The (actually) Smart Car Blog Roars To Life: a Manifold Manifesto!

I don't know if the world needs another blog, exactly; many would say, hell no, we don't. Especially from YOU, CID Vicious (not to be confused with another blogger with one post from 2005). However, I don't see a lot of people coming at the whole 'automotive enthusiast' thing from my angle, either. I'm a broke musician type and was before the economic collapse.

However I've also been wrenching on cars since I did most of the brake job on the family's 83 Caprice Coupe at age 12. My family never had a lot of money, but Dad was a regular Jack of All Trades, and Master of a Few. We had one of the most feared cars in the neighborhood, a 64 Chevy II Nova 2 door post with a worked to the bone 355. I've been a 'car guy' ever since Dad strapped the car seat in that thing and floored it. I only rode in that car a few times - Dad had better places to spend money than on that car and it wasn't a daily driver anymore, for sure. But it was formative - that, and hearing the cammed, header'd, small block rattle the windows of the house when he'd start it up once or twice a month, watching the dog go hide under the bed.

My Dad built that car with his own two hands, motor and all, chose the cam and gears ("You've got to pick your gear ratio and build the rest of the car around that", he'd say, and most drag racers would generally concur). He couldn't just buy a built car, or sign off on a loan, but every once in awhile when the cash in hand and parts for sale on the used market came together, he built a car that a lot of the more monied folks in the 'hood wouldn't challenge. A kid up the block had a father who was in the Coast Guard and there was an Audi and a turbo Probe in the driveway (this was 1987-88 or so), and the flat black car didn't look like much after Dad sold the wheels and put the old steelies back on it. The kid though it was just a pile of junk, and asked his dad if he thought the Probe could take my dad's car.

"Which house is yours, Danny?"

I told him.

"The old black Nova?"

I nodded.

"Son, there's no way in hell my car is faster than that car. It's newer and nicer, but it's not faster."

You could sum up a lot of my own life in that little exchange. Hot rodding to me was about David vs. Goliath; the revenge of the working class. Nothing worse than having a high dollar ride and having your date see you lose to a car you're pretty sure is going to be parked in a trailer park later that night. In the front yard, with the kid's bike jammed underneath the front wheel, and the driver passed out halfway to the front door, possibly.

Later on I 'got with it' and started my forays into the "furrin'" cars. With a dad with several Small Block Chevy powered cars in the driveway - mom's ride was a 65 Nova SS hardtop with an upgraded but mild 283. Dad's ride for awhile was the 69 flat nose Chevy with a 327 bolted to the three-on-the-tree, running 15x8 slotted mags with fat tires and the rubber fender lips to make them visually legal if not actually letter of the law legal. (Another trait passed down from father to son, though I swear your honor, those days are long behind me!). I was awash in vintage American iron when a lot of the 'better off' kids were getting shuttled to school in the new FWD Corollas and putting on much the same air as the little blonde bastard in the Toyota Highlander commercials. (Full disclosure: my current ride is a Roadmaster sedan, and that kid is full of...)

That kid in the old Taurus is going to ghetto stomp your ass on the
playground tomorrow,  just letting you know. You'll be able to watch
DVDs on the way to the hospital, though, so there's that.

However I, as earlier stated, am a 'wannabe rock star' and trust me, music gear can be as harsh (or even worse of) a mistress as a car addiction, especially if you had my pizza delivery guy/security guard level income. So I never got to go full bore on any projects without thinking that somehow I was cheating myself of 'the big time' and actually, I have had some great experiences on the fringes of the 'big time' music business that are so out there I'm currently writing a book about them. So I can't say I cheated myself of much, and actually learned much about false economy and the virtues of small cars along the way.

Pictured: possible daily driver. Circa 1980. It's 2011 folks.
Sometimes they don't build 'em like that anymore for a reason.

I started off with a 72 Super Beetle, had a Celica Supra left to me by my father (he wrote service for Toyota dealerships in the 80s and loved the Gen II Supras, and bought a pair after his Turbo 600 'vert (K car) got t-boned. I went with an S10 for awhile as I was vagabonding it and the combination of a relatively peppy 2.8l, five speed, and camper top was good for that summer. I put the spare set of 225-60-R14s on the stock S10 steelies, flat blacked them, and cornered as hard as you could in such a setup for minimal cash outlay, and traded 'up' to a VW Jetta that winter. I finally had what I thought was a 'legit' import that was running and driving, unlike the basket case Supra that had already gone to parts car heaven so far as I knew.

