The devil is in the details

I can get a little hung up on the details when I am watching TV and movies. I have been told time and time again that it is only entertainment and I should just relax. The problem with this idea is it makes for lazy directors and bad story telling.


It is the details that draw you in deeper. They resonate with you, making the story more real, painting that picture in your mind. When the details are wrong it is jarring. You may not even know what is wrong, but you will know that something just isn’t right. It will draw your attention like something caught between your teeth.

How does this topic tie in to cars? I am glad you asked. A particular bug of mine is when they get a character’s car wrong. What you choose to drive says so much about you. We choose our cars with great care. When they are driving a car that doesn’t make sense it is like if the characters on Mad Men started holding their cigarettes like nervous 8 year olds.

I know that it is usually a manufacturer will give the producers a dump truck full of money and access to all the cars they need. It allows them to spend the money they would have spent on cars elsewhere, like on more explosions.

It is easy and cost efficient. It also leads to scenes like the one in Matrix Reloaded where every car on the highway is a GM product. The evil white guys with dreadlocks are driving a Cadillac Escalade. These guys are supposed to be evil and tough and they choose a vehicle which is neither.

The same thing happened in the last couple of James Bond movies. Everything with wheels in both movies is a Ford product. Yes I know this means that Daniel Craig drove the requisite Aston Martin (BTW James Bond should ONLY drive Aston Martins) but he also ended up driving a Volvo. What were they thinking? He is James Bond, not some sparkly vampire.

I am actually kind of sad that I know that the Twilight vampire guy drives a Volvo. Why somebody who is immortal and trying to pass himself off as a teenager drive a Volvo I will never know. Oh wait a minute, yes I do. It is because Ford wants to expand the market for Volvos beyond its three traditional buying groups: old people, engineers and women who are 3 months pregnant.

When this is done right it is beautiful.

Dwight Schrute from the Office would drive an 80’s Trans Am. It is big and loud and not nearly as cool as he thinks it is. All the cars on this show have been chosen well. Somebody was paying attention.

The absolute king of doing this right is Quentin Tarantino. He has made some amazing movies. I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with him. I think it would be like being locked in an elevator with a dozen fanboys loaded up on Red Bull and cotton candy. They say that all the great artists are a little crazy.

I got really excited when watching Kill Bill 1 & 2. That was when I realized that his over analytical attention to detail extends to automobiles. If you have not seen these movies go rent them and read this posting after. It will make a lot more sense that way and you can enjoy the plot without looking at the cars.

Budd’s truck, 1965 Chevrolet C-Series, this was interesting. It has some great lines in the body work. You can see how this was a sharp truck in its day. Now it has a miss matched box, dull paint and a set of dirty mags. With Budd you can also see faded glory. He was a high powered assassin. Now he is a bouncer in a rundown strip club. We see him taking a dressing down from his boss. This is a man that Budd could kill without a second thought but he just stands there and takes it.

There is actually a cool little bonus here. In the background you can see a white Honda Civic. This is the same car that Fabienne drives in Pulp Fiction. Of course Butch borrows this car to retrieve his watch and bad things happen. By being here it asks the question, is this just a wink to the detail orientated in the audience or do these movies take place in the same universe?

Elle Driver’s car, 1980 Trans Am, suited her to a T. We will forget for a moment that the 1980 did not have the 455 Super Duty. By 1980 the car was choked with emissions equipment but it looked cool. Like a lot of the American cars it had all kinds of power but no control. Elle Driver was a deadly assassin but she had a wicked temper.

Sophie Fatale was not one of the major characters but Tarantino does not do anything as a throw away. The character is O-Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) lawyer and friend. She is very stylish and efficient. She is of French and Japanese heritage. This is what makes the choice of car for her so interesting. It is a Nissan 300ZX (Fairlady Z). Nissan has had an ongoing partnership with the French car maker Renault since 1999. It also is very stylish yet not as powerful as most of the other cars featured.

