Retro Thing

Tapes Banished From Car Showrooms. Is The Wagon Next?

A recent story in The New York Times said that the factory-installed cassette deck is dead. I found that notable, but not that surprising. I mean, I was mildly surprised that the last car to have a cassette deck as an option was a Lexus, not a Buick, but is anyone shocked that there's not much incentive for manufacturers to offer tape decks in cars in 2011? (Tapeheads, you can still rock out to wow and flutter with a new car receiver, but your options are limited. Crutchfield sells four head units that play tapes. Best Buy, according to its website, sells one.)

An even more ominous headline in Fortune, however, caught my eye: The death of the station wagon. The essay is pinned on Volvo, which will soon stop selling wagons in the U.S. The last Volvo wagon being sold stateside is the V50, but it won't be around dealers for much longer. The company sold fewer than 500 of them here last year.

According to Fortune, "Edmunds.com, the online-car buying site, lists 115 kinds of SUVs and 92 types of crossovers but only 31 varieties of station wagon. Even that count is suspect. It includes a Ford Flex, which is a minivan in disguise, and the bizarre Dodge Caliber."

Unlike Fortune, I actually think there's good news for American car buyers who dislike the compromises inherent in SUVs and crossovers. From what I have seen, there are plenty of new wagon-like cars out there. They're just not all called wagons.

Acura, for example, recently introduced a new TSX wagon, but it prefers the term "Sport Wagon." The five-door flavors of the Mazda 3 and Subaru Impreza are called hatchbacks, but you sure would have a hard time explaining the difference. And more hatchbacks are arriving every year, with companies like Mitsubishi and Kia recently bringing five-doors to the U.S. The Germans still seem to be selling wagons — or at least trying to. And some of the oddball Japanese boxes-on-wheels like the Nissan Cube and Scion xB might not be wagons, but I am not sure what else you can call them.

I doubt the station wagon will ever regain its total grip on American suburbia, but I think it's too soon to call the wagon dead. The name might be passé. They probably won't be as boxy. You might see fewer of them out there. But I have to think cars — and I do mean cars — with five doors will be around for a long time.

Yesterday's Cars of Tomorrow

As this short 1948 film aptly demonstrates, the hardest thing in the world is to design something futuristic. That said, I wish my old jalopy could parallel park as nimbly as the Davis Three Wheeler.

The Talking Datsun

Jared Chesson writes, "Every so often, I have a weird obsession with saying 'your door is ajar' in a pleasant and informative feminine voice, which generally makes my wife nervous. It all stems from an infatuation with my father's 5-speed Datsun. As a four year old boy, I was convinced there was a small woman, possibly employed under the same union as Santa's elves, whose sole purpose and reason for living was to inform the passengers of said car that a door could possibly be, in fact, open.

I was heartbroken when they traded the car in for a more family friendly station wagon. She may have been my first love. (Thank goodness Hal 9000 wasn't a Sal). 27 years later, I find out there was no elfish woman speaking to me. It was a small record playing on a portable phonograph.

The only tech coming close to replicating this experience for me was my Garmin. But her voice wasn't compassionate, or reasonable. The Garmin barked orders instead of suggesting. There's a difference, in other words, of saying 'Your door is ajar' vs. 'Take a right.' "

Article from Popular Science, March 1982

This Vintage Electric Car Could Be Yours

efftee writes, "Check out this auction I just stumbled upon for a 1975 Citicar. Looks like something out of Logan's Run. Seems reasonably priced too..."

About 2,300 CitiCars was produced between 1974 and 1977 in response to the OPEC oil crisis. It had a top speed of around 50 mph and a maximum range of 40 miles per charge - fairly impressive for a vehicle with a 3.5 HP motor powered by 48 volts from a stack of eight lead acid batteries. More importantly, it's street legal and just begging to be modded with modern technology. As I write this, it's at $2,550 with 4 days to go in the auction.

1975 CitiCar on eBay

Hop On The Magic Movie Bus

The Vintage Mobile Cinema is a one-of-a-kind automotive restoration project - The only survivor among seven mobile cinemas custom built for the British government in the late 1960s.

