Okay, so I’m a car whore. No surprises there.

I am in love with a different car every few days – I even drive a bunch of them.

Truth be told, most of the cars that I drove leave me somewhat .. unmoved. A reviewer in today’s New York Times discusses how disconnected they are from car prices – and how challenging it would be to actually spend money on most of these cars.

I feel that same way. I drive something and think “uh .. wow. That’s a lot of greenbacks”.

My feelings and experiences with cars have always been influenced by the writers in the several automotive publications – especially that of Car & Driver and Automobile magazines. As many have noticed, there isn’t any difference between these publications anymore. They always print about the same cars, the same topics and for the most part, they all say the same thing.

Witness the revised VW Beetle. Have you seen a single article that has failed to prominently mention that it’s more “manly”? Manly? It looks more like a Beetle, but manly? Have you SEEN one? It looks like .. a Beetle. Inside – it looks like my 1969 Beetle was updated with modern instruments and airbags. And, something less than a flat pane of glass for the windshield.

People are unwilling to go out onto a limb and say something unique or creative at all.

So, the new version of the iconic Beetle is “masculine”, the new Buicks are either too expensive or too inexpensive, the new Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet is ugly, and you read the same damned thing on every page of every publication everywhere.

The formula goes:

Introduce car type/size/brand – remark on history “Hyundai sure has come a long way since that Excel nightmare”. Make doubtful remark about their ability to maintain their lead/enter a market/stay in a market/stay in business based on doubt that the new model/entry can rise above/make a mark/survive.

Compare model being reviewed to the standard for this size/class/ideal/impossible standard never achieved. Make a comment about the market, and past mistakes by the brand/manufacturer. Point out someone else did it better.

Discuss the car’s visuals and materials quality/manufacturing standard. Compare VW/American built cars unfavorably based on quality of interior materials. Suggest/hint that the rest of the car will be found equally wanting.

Drive car around block. Make three points about the car’s drive experience; one point can be how people on the road viewed the car.

Discuss price according to following guidelines -

Too expensive

VW/Audi, Buick/GM/Cadillac, Lincoln, Chrysler (make suggestion that Chrysler won’t be able to sell any at that price)

No comment on price

Bentley, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Lexus

Laud how inexpensive it is for what you’re getting

Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan, Honda

Avoid pricing concerns – point out that no one will buy them

Acura (all), Infiniti (all except G)

Make wry remark that repeats negative comments; re-make competitive comparison favorable to the competition whether or not the car you’re reviewing is actually competing with the comparison you’ve chosen.

Pat self on back.

Hit “submit”

There is no soul in this writing. No reason to read it. No reason for it to exist.

And yet, this writing is expanding – pushing out anything in its path.

Point of fact: I’m a car whore. Always have been, always will be. However, we are seeing fewer and fewer color choices on modern cars than ever before.

Especially when a car is fully loaded, the colors found on the dealer lots are more likely as not to be black outside and black inside.

I have wondered this for months. Why so few colors on the ground? I have noticed that dealers are even reluctant to special order a car in a color that’s not black/black. Why?

Salesmen will tell you that it’s because the black/black combination is what customers want. I think that the truth is more on the egg side than on the chicken side of the question.

I was talking with John, my car whore buddy who has worked in the retail auto industry for years and he told me that black/black is ordered because it can ALWAYS be dealer-traded to get something else. This keeps the franchisee from having to keep a car color that might not sell right away, and that other dealers will be reluctant to trade for. It’s the least risky choice.

Surrounded by black/black, dark gray and black, dark blue and black, silver and black, with the occasional white and black – the consumers make a choice. Do they pay full retail and wait for a color, or do they just accept a car that is indistinguishable from pavement? You know, the roads on which we drive.

Black is like damp asphalt at night.
Silver is like concrete on a dreary day – so is silver/gold and its permutations
Many whites are more like dry concrete on a sunny day than white
Dark grays are like wet pavement, pavement on a cloudy day or icy pavement

Black interiors? Here in the Southwest, where the summer sun can warm your car to a temperature exceeding 180 in just an hour? Black is insane. In casual testing, a guy at an Audi store measured a black/black car at over 40 degrees HOTTER inside than a white/beige car.

Black interior is also just .. invisible. There’s nothing there.

So – your choices on the lot are pavement with black. Or, wait and pay more. Is it that the customers are REQUESTING this combination, or is it more accurate to say that they’re ACCEPTING this combination?

Travel to any other country in the world, and the cars on the roads will remind you of a fresh bag of jelly beans – black is only used on cars in professional service.

Why are we colorless? Why do we accept this?

How is it possible to know, decades in advance, what an automotive icon will be? Will there even be iconic automobiles in the future? We’re seeing that Gen Y and later types are no longer enamored of cars as we older folks were.