This is really the one that I got excited about. The car appears briefly in the background but it says so much about the character of Bill and just how anal Tarantino is.

De Tomaso was an Italian car maker with a problem. They had a beautiful car without an engine to put in it. It has classic Italian lines. It is low and wide. They approached Ford to buy some engines. They got the Ford 302 and a distribution deal. The super weird bit, Ford sells this Italian bodied, American powered super car at Lincoln Mercury dealerships. This was where you would go to get Crown Victorias or Continental Mark IV s. It was the land of middle aged accountant. There were only 400 of these De Tomaso Mangustas built. They estimate that there are only 200 left.

The car is beautifully crafted, elegant and refined looking, but with a big screaming American engine. To me this embodies Bill himself. He is a controlled and calculated but with brutal power just below the surface. Perfect!

Taking care of the details will not save a bad movie but it will make a good movie even better. Thank you to all the people who take care of the little things.

Rules of the road

The things I see on the road everyday make me wonder if there is any hope at all for the motoring public. It amazes and horrifies me when I see bad driving. When you are driving you are taking responsibility for two tonnes of glass and steel. Make no mistake it is a deadly weapon.

A lot of people talk about speed being an issue. I believe that control and responsibility is much more important than speed. In Germany, where they do have sections of the autobahn with no speed limit, they had ½ as many fatalities per million than the US.

The sad thing is that people are ignoring basic protocols. Here are some good ideas:

1/ Clean ALL the snow off your vehicle! Not some, not most ALL!

If you are going to make sure that you are safe visibility is key. All windows should be clear of snow. This includes the rear window as threats can come from the rear. The hood should be clear of snow because it will blow back on your window and blind the driver as well. The trunk and the roof should be cleared of snow because if the snow blinds the person behind you your car is likely the one they will hit. While you are at it clean the salt residue off your lights as well. This is easy to forget but it can save your life.



2/ If you are driving on a road with two or more lanes going in the same direction, use the left lane as a passing lane ( right lane if you are in one of those countries that drive on the wrong side of the road, yes I am looking at you England).

You are not a police officer. It is not your responsibility to keep everybody doing the speed limit. If they are driving like idiots you want them to have their accident far away from you anyway. Driving on the highway is a team sport. If you can, let people on and off. Try to anticipate where people are going and let them get there. It makes it easier for everybody.

3/ If you hear a siren or see an emergency light GET OUT OF THE WAY! These people are on their way to something important. Make a path for them. After it has passed don’t be an idiot and try to sneak past the cars that are pulled over. That is a bad karma move. Think of it like a yellow flag at a race, everybody takes the position they had before the incident.

I was once in a bumper to bumper traffic jam in Vancouver (in Vancouver this was just a regular Wednesday afternoon). We all heard the siren come up. Nobody had a lot of room to move but everybody moved over the little bit they could. The ambulance shot through. I was never so proud to be part of a group of motorists.

It is my fervent belief that all these vehicles should be equipped with dashboard cameras. After the emergency the fool who did not get out of the way should be introduced to the people who were impacted by their stupidity. Bats and a sound proof room could be provided when appropriate.

Oh, this bit should go without saying but if you see one of these vehicles pulled over give them some room as you go by. Watch for doors that may be opening too. That isn’t a bad idea at any time.



4/ Those funny eight sided red signs that say STOP on them mean STOP. Not yield, not slow down and they most defiantly don’t mean speed up.



5/ Communicate your intentions. There are very few drivers out there who are Kreskin. In fact, to the best of my knowledge there is only one (see picture)

This means signal your intentions on the road. I know this would be a lot easier if they would put a series of lights on the car that you could use to let people know if you were going to turn. Oh wait they have those. They are called turn signals.



6/ Only enter an intersection that you are sure you can get out of. Yes you are in a hurry. Yes the light is short but how is waiting in the middle of the intersection, blocking traffic, better than waiting behind the stop line? Sitting in the middle of the intersection with that stupid “What am I supposed to do?” look on your face and shrugging your shoulders is not endearing you to anybody. Someday someone will snap. If you are lucky they will make obscene gestures and yell an amusing assortment of profanities. If you are unlucky you will have somebody coming at you with a tire iron.