The vehicles initially were operated by the Production Engineering Research Association and had the prosaic mission of teaching engineers about the latest factory production techniques. The bus has a unique steel-framed plastic dome that housed the film projection equipment apart from the cinema, which has a stepped floor to ensure clear views.

Reclaimed and renovated, the bus now sports a fully upholstered 22-seat theater, a high-definition digital projection unit and Dolby surround sound. Through March, it's taking part in the Movie Bus Project in North Devon. The project has it traveling the countryside showing newly digitized archive footage of life in southwest England during the 20th century, including some fascinating looking images from the sea.

The other six movie buses are believed to be lost. Also missing: the trailers that each bus hauled. They were initially used for displays associated with the manufacturing presentations. For now, the restored vehicle has a decidedly modern trailer with a solar panel that allows it to present its unique films off the grid, without a generator. [Via Jalopnik]

Landie Dying, Will Rise Again (Iconically)

The Land Rover Defender has been around in its current form for nearly 30 years, and the current model can draw a pretty straight line to the 1948 Series I. But time is short for the Landie. Stricter safety and emissions standards coming in 2015 are going to kill it.

Tata, the Indian carmaker that recently bought Land Rover from Ford, has undertaken "Project Icon," an effort to create a new Defender. Its challenge is immense: design a successor that has the same ability to swallow terrain like the current vehicle, build it for less money and sell many more of them. (It also might not hurt to appease those who have grown to love the vehicle over the past 60-plus years.)

There are various insights into how the company might accomplish this. Tata recently said it is shifting some Land Rover production to India, so it's possible the new vehicle could be built there, rather than in Solihull, England. The new model also could be a hybrid.

The current Defender definitely keeps the utility in sport utility vehicle. Ground clearance is 13 inches. Water up to 20 inches deep doesn't bother it. Neither do inclines up to about 45 degrees. Mileage? As they say, "If you have to ask …"

The Defender hasn't been sold in the U.S. since the late 1990s. I test drove one on a lark just before its U.S. demise. (In British Racing Green, of course.) The ride included the salesman navigating an on-the-dealership-lot obstacle course of various inclines and rough terrain. It was great fun.

That kind of fun might come back to the States, because the vehicle that comes out of the "Project Icon" initiative seems very likely to wind up in U.S. showrooms.

The Fate Of The Whomobile

You have to be a bit of a character to take on the lead role in Doctor Who. When Jon Pertwee took over, it was the series' first venture into colour. These new earthbound adventure brought massive popularity to the show and its star, turning in an impressively popular four year run. Known before the role as a comedian, Pertwee played the role straight proving himself to be a great choice for the Doctor. In his real life he was a gadget fan, as well as a sportsman and car enthusiast - all perfect traits for a time traveler. It was while at an appearance at an auto dealership that he met car customizer Peter Farries, which is where the story of Pertwee's 1973 Whomobile began.

The vehicle was never called the "Whomobile" in the show, though Pertwee does refer to it as such in his memoirs. It was actually designed under another name, "The Alien". Pertwee and Farries sketched out the fantasy car. Other car customizers said it would take several moldings to create such an unusual shape in fiberglass, but Farries did it in only two. The completed car was 14 feet long, 7 feet across, with fins that reached 5 feet into the air. There are no doors, you have to hop in over the wing, and once inside the driver and uncomfortable passenger are faced with the blinky lights of a prop computer, and a real television with dual rear antennae. Here's a great clip from children's show Blue Peter (it's great how the pair do sort of try to keep up the illusion of the car's abilities being "real") that offers what is probably the most detailed look at the car ever.

Once completed (at Pertwee's cost) the star was able to persuade the producers of Doctor Who to include the vehicle in the series. The car first appeared not yet complete in the 10th season's "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". The front windscreen you see in the episode as well as in the Blue Peter segment (hosted by Peter Purves, a 1960's Who companion) was from a boat, added to make the vehicle roadworthy. Its second and final appearance was in Pertwee's swansong, "Planet of the Spiders", where thought chromakey trickery the vehicle was shown to fly.

