeah. Eventually.
Opening the hood - sorry, bonnet - causes him to become speechless for the second time since you met him in high school (the first, of course, was the Tequila Incident of '92... or was it '93?). "Shit, man. They weren't jokin' about those British cars, were they?"
You remind Ray that the car's also been submerged by at least one hurricane. He suggests that you drag out the entire bar-fridge.
From there, "Exorcising Old Joe" becomes a near-weekly tradition. You supply the cheap beer, and Ray studies the wiring diagrams, having you hold onto loose ends and such.
One Saturday, Ray (a bit tipsy, but nowhere near drunk) announces that the car should be nearly all set. Great! Time for some finishing touches. You hook everything up over the next weekend, then, late at night, you fire it up.
Starts right up. Second try. You kill the engine, just in case, and start toward the door to tell your girlfriend. You know, the girlfriend that left you a month ago, calling you a "no-good, deadbeat scumbag" and, curiously, a "faggot". Hey, not like you were boning Ray in the back seat, the two of you were just getting the car going. Well, he did kinda look at you funny, but the price was right.
Sigh.
Doesn't matter, though. Now you have all of your free time to get the Elite absolutely perfect. You look up each common failure point of your car, and make sure that nothing (aside from the fiberglass shell) is likely to go to Hell in a handbasket.
Clearly, now, you have to show off your handiwork. It may not be perfect, but a running Elite, even the less fiendish second model, is a minor miracle. A street-legal one? Even more so! And thanks to some good old junkyard-scrounged Japanese electronics, connectors, and wire, you should be all set on that front. A Maaco BRG paintjob, and you're on the road.
Once you get it registered (by a confused clerk) and inspected (by an amazed mechanic), it's off to the circuit for you. There's a local all-make car show coming up, and you can't wait.
The big day comes. You pull in, and are halted by an attendant. "Various makes, that way."
But there's an Elan over there, and an Elite-
"Yeah, that's British cars."
This is a Lotus Elite!
"Are you kidding? Elites are rounded fiberglass bathtubs. This is... well, okay, it's fiberglass. But it's no Elite."
You open the door and spit. Philistine. Aiming for the end of a row of Sunbeams, Triumphs, and MGs, you pull into your rightful position.
Fewer than ten minutes pass.
"Hey, man, that's one badass Gremlin! What's the nose off of?"
It's a Lotus.
"No way, I know a Gremlin when I see one. You're pretty damn funny, though. I like it!"
Sigh.
"Daddy, Daddy! Lookit the Gwemlin!"
"I wonder why they've parked it over here, Billy? Here's the owner, I'll ask. ... So, did you put a Rover V8 in it and end up over here by trickery?"
No, sir, it's a Lotus Elite.
"Lotus wouldn't build anything that ugly, would they? Wow."
You write a quick "back in 10" on a sheet of notebook paper, leaving it on the dash, then grab a warm bottle of Guinness from the back of the car, shove it into your coat pocket, and go for a walk.
Some people just can't appreciate good design.
05/10/09
05/10/09
05/10/09
05/10/09
05/10/09
05/11/09
05/11/09
05/10/09