7/ If you need to pull over, pull over to the right (to the left if you are in England, Japan, Australia or anywhere else where they drive on the other side of the road). It should be a nice straight stretch where people can see you. It gives people a chance to react and will keep you safe.

One of my scariest moments on the road happened several years ago. I was tootling along in the fast lane on a six lane highway. I may have been going a little over the posted speed limit. The road dipped and turned. When it straightened out I found myself closing in on a stopped car. The driver had a flat tire and had pulled over towards the centre of the highway. There wasn’t a full shoulder so he was blocking ½ of the fast lane. He was also standing behind the car. If I had just jammed on the brakes he would have been the filling in a car sandwich. I flicked the car in to the next lane and spent the next 500 m getting the rear end under control.



The biggest thing to remember is that driving is a team sport. Think about what is going to keep traffic moving efficiently and safely. You will run in to idiots on the road. Give them a lot of space and let them have their accident far away from you.

Lessons My First Car Taught Me

There is something about your first car, it is always an adventure. It is like your first love. It is exciting and thrilling. You never know what to expect. It is a relationship between you and the car. Unfortunately, my first car was a temperamental sociopath who hated me.

It all started because I went to an auto auction with my uncle. I saw a beat up old motorcycle in a cloud of blue smoke. It sold for $50. It had never occurred to me that vehicle ownership was actually a possibility until that moment. I had $50 in my pocket. It seemed like a no-brainer.

Picture borrowed from

http://www.motorcycle.org.uk/Simon_Millward_Millennium_Ride/pic/flores3.jpg

Lesson #1

Imagine what you think it will cost, double it, double it again and it will still cost more.

I spent the next month talking about motorcycles and scanning classified ads. My dad started distracting me with cars. I was 22 and easily distracted. Why get a vehicle that you couldn’t use in the winter? How can you transport your stuff across country on a bike? You’ll spend just as much money on a car. My budget started sliding upwards.

I saw an ad for a 1976 MGB. It was $2300. It was in”great condition” and it was right around the corner.

(ok it wasn’t that bad but ........ )

picture borrowed from http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mgcarz.com/images/mgb/junk.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mgcarz.com/mgb.html&usg=__zzNo3BJdsEMVyTZu1vJzqgxXFtw=&h=229&w=426&sz=34&hl=en&start=4&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=Co43IC_OGEgLKM:&tbnh=68&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMGB%2Bbasket%2Bcase%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1

We negotiated to price down to $2000 and brought it home.

This is where it began.

Over 5 years I replaced the starter, the suspension, the top, the battery the exhaust, the starter, the clutch, the kingpins, the starter, the kingpins, the battery etc etc etc.

The car had this almost magical way of knowing when I was a couple of dollars ahead and saying “I’ll just take that”. There was never any logic to it. Sometimes it would go fine for months. Sometimes it would demand a thousand dollars in repairs, then a week later demand another thousand. I would plead with it “I just got you a new starter, what do you want now? Please just keep going until payday.”

I sat down and worked it out once, with the money I spent on that car over 5 years, I could have purchased a brand new 1991 Honda Civic SI, which was a hot car at the time.

Lesson #2

Letting emotion override logic can get you in to trouble.

Love is not only blind, but it can blind as well. I was looking past the lack of radio and brakes. The holes in the roof and the floor didn’t seem like such a big deal. There were bungee cords holding the front bumper on and a weird button on the dash to start it.

I didn’t see any of this stuff. What I was thinking about was how wonderful it was going to be with new paint and interior. It is sort of like the way some women will look at men they are dating; “With a little bit of elbow grease I can get this fixer upper in to shape.”

I ended up having to spend every spare dime I had on repairs. There was never very much left for refurbishing.

