At the VW dealership for last chance warranty work. Into the great wide open!

How to Drive Like a Pro: Lesson 1- Using a Blinker, Changing Lanes

All to often, we Americans (particularly those in the midwest) drive like we have received no training or have no competency, have massive entitlement issues, and attempt control even minor situations out of ridiculous pride.  In my next few blog posts, I will address what I see as some very common everyday driving errors that if we all worked hard at correcting, would ensure safer, more efficient, and generally more pleasurable driving experiences for us all.


Lesson 1: Using a Blinker.

Last time I checked, all cars in the United States and in most countries in the world come equipped standard with left and right handed turn indicator lights, or "blinkers" as we call them Stateside.   First implemented in 1903, the blinker is a simple but essential automotive safety device, because it allows other driver and pedestrians to know of directional changes you are planning before you act.  This allows them to prepare, yield if necessary, make course adjustments to avoid accidents or traffic snares.  When you don't use them, you create all of the problems associated with the failure of the previously stated actions occurring.  Don't expect everyone else on the road to anticipate your next move.

Ultimately, there is only one cause of lack of signaling, and that is overt laziness on the part of the vehicle operator.  Should the devices malfunction, it is the responsibility of the operator to indicate using hand signals.  There is no excuse for not signaling, no matter how it is attempted to be justified.  Remember, it takes all of 0.5 seconds to flick the indicator stalk, but it takes much longer to settle your affairs (medical, insurance, body shop, car dealerships, etc) following an accident caused by your causal disregard for important communications between drivers on the road.

Lesson 2: Changing Lanes:


I'll keep this simple:
- use a blinker when changing lanes
-Check all three mirrors and your blind spot before changing lanes.
- Yeild to traffic in front of you when changing lanes from a stopped lane.  If the car in front of you is indicating a lane change, don't try to race them around the stoppage.  You'll probably cause an accident.
- The left lane is for faster traffic, the right for slower and merging traffic.  Act accordingly.
- Yield the farthest left lane after you complete a passing maneuver.  Do not drive in the far left lane when there is no passing undertaken (I'm talking to you, Illinois!)
-Show courtesy when changing lanes, and give others plenty of room as you negotiate traffic around them.

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

A Touch of Grey? Part 1: Buick Regal

Am I getting older?  Is that my hair clogging the drain every morning, or is it errant pet hair that mysteriously found it's way into the tub?  Does my back actually hurt from stooping over a seized engine all day?  Is my hairline moving back, or is my cranium getting bigger?

Are Cadillacs and Buicks suddenly cool?

While I may, in fact, be losing my hair and the rest of my youthful vigor, it would seem that GM may finally be getting it.  Cases in point:  The new Buick Regal and the Cadillac CTS.

Just look at the Buick.  That's right, the photo is of a white Buick, apparently the only one made in the last 30 years not parked outside of either an old-folks' home, church, or Cafeteria restaurant.  In all seriousness, Buick used to make exceptionally cool cars.  Names like GNX, Grand National, Grand Sport, Riviera, Skylark, and Wildcat spark memories of muscular, classy, luxurious, fast-yet-comfortable, good-value for the money cars.  Sometime in the mid '70's, Buick decided that as their devout fans from the 40's and 50's aged, they would age with them.  Which worked well from a business perspective, until those devout fans started bumping up against the century mark (Buick named a car after this important event in the history of the company) and began dropping like flies.  As the hearts of these sweet old folks stopped beating, the company also seemed to lose it's pulse.

In some kind act of sympathy, GM spared Buick the reaper's scythe when the global recession hit in 2008, and rather than cut a division with dated styling and even more dated customers, they cut Pontiac.  Sure, Pontiac made it's fair share of cars that were the automotive equivalent of disposable diapers (they tended to sag as they filled with their own crap), they were making recent inroads with interesting, non-redundant models such as the Pontiac Solstice and Holden-based GTO and G8 models.

Having cut some good products to save Buick, GM needed a good Buick, and they needed it fast.  So, they took the European car of the year from the prior year, the Opel Insignia, dressed it in a Buick waterfall grille, named it Regal, and sent it to the auto show circuit.  The results?  Most people in the American market had never seen an Insignia, but they sure wanted the Regal.

Showy without being gaudy, it is a rare example of Americanizing the styling of a car without over-doing the chrome.  The lines are absolutely modern, the roofline is very chic, the fenders bulge just enough to look powerful without being exaggerated, and the wheel options are tasteful, as long as the buyer avoids chrome-plating.

Inside, the materials are a bit monochromatic but handsome nonetheless, with modern design and sporty heated leather bucket seats in place of the more tradition old-fogey velour Buick bench.  Column shift?   What column shift?  This baby has a floor mounted six-speed manual standard.  A Harmon/Kardon sound system and a flat-bottomed steering wheel add credibility for the under-AARP membership crowd.

Paired with the GS' optional turbo 4-cylinder engine with 270 horsepower and 295lb ft of torque, this is genuinely a sporty alternative to, say, a Lexus ES.   Start thinking Acura TSX without the horrific styling, and with a better optional engine, and you pretty much know where this car lies in the marketplace.

More importantly for Buick, however, is that people less than 30 years old will think it's cool.  Not because of some marketing campaign or kitschy wheel and spoiler package.  But because it's genuinely cool.

Have you ever noticed how when you walk past your car, it looks like the headlights are following you?

Why is it that humans relate more to animals than plants or fungi?  Why is it we always look for faces in rock walls, clouds, or the moon?   Why do we keep seeing Mother Teresa in our pancakes or Jesus in our toast?  What is the incessant need to identify a human analogue in nearly everything?  So well wired into our own brains, that we have developed computers who can also identify one face from another.

Even tiny babies pay close attention to faces from birth.  We search so diligently for faces, we identify them on inanimate objects.  That particular act, as it were, is so common, that it has a name: Pareidolia.  And hardly anywhere in the realm of manufactured goods is this Pareidolia more evident than in automotive design:

For instance, doesn't it appear that this MX-5 is having more fun than it's pilot?

 So natural is this association, you can accessorize the face of your car to look even more like a human.   Your Beetle needs more sultry eyelashes, you say?  There's an app for that.

From the front, this BMW looks like a very tired, yet very surprised vampire.   From the side, it looks like a pregnant cat dragging it's belly around.   But that's besides the point. 

Are you serious?   What does this little Sprite know that we don't?  How is this level of adorableness allowable by law?  How do you not wish there was a little tongue hanging out the side of that grille?

Now that I've planted the seed of thought, I hope that you look a bit differently at the parking lot full of cars or the traffic jammed on the highway, and instead of an inconvenience, see all of the cute, smiling, happy, intimidating, or tough-looking faces, and hopefully, they'll manage to put a smile on your face as well.