I have been to the Promised Land.

Los Angeles.  Has there ever been a more-hyped town in modern America?  How many countless songs have been written about L.A.?  How many more will be written?  Until last week, I guess I didn't quite get what all the hype was about.   I get it now.

If there's one great thing about Los Angeles, it's the weather.   The air is always pleasantly fair, there is no snow and very little rain, and the sea air is so dry that there is no salt problems.   There are few pot holes, as frost-heave is non existent.  The result: cars are eternal in this Lazarus valley in the west.   I have never seen so many 1980's and older cars in such immaculate, unrestored condition.  Of course, this has created a hub of auto culture the likes of which I have never seen.  Yes, every third car is a Prius, but every fifth car is a pristine, clean, and rust free neo-classic or sports car that would never make it two years in the midwest.

And what cars!  Within 4 hours of landing at Burbank, I saw my first Bugatti Veyron 16.4: 

Within an additional 20 minutes, I saw my second (I didn't photograph the second, as it was old news at this time).  The next day brought the third.  As I was taking the above pictures, some poor schmuck in a brand new Ferrari 458 drove past.   Nobody blinked.  Poor guy. 

I have never seen so many Porsche Panamericas, Aston Martin Vantages (the V12, no less), or Bentley Arnages as I did in a two hour stretch through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

Not only are there great cars everywhere, but the average Angelino seems obsessed with keeping their cars absolutely clean.  Not just outside, but all around.  Few dents, dings, and scratches marred common cars, and most everyone seemed to have much better taste in accessories than the common mid westerner, as I didn't see a single fake Buick Ventiport the entire time I was there.

Fake Ventiports...no matter how ugly your Monte Carlo is, these will always make it far, far uglier.  Not taken in L.A.

I also noticed that the vast majority of Angelinos, while obsessed with constantly honking the horn at each other for every single little thing (such as not turning directly into head-on traffic whilst someone of obvious importance is behind), seem to be pretty good drivers overall.  The average following distance is twice what I would consider average in St Louis, blinker usage is way up, and on more than one occasion, a slower-moving car pulled over to allow traffic by before resuming their plodding pace.  I would consider moving west for the latter alone.  They even seem to respect the High Occupancy Vehicle Lane, which would undoubtedly be violated by well over 50% of the drivers in St Louis.

The roads are pretty good, there are very few patches or cracks, and I did not note any potholes.  What's more, Los Angeles seems to be paying their civil engineers to actually do stuff, as most stoplight cycles seem to make sense and merging onto the freeway is aided by a signal called a freeway meter designed to ease congestion as cars come on by metering the number of car entering the freeway at any given time and spacing them accordingly to prevent the jam-ups we encounter here at every major entry in the area.  It makes so much sense!  Why haven't the engineers here figured these things out?

Ramp Meter: Effective device that somehow eludes civil engineers everywhere else.

For all of these reasons and more, it is evident that Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California is an automotive paradise, especially when you break free of the busy cities and see those miles and miles of lonely desert highways.  I actually feel guilty for exposing my beloved car to the harsh mid-western climate in contrast, and may well just mosey west one day myself.

Pontiac Aztec: The Most Misunderstood and Wrongfully Slandered Car of Modern Times, and Maybe Even All Time.

So, I'm at a wedding this weekend, when the groom, Dwayne, asks me if it's possible for me to write a blog post that will somehow redeem his Pontiac Aztec.  I chuckled at first, but the more I thought, the more I realized that the Pontiac Aztec was an awful lot like sharks, snakes, and the music of Andrew W.K.  It's quite easy to get the wrong first impression from these things, but once you really get to know them and understand them, you soften a bit.  What was at first a scary animal becomes a very elegant, well-designed, and helpful creature.   What was once a juvenile song about partying 'til you puke suddenly becomes an elegy for forgotten youth and carefree days of the past.  Such is the Pontiac Aztec.

I don't think I've ever read a book about bad cars or seen a "top ten worst cars ever" list without mention of the Aztec.  It has become a target of mass hysteria when it comes to criticism of it's styling, which I admit is not what I'd call ideal.   However, if you can imagine it with slightly less black plastic cladding, a more rounded rear roof line, and a single front end rather than the unique, double-decker front, you have something like this:

BMW X6

Which, in my opinion, is not only uglier, but costs more than twice as much.