That car was really decent, actually, and if I had a few bucks to where the lack of a Japanese Junkyard 'safety net' of cheap barely used engines were inconsequential, I might consider another A2 Jetta as a sleeper. VR6s bolt in like B series motors bolt into Civics, and while I thought the twist beam axle was lame at the time, it afforded a really, really huge trunk. Like, Marshall-half-stack-swallowing-and-oh-btw-got-a-cooler-and-your-laundry-I-still-got-room-to-close-this-thing huge. I drove the snot out of this thing, it was great in the Long Island winter (FWD haters must either be sporting 2 digit IQs or just never have had to get to work in the middle of a Nor'Easter). Aside from the 'eh, it can't be fast, it's FWD' effect.

Don't worry about little ol' me, you just rev that 4-point-sumthin'
engine in that 5k lb truck one more time...

However, it was a great lesson in why you buy the GLI if you're so serious about going fast, rather than 'building' anything; the 1.8l motor was reliable and willing but produced about 90-95hp and wasn't a bolt on friendly engine. I put a set of 16x7s on but it just illustrated what the stock 13s had been hiding all along, the worn out front end. In the end I wished I'd shopped better and saved the extra 500 bucks that a GLI would have run me at the time. I sold the car and moved to Los Angeles, again. Volvo 760 Turbo Wagon time. For a few minutes anyway, I was a brick lover hummin' about how Swede it was. Then I figured out exactly why they don't build them up that much - lack of parts that aren't from across the pond and expensive, less 'bulletproof' motors when they're severely boosted, the 16v head doesn't bold on, no room for big tires to put big power down. So much for being weird and different - sometimes you just don't see certain cars built much for a reason, and it's not always lack of imagination.

And so on. I've had some nice furrin' rides, for sure. However I'm the rare guy who sees nothing but genius and the future of hot rodding in the souls that say damn the purists on both sides, this RX7 is getting an LS6 and a 6-speed! While I love the idea of an engine swap like this, it's hard to accomplish and relatively expensive. Better to start off with something already good, running, and factory offered.

Come on. You know that you want this, and that an LT1 swap
would provide. Take the race stuff off and go out hunting Camaros,
Civics, Mustangs, Porsches. "I just got beat by WHAT???!!"

I've come to appreciate the things that America did so right in cars like my Roadmaster; a 260hp, 335lb-ft Corvette engined luxury saloon capable of rending an SUV irrelevant with it's 5000 pound towing capacity, not to mention it's willingness to be transformed into a sleeper Impala SS or a drag monster. In fact, while most Jalopnik commenters might scream "Land Yacht! Yank Tank!", the car is waiting to be turned into a more willing road partner by simple things like affordable lower control arms, and actually putting the forward body mounts in so the frame does it's job.

This 4200lb car (not so svelte, sure, but do you see what a Camaro or a Taurus SHO weighs in at now? The sheer size of an Accord?) runs 15s and does the towing thing, does the 6 passenger seating, does the 20 cubic feet of trunk space - the SUV thing, in other words. As a musician who is prone to running around with imminently pawn-able items that cost hundreds to thousands to replace, sometimes borrowed, I prefer my valuables out of sight and encased in steel, but to those that need space more than privacy the Wagons offer even more seating and cargo room for a reasonable 300lb weight penalty.

These 'big' cars also get 25mpg, 17 in the city, which are numbers that all embarrass a newer hybrid Suburban, for example. Most full size trucks that have this kind of towing capacity - even midsize! - have a hard time getting 20mpg. 20 year old technology and a fat chassis overloaded with luggage and passengers still netted me 23.5 mpg at 70mph or above coming back from Mardis Gras this year. Diesel pickups would have a hard time replicating that feat, as would similarly powered SUVs, so how doesn't a car like this make sense if it were updated just enough to sell to more than the Geritol set? Cars like this were staples of the American Family for decades for a reason. Imagine what they'd be like with a few parts reengineered (and all of the body mounts installed!).

I find it funny, my little automotive journey. I turned my back on cars I'd grown up loving to embrace cars I'd always hated; the Miata (in high school I walked by going "aww, cute, is that a shifter or did someone leave their Atari 2600 joystick behind?"), VW Beetle, and Civic come to mind. As a matter of fact, I traded my CRX Si for the Roadie; as a traveling performer I simply needed more room and wasn't house bound as I was when I'd bought the go-kart. However, the Roadie handles well enough for it's size and the baloneys it has to ride on until I can afford some real rubber for it, and simply blows the (rather quick) Si's doors off in a straight line, and no chance of a missed shift either.