To this day some fans still think the Whomobile was a hovercraft. In fact the three wheeler struggled to be legally classified, until it was finally referred to as "an invalid tricycle"... that could go a hundred miles an hour!. Pertwee used the car for personal appearances even after his tenure as the Doctor was over. Eventually he gave it to a fan bereaved over the tragic death of his mother, with Pertwee simply "borrowing" it back on occasion. Just a few years ago (and this makes me crazy...) the car went up for auction with little fanfare. It was misclassified as a boat (foreshadowed by that boat windscreen used in version 1 of the car?) and went for around £1200. Had I known about the sale, I'd have made my way to the UK to bring back the official Retro Thing company car.

link:

Help out Retro Thing by picking up Pertwee's autobiography on Amazon

related:

The downright awful Doctor Who action figures by Dapol
Doctor Who and the Daleks on the big screen
Did Doctor Who musician invent techno?

The Parking Meter Turns 75

The first hundred and fifty parking meters went into operation on July 16, 1935. They were installed in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to prevent people from casually leaving their cars parked on the street in front of businesses -- sometimes for days on end. There was an immediate backlash from residents and even a court case contesting their legality. However, stores on the city blocks with meters reported increased business and soon every store wanted them outside their doors.

The rise of the parking meter paralleled the dramatic increase in automobile ownership in the mid-20th century. Increased traffic resulted in extreme congestion in downtown business districts, and at first meters seemed to be the ideal solution.

Some inventions have unintended consequences, however. The parking meter -- combined with post-war prosperity in the USA -- helped to spark widespread interest in suburban shopping malls. The first modern enclosed mall, Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota opened its doors in 1956. It was ringed by a seemingly endless parking lot that offered unlimited free parking and easy access to nearby freeways. Suddenly, downtown businesses found themselves in a tail-spin. Metered parking isn't nearly so attractive when streets are half empty and your former customers are miles away, shopping in air conditioned comfort.

These days, millions of parking meters remain across the United States, although many are being phased out in favor of easier-to-police electronic ticketing stations. It will be interesting to see whether the lowly parking meter lives to see 100.

Incidentally, there is still angle parking along South 24th Street in Omaha, Nebraska (shown above in 1938). However, the parking meters are long gone.

Fiat 500 Returns To Its 2-Cylinder Roots

It has been 53 years since the arrival of the original Fiat 500. Now, Fiat wants to revisit the idea by installing a fuel-efficient 2-cylinder engine into their wildly popular Fiat 500 Nuevo. The old 500 had more than its share of quirks: It was powered by a minuscule rear-mounted 479 cc 2-cylinder engine that whipped up an equally minuscule 13 BHP. It featured a pair of reverse-opening "Suicide Doors" and offered a canvas top that rolled back the full length of the roof. A total of six models were produced until 1975, and at only about 3 meters in length the 500 was perhaps the prototypical City Car.

But let's not dwell in the past. The new TwinAir 875cc four-stroke power plant features 4 valves per cylinder, variable timing and a wee turbocharger. It also has stop-start technology to avoid wasteful idling at traffic lights.

Early reviews of the new engine suggest that its performance is on par with small conventional motors -- it'll do 0-62 mph in a shade under 11 seconds and tops out at about 108 mph, all while burning only 4.1L/100km (about 57 miles to the US gallon). The TwinAir motor is reasonably smooth at high revs, although it (understandably) sounds a bit like a motorcycle when wound up.

In the UK, the 875cc twin costs £1400 ($2100) more than the base 1.2L 4-cylinder petrol engine. At first blush, this doesn't seem like a great deal -- until you realize that it'll shave 30% off your fuel costs. With fuel prices hovering around £1.20/L in the London area ($6.90/US gallon), this frugal power plant has the potential to pay for itself several times over.

If the Fiat 500 TwinAir turns out to be reliable, it could turn the automotive world on its ear -- instead of wasting thousands on complicated and bulky hybrid drivetrains, the development of tiny, clean, fuel efficient 2-cylinders could result in less manufacturing waste, lower prices and happier motorists.

