Wheels List

The Volkswagen Van Returns – Everything Old Is New Again

Sometimes when a thing is re-visited, it seems to lose some of its original essence. It’s difficult to re-capture that feeling of novelty, even with nostalgia. I do think, however, that it is possible, and further, I believe that this has been done with the announcement of the new VW Bus, which will return to sales lots in 2022. This time around, it’s electric, and has been tailored to be inexpensive and technologically advanced. An entirely new generation is about to discover the potential of the VW Bus, and I’m eager to see how it does.

Originally, the VW Bus, which also went by many other names such as Kombi and Microbus, became popular with the hippie generation because it was inexpensive, easy to fix, and had plenty of room if you wanted to travel. The VW Bus made appearances at music festivals and concerts, political rallies, and other events, and became a sort of icon of the decade. Several decades later, of course, though there are those of us who remember them, the VW Bus will need a lot going for it to reach the heights it once did. Hence the introduction of an electric version, something that will appeal to a younger crowd, much like the inexpensive, easy to fix option did back in the day for their parents and grandparents.

Lots of people my age are once again turning to politics and music to voice their concerns about the growing issues in the world. We band together with our friends and seek to change our communities and the world. The ability to travel together in this economic climate is of high importance, and there seems to be a cyclic nature to this rise. If someone has been watching the trends in politics, economics, education, etc., they have seen that we are coming back around to a time of social unrest. We may be doing things somewhat differently this time, but it is similar enough to see that there’s a market for the VW Bus again.

It’s called the “I.D. Buzz Concept”, and will begin selling in the U.S., China, and Europe in 2022. The second of a series of concepts, the “Buzz” uses a Modular Electric Drive Kit (as do the other two concepts, the third of which will be an SUV, the “Crozz”), and will be updated with the newest technology. Despite all of that, costs will be kept low, since being affordable will be a high selling point for those of us still paying off student loans.

Updates to the Bus include LED honeycomb lighting all the way around the vehicle, massive upgrades in horsepower from 30 hp to 369 hp, and can be charged back up to 80% in just a half hour. It is also capable of going three hundred miles without needing a recharge. Like the old VW Bus, though, it retains a two-tone color scheme, and has almost zero body overhang.

Plymouth Fury – If Looks Could Kill

Carrie is perhaps the most famous of Stephen King’s stories about a killer car. The car used in the novel was a Plymouth Fury, though the evil entity had less to do with the type of vehicle and more to do with spiritual entities. That being said, the Fury has figured in several stories, from film to video games (the 1957 Plymouth Fury made an appearance in the Grand Theft Auto franchise). Wherever you know the Fury from, you know what an eye-catching automobile it was, complete with bold colors, distinctive tail-fins, and a gigantic body in which to house its growling V8 engine.

Originally a subset of the Plymouth Belvedere line, the Fury quickly worked its way to the top as both a mid-size and a full-size sedan. The first generation was offered with twin 4-barrel carburetors, gold-anodized aluminum trim, and came in two colors: white or beige. Subsequent generations suffered from lack of quality control, but not to the extent of shuttering the model in favor of other styles.

A Sports model appeared just a few years after the original model was produced, and came in two styles, the two-door hard top and two-door convertible, as opposed to the original Fury’s styles, which included a two-door hard top, four-door sedan, or station wagon. An alternative vehicle that was based on the Fury arrived in Canada in the late 1950’s. It was known as the Dodge Viscount, but was a short-lived experiment, lasting only a year.

The 1960’s were a decade of innovation for the Plymouth Fury. It began with the first unibody construction (previously vehicles were mostly body-on-frame which meant that the parts were bolted onto the frame, or chassis. The unibody construction idea was that the body and frame were combined into one piece), then the tail-fins were removed, and the vehicle was produced as a mid-size model instead of the full-size sedan, though popular opinion swayed the designers to go back to a full-size in the mid 1960’s.

The Plymouth Fury changed generations in the 1970’s from the fifth to sixth to seventh generation, as well as going through several name changes and body configurations, from full-size to mid-size again, with the various names including “The Road Runner”, “The Plymouth Gran Fury”, to the “Plymouth Caravelle” label used in Canada. In 1979, however, there were no Plymouth Furies to be found at all on the market.

While the car did manage to last through the 1980’s, its demise was clear for all to see. A Dodge Dart body was recast as another version of the “Plymouth Gran Fury” though its main audience was not the general populace but rather the police force. The Plymouth Fury bowed out of production in 1989, after almost 30 years on the market.

You can also locate a copy of Carrie at your local library if you’re into Stephen King’s vision of killer cars.

Plymouth Road Runner – Beep Beep!