People, generally speaking, have an inflated view of what their “stuff” is worth, and a deflated view of what other people’s “stuff” is worth. Case in point; I’ve long thought it would be grand to cook on a restored O’Keefe & Merritt gas range. There are dozens of them for sale in the Houston area. The most valuable ones are those that have double ovens, five burners, all the factory knobs and accessories and such. Most of the ranges are not in that condition. Most have been stored in a garage or shed for years. Most have chipped powder coat finish, pitted chrome, missing parts, busted mechanicals.

Yet, the would-be sellers of these ranges assert that their “treasure” is worth $500 to $800.

Just as it is with the classic ranges (or, old stoves, if reality were observed), people with old cars (or, junk, if reality were observed) have an unrealistic view of what their lawn art is really worth. Only units that have enjoyed enormous effort in restoration, both cosmetic and mechanical, AND that were rare, unusual or iconic bring even what their original selling price was, let alone a return on invested effort.

Having no front or side yard into ditch a questionable classic, is it more appropriate to just let go of something that felt iconic at a time? I am unsure.

Dear Shannon -

Please stop emailing me, or rather, please have your automated system stop emailing me.

You so clearly were not committed to answering the question of vehicle availability that I phrased in my sole, initial contact with your store that further communication is pointless.

Your automated system has now sent me five separate emails asking me to get excited about the . Vehicle.

I am unclear what a . Vehicle could be after further review of the Lincoln website.

You have never sent me a vehicle quote on the 2011 MKX Rapid Spec 101A with the Limited Edition Package.  I had sent you a request that included the specific RPO codes for what I wanted, but you never responded in any way to that request.  You also did never send me a vehicle quote on the . Vehicle.

It’s quite fine that you haven’t quoted me on the . Vehicle, as I have been unable to find information or pricing for that vehicle on Edmunds.com, or any other research website.

Your automated email system has absolutely atrocious (very bad) spelling, punctuation and grammar, and should be overseen by someone with at least a high school education.  Its construction clearly signals a level of emotional enthusiasm but lack of attention to detail that would perhaps be appropriate to someone selling used Yugo product on Craigslist, but is highly inappropriate when communicating with a customer you are trying to persuade to spend a 20% premium over what could be had down the frontage road at the Ford store.

If I overcome my mirth and derision for your store’s complete misunderstanding of internet communications, I may come into the store and ask for the elderly gentleman whose product knowledge, demeanor and focus on customer requests engendered my initial loyalty to your store in the making of my inquiry.

Given that you clearly do not read the emails that come to you through the dealer-contact portal, I take the liberty of both faxing a copy of this message to store management, and posting a copy on my blog so that the message is clearly conveyed.

Again, please cease peppering me with incessant, irrelevant, misspelled, non-specific automated emails.

Thank you kindly,

Douglas Hord

From the thecarlounge.net, which is a great little news source – snarky and fun, and loaded with up to the minute information.

Brian’s friend Wes is the author – he’s awesome. In fact, I want all of you to go and start reading thecarlounge.net so that he keeps publishing it. I’ll wait.

The 1970 booklet from China entitled China Tames Her Rivers is full of eye-poppingly extreme Communist propaganda, but every word of it was meant seriously, including these: “There were early attempts by traitors to hoodwink the people with such decadent Western notions as “put technique first” and “place specialists in charge of engineering.” These traitors were swiftly dealt with.”

Mao had a deep-seated loathing for engineers and other intellectuals, and so did everything he could to minimise their contribution to Chinese society. In the so-called Great Leap Forward, intellectuals were rounded up and shot, and Mao (who didn’t know a thing about metallurgy) ordered farmers to quit farming and instead build small coal smelters on their land, melt down their farming implements and turn them into raw steel. He thought this would act as a springboard for China to have a sudden industrial revolution. What actually happened was a sudden lack of food because nobody was farming, a sudden lack of farm implements because they’d all been melted down, and a sudden glut of utterly useless metal goo that couldn’t even remotely be called steel. Vast numbers of people starved to death.

So, culturally, China not only has no history of valuing Western “quality” and design as we know them, but they actually have a strong history of violently devaluing them. They will emerge from this, but it’s going to take a very long time. Unfortunately, Western MBAs don’t want to wait, and the collateral damage includes mislabeled glycol being sold as glycerin, melamine being stuffed into dog food, and this: The Detroit News is reporting that federal safety officials have ordered over 450,000 tires made by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. recalled because corner-cutting during assembly can lead to complete and catastrophic tread separation. The tires were sold for light trucks under the brand names Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS in a variety of 15 and 16-inch sizes. The recall affects all tires sold because the manufacturer “failed to provide information that would allow [the US distributor] to determine exactly how many tires, and which batches, have the problem.”

Here’s the news article from the Detroit News. The website (thecarlounge.net, remember?) has a cool picture of what this tread/corner separation looks like.