Fiat 500 TwinAir [official site]
Is The Fiat 500 Coming To North America?

1986 Auto-Shade Keeps Your Car In The Cool

I started driving in the late 1980's, eventually commandeering my father's '83 Olds Cutlass Supreme for my teenage adventures (the beast lasted into my 2001 adult adventures, but that's another story). I've never been a "car guy", so never got into the auto accessories fetish, but I did have the one add-on that everyone in Chicago seemed to have in the summer of '88: the cardboard sunshade. The windshield-shaped accordion-pleated cardboard unfolds, held in place by your car's sun visors, to screen out the sun from hitting your front seat. Unfortunately the wise and omnipresent sun seldom falls for it, cooking your vinyl seats from the side windows instead. Still the Auto-Shade did help quite a bit, which makes me wonder why it's so rare to see one today. When driving around in the warm weather lately, I've been looking for them. Aside from a couple of mylar numbers I recognize from the dollar store, there were none to be found.

They were frequently freebie advertising gimmicks (a quick Google search revealed that they're still being used for marketing this way), but the design that was most popular in my neck of the woods was the car-sized sunglasses. These made your car *ahem* "cool". I didn't have this little number in my high school heyday, instead hoping to cruise by on the free one I got from Taco Bell (and yes - I still have it somewhere).

As if keeping your car just a tiny bit more hospitable weren't enough, you could also flip the Auto-Shade over to reveal a plea for help from the police. I don't know how effective it was as I mostly saw it in this configuration in error (hopefully).

I've seen other car devices that try to keep the interior cooler on summer days. A little nylon hat-shaped thing to keep the steering wheel at a human-safe temperature (never worked), a solar-powered exhaust fan that clips to the windshield (the bunk), and of course the most elaborate - a remote starter for your car that kicks on the air conditioning (no good in a beat-up Corolla that hasn't had A.C. in ten years). Unbelievable as it may seem, this cardboard relic is still my best bet of keeping my car cool this summer - and you can take that any way you want to.

related:

1980's shutter shades are back?
Desk sized retro styled air conditioner that does next to nothing
Fan shaped like Nintendo R.O.B.

Peel Microcars Prove Size Isn't Everything

Andy Carter runs a brilliant site dedicated to tiny Peel microcars, built in the mid-1960s by Peel Engineering on the Isle of Man. The company's most popular vehicles were the Peel P50 single-seater (47 made from 1963-64) and the exceedingly funky Peel Trident two person bubble car (82 made from 1964-66).

Both models are 3-wheelers powered by a 49cc DKW moped engine mated to a 3 speed gearbox. They feature glass fibre construction without a chassis, and the company's sales material proudly claims over 100 mpg with a top speed of more than 40 mph.

The P50 was famously featured on Top Gear in 2007, when 6' 5" host Jeremy Clarkson miraculously folded himself into one and took it for a spin inside the BBC offices.

The P50 and Trident sold for under £200 new, but because relatively few roadworthy examples remain, they've been known to change hands for up to £35,000. If you're in the market for an updated version of a Peel classic, Andy's Modern Microcars company offers replica body shells starting at a much more reasonable £1,650.

Andy Carter's Peel Microcar Site [via Make]

New $900 Honda Gets 165 mpg

Honda India recently announced the CB Twister. It's manufactured in India and carries an estimated base price of 42,000 Rupees ($900) for the old school kick-start version. Expect to pay about $300 more for an upscale model with electric starter. The Twister is powered by a 109cc air cooled 4-stroke engine that puts out 9 HP (at 9000 rpm) through a 4-speed transmission. You get CDI electronic ignition and halogen headlamps, and the bike weighs a mere 108 kg (238 lbs).

The Twister Microsite claims fuel economy of 70 km/L -- about 165 mpg. Assuming that isn't a typo, one has to wonder why governments in the west are so hung up on promoting expensive hybrid cars as "the future." Surely it would make more sense to get hundreds of thousands of these bikes onto North American and European roads. I'm not suggesting it as a replacement for an Interstate cruiser, but the Twister would make a great urban runabout.