But I digress.   Back to the Aztec, it offered V6 power standard, and could be optioned with all-wheel drive and a number of totally xtreme lifestyle accessories, my favorite of which is a tent:

This, friends, is a burly lumberjack of a minivan-based SUV.

New, they came with a back pack built into the back of the seat that could be removed and used, a plethora of optional bike/kayak/snowboard/surfboard racks, and a massively cavernous interior that could hold at least 20 small dogs behind the front seats.  Toss in a powered cooler option, and you've got a rolling party/campground that will seat five very comfortably when you're done fooling around.

Next time someone tells a "Pontiac Aztec=worst car ever" joke, consider the bumblebee, the shark, and defend the lowly creature from more undue harm.   Are there better cars?  Certainly.   Would I drive one?   Maybe if the zombie hoard is here and I need all-wheel-drive and a cavernous interior but decent gas mileage.  But for those who can look past the criticism of the styling and the styling itself, there is a pretty cool hauler here that forgoes convention and offers an interesting package for not much money on the used market.

A Touch of Grey? Part 2: Cadillac CTS-V

If I were to rent a DeLorean time machine and travel back to tell myself at 18 years old, that by 30, I really wanted to own a new Cadillac, I would be severely beaten and laughed at by the younger version of myself.   Young punk that he was. Which would cause a massive rift in the space-time continuum and effectively end the world in a paradox.  So I wouldn't do that, but I think you get my point.  Cadillacs were very, very lame for a long time.  Nothing screamed "geezer" like a crest with a wreath and six ducks gently swimming on it.

Who knew that Henry Leland, The Geezer King, would still hold so much sway over his company into the early 2000's, well after his death in 1932.  After selling Cadillac to GM in 1909, he also founded Lincoln.  That's just how geezery he was.

That's not to say that nobody tried to make Cadillac cool again, but GM certainly wasn't having a go at it.   A little known fact is that Tim Allen, of Home Improvement fame, actually owned a company called Tim Allen Design (TAD), which did their best to make grandpa cars appealing to someone, say, in their mid forties.  They only made one car, and gave up.   GM just kept on pumping out those big, soft boats for the population of Florida, until one day, they noticed that old people eventually die.   And dead people don't buy many Cadillacs.

Cadillac Catera

So, in 1997, Cadillac did what any good GM division of the time would do if they needed a new model:  They rebadged an existing car, in this case, the Opel Omega, as the Cadillac Catera.  The result?  They sold a few to the less than 60 crowd, and the cars died before their owners did.  Maybe they were on to something with this idea.

2006 CTS-V

Then came the replacement to the Catera in 2003, the CTS.  Not only was it rear-wheel drive, but it could be purchased with a manual transmission!  Like a BMW or Mercedes, not so much like a Buick or Oldsmobile.  Even more, it could be ordered in CTS-V trim, which got you a 400hp V-8 under the hood.  Now, we're getting somewhere.

Let's see you grandpa's Caddy do this...

In 2007, Cadillac released the new CTS, and it was really, really cool looking.   When they released the CTS-V version in 2008, it was even more awesome.  Now with 556 hp from a supercharged Corvette engine, it was a legitimate world-beater, and was the fastest production sedan in the world at the time of it's release.  GM, for once, didn't rest on its laurels, and released a stunning coupe to accompany the sedan:

Your beloved grandmother wouldn't even know what to do with this.

And, in a totally unexpected move that makes Cadillac officially cool, they release a CTS-V Wagon. Oh no, they didn't!

Just imagine, you're heading to Home Depot to buy some home improvement supplies early on a Saturday morning, and when you get to the strip mall, they've got part of the parking lot roped off and are running SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Auto-X out there.  And you decide to enter, blow the doors, roof, and wheels off of a bunch of Porsches, Corvettes, and maybe even a BMW M3 or two, return to Home Depot, buy a new toilet and sink for your bathroom, load it in the huge cargo area, and drive it all home in a luxury car which also happens to be sports car and a pickup truck.   And your wife, boss, parents (who also own a geezer Cadillac) and/or kids will have no idea just how much fun you are having, or just how exciting your life now is.  And that, my friends, is why Cadillac is suddenly very, very cool