My grandpa’s favorite cartoons were the old Looney Tunes, with classic characters like Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, and Road Runner. We were entertained for hours by the antics of these creatures, though I admit, I always felt a little bad for Wile E. Coyote. He tried so hard, and Road Runner just zipped by every time. There was never a moment when Wile E. could have trapped the racing bird. My grandpa was also a car mechanic during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point he worked on a Road Runner and thought about Looney Tunes.

Plymouth made a deal with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts to the tune of $50,000.00 to utilize the characters and iconic “Beep, beep!” noise for this vehicle. The horn alone cost $10,000.00 to develop, but the purpose of the vehicle was not to be a gimmicky tie-in. It was created to be a plain, mid-size car for the audience who wanted a fast car but didn’t want to pay for a lot of bells and whistles, like with the Plymouth GTX.

The vehicle was offered as a two-door pillared coupe, then a hardtop, as well as a convertible. While the exterior and interior may have looked sparse, what the Road Runner lacked in style it made up for in performance, with a specialized V8 engine. The original engine was a unique “Road Runner” engine but later versions were available with a Hemi.

1970 was a big year for the Road Runner, with a re-design and color options made to catch the eye. The Air Grabber even became somewhat showy, exposing a line of shark-like teeth upon activation. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a good year for sales, due to rising insurance charges for muscle and performance cars, and sales fell tremendously.

Even with the advent of a high-performance concept car (The Plymouth Duster I) remake of the Road Runner, it was still doing poorly in sales. The convertible was done away with, and the team went back to basics for the second generation Road Runner. The design was changed up to reflect the current trends in vehicle appearance, and it was afforded a little more luxury than the previous generation. These changes did affect sales, moving from 50% down to 40% up in the early 1970’s.

In 1975, however, things changed once again and the Road Runner was turned from a vehicle body into a design package. With new models cropping up and motor trends moving away from the older muscle car style, there wasn’t much room for the Road Runner to keep moving forward. It did stay an option for Plymouth purchasers for a while longer, ending its run in 1980.

If you’re interested in learning more about Plymouth’s Road Runner, a good place to start would be the Road Runner Wikipedia page. You can also find fan groups in a variety of places online, or take a look at a model at a car show. You might even find one still being driven around, just for old time’s sake.

Pontiac Grand Prix’s Race To The Top

Most of my interest in older vehicles has come from media – a television series, a film, a book, or even a song. I remember discovering what would later become my favorite vehicle by reading a book series recommended by a friend. I’ve read about various older models of classic cars in Stephen King short stories. I was introduced to the Pontiac Grand Prix through film and television, primarily the TV shows I watched with my dad – shows like Miami Vice, Hawaii 5-0, and Columbo. I also saw the Grand Prix a few times in the movies, like the 1969 Grand Prix that showed up in Transformers: The Last Knight. Getting to know the Grand Prix this way gave me a sense of what the car was made for, and though I’ve never had the chance to drive or ride in one, I’m on the lookout for someone who will give me a shot at it.

The Pontiac Grand Prix was built as an all-wheel drive personal luxury car. As such, it was able to provide style and comfort to drivers who were going off the beaten path. It was such a hit, in fact, that it hung around for almost fifty years before gracefully retiring as the new Pontiac G series rose to prominence (The Grand Prix replaced the Pontiac Ventura and was, five decades later, replaced by the Pontiac G-8).

First generation Grand Prix models came equipped with the following: bucket seats, tri-power carburation, a V8 engine, and a three-speed manual transmission. Several decades later, the seventh generation Grand Prix was offered with a 3.8L V6 or 5.3L V8 engine, a 4-speed automatic transmission, and several re-designed elements on the exterior, which did create new interest in the car. Unfortunately, just two years after the last Grand Prix was made, Pontiac was shuttered due to GM’s reshuffling after its Title 11 financial troubles.

That being said, the Pontiac Grand Prix has done a good job of retaining its importance as an early personal luxury vehicle in the United States. It continues to appear in television and film, particularly the 1969 model with its classic lines. If you want to see it on screen yourself, you can check out films such as Harold & Maude, Gone In Sixty Seconds, and Knight and Day. You can also see it on the silver screen in such shows as Mission Impossible, Kojak, and The Border, all of which span decades of film and television history, securing the Grand Prix as a staple of Americana.

f you’re lucky, you may see one of these cars still tooling around looking for trouble. If I ever have the chance, you can bet I’ll jump right in and roar off into the sunset with this classic old beauty.