Lesson #3

If you moderate the speed juuuust right you can keep the inside of the car dry when it rains.

The air coming over the windshield creates a little vortex. It is the same vortex that will push long hair in to your eye. No matter how romantic the vision of hair blowing back in the wind is, it just doesn’t work that way.

Of course there are some limits

Picture borrowed from: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/squba-convertible.jpg

Lesson #4

Putting the cheapest radio you can find in a convertible is a bad idea.

I bought the whole package at a place called Krazy Krazy Warehouse Direct. This was back when it seemed like every electronic retailer was run by people with mental issues.

The radio was putting out 9 Watts of power per channel. For people who do not speak tech, the radio was about as loud as a computer fan. The music coming from it was fighting it’s was out from behind the folded top. Any music that made it past that barrier would try in vain to fight against the wind noise.

On top of all this, I was almost arrested installing the radio. That is a story for another day.

Lesson #5

When the fates tell you it is time to get out, get out.

I got to the point where I either had to put a lot more money in to the car or sell it. I agonized long and hard. I had put so much in to it but there were a lot of major repairs stacking up. I had put them off as long as I could and frankly I couldn’t afford to do them. While I was thinking about everything that I would need to do just to bring it up to the level I would feel comfortable selling it the gods sent me a message.

When I saw the note under my windshield wiper my first thought was that somebody had run in to it. The note said “If you ever think about selling your car, give me a call”. The clouds parted and the angels sang. I knew I had to play this cool. It is like getting the girl’s phone number. If you are too anxious you can spoil the deal. Play it too cool and something else may catch their eye.

I waited until the evening to call and played it cool.

“So you want to sell your car?”

“Well, I am thinking about it.”

I made sure that he wasn’t going to try to use it as transportation. He had a daily driver. This was going to be a project that he and his dad were going to restore it.

I was careful not to over sell the car. I let them see exactly what it was. That didn’t matter though; I saw the look in his eye. He had the fever.

Many years later I saw the car at a gas station. I recognized it by a dent on the trunk and the cracks in the dash. The owner saw me looking over the car and we chatted about how he has just purchased it and he was going to do a full restoration. I didn’t bother telling him that I had heard that before.

http://www.visordown.com/news/images/country-pass-twisty-road.jpg

Sometimes I miss it. I think about those perfect days, a twisty road, a sunny sky and a full tank of gas. It is just enough nostalgia to make me smile. It is not enough to get me to buy another one.

Any thoughts in that direction get drowned out by memories of dead batteries, skinned knuckles and the time that it stopped dead in the middle of no ware, in the middle of Montana, in the middle on the night. There were afternoons of trying to fix questionable repairs made by previous owners. There was learning how to roll start a car, fortunately it was small enough that I could do it myself.

I may get a project car someday but it won’t be my main means of transportation. I have grown to enjoy luxuries like air conditioning, a radio and a 99% chance of it starting.

Welcome to my blog

So I have decided to boldly leap in to the 90’s and start a blog.


What is it about? Well, I like cars. I have always liked cars. I have been known to bore friends, family and even complete strangers with minute car trivia and opinions. In an attempt to keep these people from shunning me I am going to try to use this as an outlet.

So what makes my opinion so important? In a word ....nothing. I like to think I know what I am talking about but I am open to other points of view.

A bit about me:

I am a huge Jeremy Clarkson fan. If you don’t know who that is have a look at Top Gear on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TopGear or visit their website http://www.topgear.com/uk/ . The thing that makes Clarkson and the Top Gear boys interesting is that they will actually tell you if they think the car is crap. This is very different from the North American shows that seem to faun over whatever piece of garbage they are given to drive. I think they live in fear of the manufacturers taking their toys and going home.

I am partial to European cars but I have been known to recognise interesting things from all over.

I used to work in car sales. It was an interesting opportunity to “stress test” a wide variety of vehicles. Hey everybody needs a hobby.