What the 'real driver's car' of the two would see.
Yes, those are turn downs. Gramps chugs creatine.

Now I've come full circle, back on native soil if you will. The V8 obsessed hot rod kid did the thing with the import four-bangers (and six-pots) and came back home to pushrod V8s and rear drive, and neither moonshine nor a full frontal lobotomy were involved. Maybe he's high! (Maybe? Chances are...)

After twisting my back up doing the timing belt on the D16A6, getting into the Roadie's soft, comfy chairs and cruising home was like heaven; maybe I'm getting old. But I've learned that automobiles are never anything but a bundle of compromises in several different directions; perception (does your car get the local 'Honda Club' guys wanting a race every trip to the store like my black Si did? Ever drive a car like that in the 'wrong neighborhood' vs. something like a Volvo or Mercedes 240D? Perception isn't just the guy in the other lane, it's the cop behind the both of you deciding which one to possibly pull over), value for money relative to the end use of the vehicle (daily driver? Destroy all comers (and stock parts) track car?), single or family owned, etc. Now, the Roadmaster fits my needs perfectly in a way that a more 'hip car guy approved' ride like the CRX or the 240D that came before it ultimately could not. I almost sold the Buick to buy another 240D, but it couldn't handle the trunk loads I'd put in it with the IRS (especially lowered like it would inevitably be) and while the 300D was a wee bit more powerful, it wasn't really all that much more efficient save in the city. The Roadie simply made more sense for what it did for the money and it's various other benefits. Although the 240D does make for a great canyon carver...

Call me a 'hipster' and I'll crack this f&@#ing
thing across your skull. :D

I actually like the fact that my Roadie, and the 240D that preceded it, are so under the radar. Why do I want cops and thieves (hope I'm not being redundant there) to eye up my ride? So some joker online gives me kudos rather than crap? (Coming from an online joker, of course.)

Funnily enough when many are clamoring for GM to bring the G8 back as the new Caprice, wanting a 'modern' chassis with LS power, what we perhaps needed was GM to bring back the full frame automobile fit for modern duty; a 5.3l LS V8 would net as high as 28mpg while producing 330hp and lighten the car by a hundred pounds or so compared to my iron headed car; unlike the IRS Holden chassis a (dare I say?) Ford-ified version of the live axle (or perhaps just lower control arms that don't suck?) would return both good handling and road manners and the ability to stuff the trunk with hundreds of pounds of stuff and hit the highway - without requiring a self leveling suspension system to keep the camber gain from making the car unstable at highway speeds. Ask the engineers behind the 300DT.

Not that the Holden/G8 thing isn't just tits on wheels, mind you, but while Dad wants a Corvette with four doors, he needs to be able to tow a trailer every once in awhile and use the vehicle as - gasp - a real car. That's what struck me upon getting the Roadie - how well suited this car was for American roads and the needs that arise on them, rather than suited for the Car and Driver test that's going to be handed to the BMW 3 series entrant anyway. The large tires and high stance made a lot of sense in places like New Orleans, with possibly some of the worst streets anywhere. In cases like that the last thing you want is a pavement scraping track whore on rubber bands.

Such an observation could be a metaphor for where I find myself, coming full circle. At one point I thought the Smart Car was, you know, smart. Then you realize that the car is slower, less fun to drive, more expensive, and even more fuel thirsty than just getting a cheap used japanese compact from the late 80s to the early 2000s now. I kind of feel that a lot of people haven't gotten the message that maybe throwing a 2.0l turbo four into every car (because it will magically be faster AND more fuel efficient than a V8, even though there are turbo four powered cars with 1000 pounds less curb weight or more that get 25mpg or less; they're going to get BETTER mileage with a bigger car?) and that when FWD cars and 'pony' cars start edging up on the curb weights of what used to be 'land yacht' territory, perhaps some new thoughts are in order about what's necessary right now in the world of 2011 and onward.

Maybe we don't need to reinvent the wheel, just use what we already have on the table better than we currently are.

I find it funny when people fail to notice that the Civic Si now weighs in at the old Prelude Si's weight. (Or a first gen small block Camaro, even) I used to think, 'hell, man, almost 3000 pounds, why bother with a front driver at that point'. The 'microcar' segment now weigh hundreds of pounds more than my SE-R Classic did. A 'midsize' Taurus nowadays dwarfs my old school land yacht. Maybe 4000lbs and 5.7 liters isn't so big and thirsty after all, and maybe everything in the automotive world isn't what the sales brochure says it is. Maybe the 'Smart' car isn't so much. I've even seen the one thing a Smart car actually has an advantage with fail - the 'just back up to the curb' parking 'ability'. Which is fine until LAPD tickets you anyway. Legal or not.