Dodge Dart: Compact Life Compact Car

When I started driving in my late teens, I quickly realized that our family vehicles were not the right size for me. We had a gigantic Ford F-150 XL with a manual transmission, and a Jeep Wrangler, also with a manual transmission. I couldn’t even reach the pedals in the Ford pickup, and the Jeep Wrangler was my dad’s car. No one else drove it. When we moved to Spain, I found out that there were smaller cars, compact cars made for smaller people like myself (I’m just over five feet), cars used in cities to parallel park, with automatic transmissions that would be easier for new drivers.

One of the compact cars I saw there was the EZ Smart Car, which I detested. It looked like it had been a bigger vehicle and got chopped in half. I didn’t like how unsafe it looked (in a wreck I was sure it would be crunched into a cube), and I despaired of ever finding something that I could feel comfortable driving around. When I got back to the states, I went to college and tried to drive regular college kid cars like old Honda Civics and Nissan Altimas, which were still too large for me to feel safe.

After graduation, when I was looking for a job, a car, and setting up house, the Dodge Dart came onto the scene. Originally the Dart name had been used in the 1960’s and 1970’s for a range of vehicles from compact to full-size, but this new Dart would be a completely compact vehicle. It also had the distinction of being a transverse front-engine, front-wheel drive vehicle, a small four-door sedan well suited for the city.

It was offered with three different types of transmissions, a wide variety of interior and exterior colors, as well as perks like ambient lighting, leather seats, and a tech package that included Bluetooth and navigation systems. There were also specific trim packages such as the Blacktop, which included black accents and wheels. There were also levels of customization available in each package, from the base SE to the luxurious GT. The Aero was more focused on fuel economy, while the GT Sport was an all-out trip into a futuristic fantasy, with technological upgrades such as remote start, high quality sound system, and the 2.4L Tigershark Inline 4-Cylinder Engine (also known as the I4).

Since the Dart was a front-wheel drive vehicle, it also came with an array of safety features, which included rainy brake support, electronic stability control, hill-start assist, and rear camera assist. It also had ten airbags installed, as the smaller size made it more susceptible to damage during a wreck. With all these safeguards, it also made a great racing vehicle, and was used during the 2012 Global RallyCross Championship.

The Dodge Dart was discontinued in the United States in 2016, though the Chinese market held onto it for one more year under a different name, the Fiat Viaggio.

Mercury’s Cougar – Feline Frankenstein

I know, I know – Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. However, in popular usage, the term ‘frankenstein’ can mean the combining of disparate elements to create something new, which would be accurate when describing how the Mercury Cougar came into existence. I don’t know of many other vehicles that were created in this way and I’m somewhat curious as to how this came about – the Mercury Cougar was more of a name than a model, and it was applied to several different shapes and sizes throughout the years, using other car bodies as the base for the Cougar.

Apparently, it was common practice at Mercury to use Ford bodies for their new builds. The Cougar, for example, started out based on the Ford Mustang, though this did change through the years as Mercury utilized the following Ford models for the Cougar: Torino, Thunderbird, and Countour. The first Cougar, based on the Ford Mustang, put Mercury in the running with other car companies who were already selling pony cars. The Cougar was first sold as a two-door, but during its run it was available as a hatchback, a station wagon, or four-door as well.

While the Mercury Cougar may have taken most of its practical parts from the Ford family, it also added some stylish touches from European cars, such as the Jaguar (which makes sense considering that the Cougar was hailed as the American ‘cat’ car). First generation Mercury Cougar Sport editions had a dashboard consisting of faux wood grain, toggle switches, and leather-vinyl interior.

Later generations of the Cougar sported re-styled headlights, grilles, and had new engines installed to meet tighter safety criteria, taking inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, including the Mercury Cyclone and Montego, the Continental Mark V, and the Ford Fox platform. There were also upgrades, including opera windows, a re-designed cougar hood ornament, and a ‘Traction-Lok’, so although the Cougar was getting bigger in an era when other companies were downsizing, customers were still drawn to and driving the Mercury Cougar. In fact, the Cougar was not made in a smaller size until 1980. It was also offered with a V8 engine this time around, as well as an automatic transmission rather than manual.

Sixth generation Mercury Cougars have the unique distinction of being one of the two vehicles (the other being the Ford Thunderbird) to overhaul the design of the entire automotive industry with their “aero-look”. This shiny, new design drove purchases of the Cougar up and over the Thunderbird and began a trend that would become standard practice design-wise for decades to come.

After the eighth generation, however, it was time for the Mercury Cougar to say goodbye. In 2002, after several decades on the market, the Cougar was retired from the Mercury line. It had a good run in both North America and Europe (though it was rebadged as a Ford Cougar across the pond).