My car history:

1976 MGB
The three days out of the year it ran it was wonderful. The electrics were awful. I replaced the starter at least 3 times. There was always a little prayer whenever I reached for the starter button (a story for another time). The picture looks a lot like the one that I had but I found it at : http://www.mgcars.org.uk/namgbr/Classifieds/carole.jpg

1991 Honda Civic DX
After the MG I wanted a car that I could be reasonably certain would start every time. It was as bullet proof as Hondas are supposed to be. Well, is was bullet proof until somebody took it on a long road trip and only checked the oil after the engine stopped, with a lurch, several thousand KM down the road. Here is a clue, it wasn’t me! Again, The picture looks a lot like the one that I had but I found it at :
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.edmunds.com/pictures/VEHICLE/1991/Honda/3862/1991.honda.civic.4794-300x189.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.edmunds.com/used/1991/honda/civic/3862/options.html&usg=__xQnBFq-b6Nl8TAFrjwWnPKQgYHE=&h=189&w=300&sz=11&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=qWz3U6D1JwvYwM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1991%2Bhonda%2Bcivic%2Bhatchback%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBF_enCA295CA297%26um%3D1

1991 Toyota Corolla SR-5
This car was the best deal I ever got. It came in on trade at the dealership I was working at. It was 8 years old and had 100 000 km. I paid $ 1200 and put 100 000 km on it. Then I gave it to my sister who put another 50 000 km on it. It looked cool and had these great pop-up head lights. I discovered that if you hit the high beams while the lights were off they would flip up, flash and go back down. This was a great way of suggesting that the intelligence of the person in that car in front of you may be more than a little suspect. The one in the picture is a GT-S so it has a slightly nicer body kit. Mine started nice and red but by the time I got to it the paint had faded to a dull pink. This picture was found at: http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=433221&postid=4883556

2000 VW Golf 1.8T
This car is so much fun! The 1.8T is an Audi designed engine that can be tweaked up to produce 400 + HP. To the untrained eye it is just another little silver Golf. I love a sleeper car. VW also packed these little cars with all the fun toys. I will never have a car without heated seats again! Again, the picture looks a lot like the one that I had but I found it at : http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/112_0006_2000_volkswagen_golf_18t/index.html



My dream cars:



Audi
I love this manufacturer. You get the practicality of VW with the insane performance from Porsche and Lamborghini.

Audi R8
This is the money is no object and I can take the Autobahn to work every day choice.Its looks are just sex on wheels. At the same time it has an incredible Teutonicpracticality. It has all wheel drive to help keep it on the road. It is even reasonably priced ( for a 420 hp super-car). It just looks evil.

Audi RS4
Back to the land of the sleeper. Tiny car, relatively unassuming exterior ..... all the rage of hell under the hood. Again, all wheel drive to put the power to the road.


Things that make me scratch my head:

Cyclists who want to be treated as automobiles, right up to the point where they come up to that stop sign, or unless it is more convenient to ride on the sidewalk. Then when they are on the sidewalk they are incredibly aggressive.


Subarus
They seem to be either driven by people who can’t quite muster up the money for a Volvo or some guy who has escaped from a Japanese comic book. Group #1 wears a lot of tweed, smokes a pipe and will ride the fast lane at 5 km/h under the speed limit (because somebody needs to slow those maniacs down!). Group #2 drive these pseudo rally cars. 5 hood scoops and more spoilers than you can shake a stick at. These WRX STI QPX pilots don’t seem to get the idea that the main attention they are drawing comes from the police.