The same "less is more" approach could easily be applied to North American cars, too. Instead of wasting billions designing large and complicated hybrids that sill require fossil fuel, manufacturers could focus on lightweight conventional gasoline or diesel subcompacts that emphasize simplicity, light weight and efficiency over cushy comfort and ridiculously complicated drivetrains.

They could use lightweight aluminum frames, radical body streamlining and small and efficient diesel engines with idle-shutoff to boost efficiency to hybrid levels. Don't think it's possible? Well, back yard experimenters have already squeezed 64 mpg from an old Geo Metro. While we're at it, throw away expensive extras such as power windows, keyless entry, mahogany dash inlays and headrest-mounted entertainment systems. They just add unnecessary weight and complexity.

With a bit of clever thinking, traditional subcompacts could be reborn as surprisingly eco-friendly microcars. Of course, tiny and cheap vehicles don't carry the same profit margin as trendy hybrids, so don't expect GM, Ford or Chrysler to jump on the microcar bandwagon in the USA anytime soon. That's a pity, because Japanese manufacturers are already there.

Meanwhile, Honda hopes to sell as many as 250,000 Twister motorcycles annually. They hit showrooms across India in February, 2010. It sure would be nice to see something similar over here, even at twice the price.

Honda Twister - Wake up to a dream
Toyota iQ - Microcar for the masses

Destination Earth (1956)

Join the American Petroleum Institute for a whimsical look at the advantages of free market competition. They contrast the futile struggles of a totalitarian Martian regime to the ever-increasing production enjoyed by thousands of clever and competitive oil companies across America.

Will the Martians rise up to attain the liberty of automobile ownership, or will they endure state-owned public transportation for the rest of eternity?

Grab your popcorn, relax and enjoy Destination Earth

Magic Highway USA

This 1958 Disney cartoon presents the highways and vehicles of a future that never was, and it's brilliant. Experience millions of miles of heated freeway, autonomous minivans, upside-down roadways in the sky (finish your coffee first), mobile radar systems and indiscriminate weather modification. [via Boing Boing]

1901: Porsche Builds The World's First Hybrid

Yes, we're talking about that Porsche. At the tender age of 26, Ferdinand Porsche built a four wheel drive gasoline-electric hybrid car.

Although famous for his conventional automobiles, Porsche got his start at the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna, Austria, where he designed an electric hub motor. Fatefully, he joined coach builder Jakob Lohner & Co. in 1898.

Porsche incorporated a pair of hub motors in the first Lohner-Porsche design, which resembled a carriage with electrically powered rear wheels. It was easy enough to create a four wheel drive version simply by adding two more motors to drive the front wheels, and that's exactly what Porsche did to create the Toujours-Contente, intended as a record-setting racer. The vehicle required almost 2 tonnes of lead acid batteries to run, severely hampering performance and practicality.

To solve the car's weight problem, Porsche added a gasoline engine that ran a generator to power the electric drivetrain; the world's first series electric hybrid. He even raced such a vehicle, which was capable of hitting speeds of up to 60 km/h. The constant quest to improve performance ultimately proved to be the downfall of his electric designs, as he concluded that internal combustion combustion engines were far better suited to automotive use.

Dr. Porsche joined Austro-Daimler in 1906 and eventual rose to become the company's managing director. By the late 1920s, Porsche found himself as a technical director at Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. His vision of a compact, lightweight Mercedes-Benz vehicle wasn't popular, and he departed. Porsche formed his own design firm in 1931, eager to revisit his small car concept during the depression that gripped Germany.

Here's a look at his second attempt, the NSU Typ 32, built in 1934. After a few more iterations, the concept eventually became Hitler's "people's car" - the Volkswagen.

WWII intervened, and - ironically - the Beetle was reborn after the war in a ruined car factory under British control. Ownership of the Volkswagen company was eventually transferred to the West German government, and production increased from a mere 9,000 cars in 1947 to a stunning 575,000 cars by 1959. The people's car had finally arrived.