Jalopnik: 60 minutes

Andy Rooney Bitches, Moans About State Slogans On License Plates, Being Old

Mark Arnold — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Last night's bitch-fest by Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes' starts with his inability to discern the difference between cars and then as usual, inexplicably moves towards something only quasi-tangentially related. In this case, license plates and state slogans. Although there's no real point he's driving at, it's funny in that "Oh, Grandpa, you're so old" kind of way. Especially when he explains he's unable to figure out what one of the "cars he's seen on the road" is — and up goes a picture of a Fiat Bravo, which, as you well know, is a car not found on U.S. roads. Oh, Grandpa...you're so old. Isn't it about time you retired to the back porch already? [60 Minutes]

60 Minutes On The Countach

Davey G. Johnson — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:30:00 EDT

We remember this clip vividly. Given the date, we were a mere nine years old at the time, and our dad come down the hall to excitedly to pull us away from our obsessive Lego habit to come watch, saying "Lamborghini's gonna be on 60 Minutes!. Along with the '77 Trans Am, the '69 Dodge Charger and the 308 GTS, the Lamborghini Countach had captured our pre-pre-pubescent heart. In fact, it was our absolute favorite car in the world. When the F40 arrived a couple of years later, we weren't exactly "Pffft," but it still wasn't a Countach. Of course, the Vader-Lambo was most-certainly the longest-running completely-outrageous car ever built. Argue the longevity? We'll argue the outrageous. Argue the outrageous, we'll fight you on the length of production. You can't win, Darth.

And as we were wont to do over the various merits and demerits of action figures, we often nearly came to blows defending its supremacy against infidel friends and relatives who were also still more than a half-decade from holding a driver's license. We had multiple posters of it hung lovingly with staples on our bedroom wall. And when the Diablo arrived, we were let down. The Countach? It's the '32 Ford wearing its hot-rod guise. It's a Bugatti Atlantic. It's a '63 Split-Window 'Vette. It's a ridiculous, preposterous, entirely impractical car that nobody's ever quite had enough of. And it speaks of the state of the auto industry that there hasn't been a vehicle since that has ever stirred us quite so much. [Thanks to F.P. for the tip.]

New Cadillac Partially Revealed in 60 Minutes Spot

Mike Spinelli — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:19:25 EDT

On last night's 60 Minutes, GM Vice Chair Bob Lutz took Steve Kroft on a walkthrough of Cadillac's Warren, Michigan design studio, where the brand's angular Art and Science design language took shape. Lutz, ever the tease, upskirted a new Caddy model, revealing floor-to-ceiling grillework in the front and part of a taillamp in the rear. The boys from Leftlane News, who posted the money shots, speculate it's the next-generation CTS. We're not sure about that, but we are sure Andy Rooney is now almost totally incoherent.

Breaking: GM previews 2008 Cadillac CTS [Leftlane News]

Related:
Spy Photos: More on the Cadillac CTS Super V [internal]

Y'ever Notice How American Cars Suck?: Andy Rooney Skewers American Carmakers

Mike Spinelli — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:20:44 EST

On CBS's "60 Minutes" last night, humorist and avuncular crankpot Andy Rooney gave American automakers a rhetorical wet willie in their cauliflower ears. Too many, ill-defined model names, he quipped, have turned the US auto industry into a kaleidoscopic blur of subpar vehicles:

Do you know what kind of a car a "Milan" is? I never heard of it. It's a kind of Mercury apparently. Mercury is some kind of a Ford, of course. They also sell a Mercury Mariner, a Mercury Mountaineer and a Mercury Montego. Who would have decided "Montego" was a good name for a Ford car?

He even personalized his Few Minutes of castigation by admitting his last three cars weren't of American stock (we know at least one was a BMW). "We no longer make the best cars," he said, "and Americans are turning away from them." With not a punch line in sight, Rooney pointed out that Japanese makes dominate Consumer Reports's reliability studies. What, in Rooney's opinion, can the US auto industry do to get out of its rut? "Spend less time coming up with clever names and more time building better cars," he said. Actually, that's pretty much the best advice we've gotten from Rooney since his 1977 rant on ignoring "new and improved" dishwashing liquid in favor of the same old kind.

Andy Rooney: What's In A Name? [CBS News]

Related:
Flying Cars on 60 Minutes [internal]