Cars that have been in my family:

1960 Chrysler New Yorker 2 door
 Longer than a super- tanker, bigger fins than the Batmobile and room to seat 32 of your closest friends. It was my grandfathers and it is now my dad’s. It has been a restoration project for the last couple
of decades. Not my picture, but picture this as a two door and white. This picture can be found at: http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://static.flickr.com/95/249917476_0f5a8310ae_o.jpg&imgrefurl=http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2006/09/index.html&usg=___dVBJCoOOTL1OjkK5U4q49T9lRo=&h=480&w=640&sz=31&hl=en&start=62&tbnid=O1_31I_M5jOkdM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1960%2BChrysler%2Bnew%2Byorker%2B2%2Bdoor%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D54

AMC Gremlin
My mom bought it right after her divorce. It was bright yellow. It was written off within a year. I used to sit in the rear hatch looking out. This was before people worried about child seats or safety of any kind really. Mom’s was yellow but not the X package or with a sunroof like the one in the picture. Not my picture, original found at:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://allworldcars.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/06-1972-gremlin-xlt.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.guboards.spokesmanreview.com/showthread.php%3Fp%3D448036&usg=__9rQE2-2uQLN1lFsKs0GulCZb87M=&h=384&w=640&sz=58&hl=en&start=18&tbnid=x5EMp-PRbyhGzM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1972%2Bgemlin%2Byellow%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

1973 Pontiac Le Mans
My maternal grandfather had this interesting piece of automotive art. It had huge heavy doors that you had to lean ½ way out of the car to close. He had it for 16 years and it never ever started on the first crank. Yet another borrowed image. Original : http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/199/478791633_10e2518c8a.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/98216376%40N00/478791633&usg=__wdCIfpf-gXaVd0WhtKi5jkRGxoA=&h=341&w=500&sz=116&hl=en&start=17&tbnid=HTHWhLEAgdz6eM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1973%2Bpontiac%2Blemans%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

1968 AMC AMX 
My dad got this car the week I was born. It was a two seater. Mom was a little pissed. According to dad, who has never been known to exaggerate (for the aid of the sarcastically challenged he has exaggerated from time to time) it would pass everything but a gas station. He also claimed it would do 30 mph just by putting it in gear. My uncle drove it once and he thought it was incredibly quick. Borrowed picture:
http://www.hyundaetrading.com/upload/board/1968_AMC_AMX_go-package_white_NJ.jpg

1978 Ford Thunderbird
My dad actually had two of these. One in 77 one in the 90s. It was 9 miles of hood with a stand up cross hair / hood ornament. I drove it in the 90s. Being used to driving little 4 cylinder cars I was not prepared for a giant V8. My experience had been that the engine would start to scream when the car hit 120 km/h. I was wondering why I was passing everything until I looked down and found out I was going 140 and the engine was barely ticking over. Both cars had the sports look package that included fake vinyl straps across the trunk and coloured rims. They were incredibly snazzy! Borrowed photo, original source:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tbirdranch.com/1978.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.tbirdranch.com/7779specific.html&usg=__ZAUcdmzudmo5Fkd26RaqXQUZtrM=&h=234&w=497&sz=10&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=QMPJwGBvBpTu-M:&tbnh=61&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1978%2Bford%2Bthunderbird%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

1977 Ford F 150
This truck was the plow truck at the catering company I worked for when I was in high school. By the time I got to it the truck had been written off .... twice. It had white mags, rusted. It had a homemade roll bar in the back and a homemade tailgate. To get the radio to work you had to hit the dashboard ( a la Fonzie). It was a fantastic vehicle for being in traffic. It looked like it rolled off the set of Road Warrior so traffic would part like the Red Sea. It had a quirky start procedure that nobody else seemed able to master. After I left the company to go off to university they scrapped the truck. This picture is not the real one but it is damn close. Borrowed picture, original is at:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/2823/221/32055110317_large.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.cardomain.com/tag/4x4/&usg=__J3n2HmEL2D0WSRjhLSc8pvzfFG0=&h=432&w=575&sz=103&hl=en&start=11&tbnid=SonshQzi_KdXSM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1977%2BFord%2BF150%2Bplow%2Btruck%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG


So that is a little about me. The plan is to keep putting these things out once a week as long as there is interest. Please feel free to post comments and opinions. Also if I have borrowed your picture and you want me to stop, let me know and I’ll take it off.