Who doesn't need a slow, expensive car that seats only two and has almost zero cargo room? Raise your hands. Woah, that's a lot of people.

Now there are 'smart' just about everything, from laptops to lattes to, of course, cars. I couldn't help but feel a little intelligent myself, passing mister 'C Smarty' like he was standing still in a car that cost me a whole 833 dollars to procure. 200 bucks worth of Craigslist 15x6.5s with Toyos and a 25 dollar CARB approved CAI later, I had a car that got 30mpg while driving like a lunatic all day, more cargo room than the Smart car, and vastly faster acceleration for less than the insurance cost of the 'Smart' car. No manufacturing costs like in a new car either (auto factories don't run on rainbows, people), if you're concerned with the environmental impact, and the engine was smog compliant and new enough to be clean but old enough to be cheap. The Goldilocks Zone, where any astronomer will tell you, Life occurs.

Ok, so the car wasn't a show winner for 833 bucks, but still, the
'angel choir' effect is appropriate when you consider the
automotive heaven offered compared to a Fart...er, Smart Car.

Then I sold the Si for 1500 bucks with less than that in it with all parts accounted for, bought the Roadie for 1000 bucks ('gas guzzler' the guy complained, and I just nodded and signed the paperwork. Compared to what?), and after returning from NOLA, was backed into. After getting paid for the minor (but major looking) dent in the quarter panel and having enough blue book value to not total out, I was paid 1450 bucks to fix a dent I just pushed out and maybe might sic a paintless dent guy on for a few hundred. I now have negative dollars into this car; I've essentially been paid to take it. I wonder if Grassroots Motorsports magazine would recognize that for the $2012 Challenge....however, the idea of spending 400 bucks for some serious rubber and a few hundred to fix the few remaining weak areas of the chassis (the tow pack afforded 2.93 gears and a limited slip, and the Gran Touring suspension is as close to Impala SS spec as was offered in the Roadmaster line) doesn't seem like much.

Pictured: "I'll pay you 450 bucks to take me home."
Now tell me your Elantra was a really good value.

That's what this blog is about - doing it the right way, even if you don't have much to work with. Having a 260hp pimpmobile daily driver that gets decent mileage, runs 15s, and was so cheap I'd have to spend money to break even on it? That's win, folks. That's doing it right. Being able to head to an autocross course later with 'grandpa's car' and turning heads amongst the import snobs and pony car guys alike? Also win.

Grampa Car - if your Gramps was Chuck Lidell. 

Doing it wrong was like my SE-R; 1400 bucks to buy an 'economical' car that ballooned to 5000 bucks for a car with just a cheap ass set of coilovers on it and a half finished motor swap (the 'unbreakable' SR20DE ended up with a rod knock the night I burned up the Suffolk County back roads after weeks of dialing in shocks, race shop alignment, etc...); luckily I sold the whole basket case for 2000 bucks. I could have easily been forced by circumstance to sell it for less if I hadn't been so lucky. All for a 2.0l NA four cylinder with a K&N filter on it. Doesn't sound so 'win' does it?

Pictured: Fail. No, really. Also, an e-brake drag on fresh concrete.
I was a really, really bad security guard. I was supposed to
be getting paid to keep this very thing from happening.

Fair warning; some rants may have this War and Peace-esque length, many will not; however, I'm sick and tired myself of the Twitter level of depth available on most blogs; the code to embed the photos they use in many cases has more text than the blog entry itself. I won't assume you to be some ADD addled illiterati who need a shiny object and small sound bytes, although I'm sure to get a few 'TL:DR' responses from that crowd, no doubt.

Maybe the auto world doesn't need another uppity, long winded blogger, but they're getting one, and perhaps I can offer a unique enough perspective to justify my salt. We'll see. I think that there's thinking you're smart, and actually being smart, and oftentimes they're not quite the same thing, and don't occur at the same time. I like the idea of cultivating effectiveness, and if someday your automotive horizons widen, the experience is just as valuable - perhaps more so. I'm embarrassed by losing 3 grand on a car I enjoyed owning thoroughly, I can't imagine being more ok with such a situation if you added some more zeros to that figure.

Fear not folks: I have some good things in store. A teaser of what's to come....