Chrysler Town & Country: From Station Wagon To Luxury Mini Van

When considering a new vehicle purchase, it’s important to take into account what you’re going to be using the vehicle for – like when my dad purchased a six-seat truck in order to accommodate our growing family and the large instruments we played at weddings, Christmas parties, and the occasional historical re-enactment. There wasn’t enough room in a station wagon (only five seats), or a mini-van (enough seats but not room for a harp, a cello, and two violins). If we had been on the lookout for something a little smaller, or more comfortable, we probably would have gone with something like the Chrysler Town & Country, which was made for larger traveling groups who wanted to relax a little on their way to the next family reunion, or even just on their way to school.

The Chrysler Town & Country appeared on the automobile market before World War II, in the early 1940’s. While there weren’t any produced during the war, it was marketed again afterwards and became a popular staple for families in the 1950’s up until 2016, which, considering the longevity (or lack thereof) of most vehicle models, is something to be proud of, especially since it underwent a massive change in body type.

After World War II when the station wagon really took off, it was made entirely of steel. There were a few variants, with names like “New Yorker” and “Newport” and “Windsor”, but most prominently was featured as a luxury vehicle, complete with carpeting, woodgrain paneling, and chrome trim. There were even convertible models for a time, competing with the likes of Buick, Oldsmobile, Ford, AMC, and Mercury. It went through eight generations before disappearing for a few years, only to reappear in the 1990’s as the luxury family mini-van we know and love today.

One of the marks of a forward-thinking, pro-active company is the ability to adjust to the needs of the market. When it became clear that the station wagon needed an overhaul to meet the demands of a new audience, Chrysler rose to the challenge and went back to the drawing board. The result was quite pleasing to the eye (as far as a mini-van can be), while also appealing to those who still wanted some oomph and excitement with a family car. Its distant relatives, the Dodge Grand Caravan and the Plymouth Grand Voyager served as inspirations as they joined the Chrysler brand.

Lasting almost twenty years, the Chrysler Town & Country mini-van is responsible for a lot of firsts in the industry. It led the way in the matter of luxury family vehicles, and provided many with a chance to enjoy their journey toward vacations, errands, education and other short and long trips, not just anticipation of the arrival. While I have fond memories of road trips in my early days, I believe my brothers would have been much happier with their own bucket seats and some new technology to keep them occupied. Something to keep in mind when they’re old enough to start their own families, I’m sure.

Chrysler DeSoto – A new one?

If you take a quick look through the clothing racks at the mall, or peer out your window and look at the other cars traveling the highway, you might think we’ve gone back in time. Nostalgia is quite popular these days, as it is when the world seems especially dark. We long for those days that seem simpler, brighter, more carefree. So we reinvent, put a twist on old things and re-package them as new, in hopes of recreating a time when we felt safer and happier.

There are plenty of older vehicles coming back into rotation, which has me wondering, which antique automobile will we see next? Can it please be the Chrysler DeSoto? I’ve wanted to take one of these for a spin and now seems as good a time as any since we’re resurrecting old vehicle designs. There are several things that would make the DeSoto stand out, and there are plenty of reasons why a new audience might find this particular car appealing.

The original run of the Chrysler DeSoto totaled over two million cars, but it was only in production from 1928 to 1961. It was massively popular from the beginning, maintaining its record of having the most amount of units sold for a first-year car until it was beat out by the Ford Falcon in 1960 (about three decades later). It was also a mid-class car, appealing to a wider range of buyers.

Another record the DeSoto held was being the first mass-produced North American vehicle to be sold with pop-up headlights. Chrysler made few changes to the vehicle over its tenure, but most of what they decided to tinker with paid off in the long run, as the DeSoto remained one of its most popular sellers. Unfortunately, due a late 1950’s recession and other financial factors, the DeSoto was discontinued, which is why I think it deserves another chance today. It’s time to bring back a mid-range, classic-style car that appeals to both our  nostalgia and our proclivity for second chances.

The Chrysler DeSoto was a fabulous vehicle. There’s a lot that could be done to bring it into the new century without stripping it of its unique design elements. With a new, economic V6 engine, some updated technology (I’m picturing something like the front panel of a PT Cruiser), and fiberglass body, the DeSoto could be something exciting for those who want to travel Route 66 and take a ride back in time.

Its original inspiration, the Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto, was the first European to lead an expedition into the Southern United States (specifically Florida, Georgia, and Alabama), and the first documented European to traverse the Mississippi River. That spirit of adventure is still alive and well in America today. We want to explore our country. We want to see new places, meet new people, try new things. Having a vehicle capable of taking us on these journeys would be something celebrate. Car manufacturing companies, if you’re listening, please give the De Soto another chance. It’s time.