ambivalent images

Chariot Ding

The dent created in our car by vandals. Our beloved chariot has been badly blemished! We haven't gotten an estimate on this, but I fear it's not going to be cheap to fix. Should we fix it, or just let it be? Thoughts?

Shattered Glass II

Another view of the broken rear window of my dad's car.

Vandals!

The shattered rear window of my dad's car. Someone thought it would be a nice idea to take a baseball bat (we think) to the window one Saturday night while the car was parked out in front of our house. They also tried to break the rear window of our new car but instead just left a big, ugly dent in the body surrounding the window. This was a really nice way for someone to welcome us to the neighborhood, don't you think?

My favorite part was reporting this to the police. It was like this:

“Yeah, I need to report an act of vandalism,” I said.

“What's your name and the address?” (I give them.) “Do you have any suspects?” (Uh, no.) “Ok, well, we won't send anyone over if you don't have any suspects. Here's a report number for your insurance. Have a nice day.”

Now that's what I call great police work! I realize they have more important things to worry about and there's probably not much they can do, but still...

Smart Arc

A tiny smart car passes by the Arc de Triomphe. The massive scale of the monument makes the already diminutive car look even more tiny. I want a Smart ForTwo!

(Thus ends our brief tour of Paris. L. and her sister had a terrific time and I'm saving my pennies so that one day I may also return to the City of Light.)

Stop Meth Car

One of the many anti-meth “art” projects in Montana. I believe this one won an award; here's the story of its maker. The art is part of the Montana Meth Project founded by millionaire Tom Siebel. The campaign's ads are also all over the state and they're extremely gruesome. Maybe that's what it takes to discourage a few people from trying meth...

Overexposed Deere

A line of John Deere tractors just outside Deer Lodge, Montana. Or should that be “Deere” Lodge?

I had my camera set wrong so the shot was overexposed to begin w/so I just blew it out a lot farther for the effect. iPhoto won't let you get too extreme, but interesting, nonetheless, I thought.

Tree Slugger

A bumper sticker on a vehicle in my apartment complex parking lot. What do you think it means?

Fit Is Go

A bus stop ad for L.'s new favorite car. I gotta hand it to Honda's advertising agency for this Fit ad campaign. L. has always hated these little station wagon cars and the Fit is, aesthetically, pretty identical to at least a half dozen of its competitors. Yet these kooky “Fit is go” ads have made her forget her aversion to wagons and fall in love with this car. It has a fin! And the ads are all like video games and all your base. I don't fully understand the magic these ads work, but I do know it is magical. Now if only I could find some way to influence L.'s preferences as powerfully as these ads....

Muggle Prez

A bumper sticker on a car in Wyoming. My sister took this photo and sent it to me a long time ago and I'm choosing to post it now b/c the other things in the posting queue would just take too much time.

Posting a photo every day means much randomness, ok?

Light River

Traffic heading north on Rock Creek Drive at dusk.

Why Ford is cutting 35,000 jobs:

A data sheet for a Ford Explorer on display at the Washington Auto Show. This one vehicle can probably be blamed for at least half of the 35,000 jobs Ford is cutting. I feel really badly for all those workers and their families and communities, but I'm angry that a company like Ford was too short-sighted and profit hungry to see that its reliance on gas-guzzlers to sustain its business was a losing proposition in the long term. Duh. Duh. Duh.

Apple's Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying something like: “You can't just ask people what they want and then give that to them because by the time you've got it made they already want something else.” I think Ford and GM could learn a thing or two from Mr. Jobs.

Whee! No Hands!

Kids have fun driving mini Jeeps at the Washington Auto Show.

Washington Auto Show I

The headlight on a shiny new Mini Cooper convertible. This was one of the many many shiny new cars on display at the Washington Convention Center last week as part of the Washington Auto Show. Just about every major auto manufacturer was represented, along with a good number of after-market accessories vendors. I was lucky enough to get in for free thanks to the kindness of some stranger who was walking buy the ticket sales line and decided to hand me a free ticket. “They didn't take it at the door,” the person said. Cool! So I saved $10 and I was pretty glad. The show was cool, but it probably wasn't worth $10. I mean, I didn't really see much that I can't see on the streets around here. I may be the only one that feels that way, though. Judging from the crowds, the show was a huge success.

Grille

The front grille on the Chevy HHR. This was the Chevy vehicle I was most interested in last summer when we had to get a new car but they weren't for sale at the time and L. doesn't like them so it was not to be.

Dirt Leaf

The outline of a leaf on the trunk of our car. Yeah, we need to wash the car...

Two Cobalts

Our Chevy Cobalt sedan (the orange one) sits parked in front of a Cobalt coupe (the black one). I took this picture because it shows the difference in the profiles of the sedan and the coupe, but also because I was surprised to see that the two versions of this car appear to have the same or a very similar wheelbase. According to the specs near the bottom of this page, that's true—the wheelbases are the same. Not only that, but the coupe is actually two tenths of an inch longer than the sedan in overall length!

From my perspective, the only reason to prefer a coupe would be that it is smaller, perhaps sportier, and more fuel efficient. With the Cobalt, the coupe may be sportier, but that's about it. Seems nutty to me...

$3.19/gallon

The gas pump a couple of weeks ago when I last filled up the car. At the time, $3.19/gallon seemed like a steal b/c the going rate around D.C. was more like $3.50/gallon. I don't know where things stand now, but I think the price has come down to below $3 most places.

Low Low Prices

The gas pump last Sunday when I filled our car's tank for $2.87/gallon. At the time I thought this was an incredibly outrageous price, but yesterday I saw prices that appeared to average about $3.07/gallon. I guess I got a pretty good deal on Sunday.

I'm so glad I don't have to drive every day.

Mazda 3

A new Mazda 3 parked in the neighborhood looks an awful lot like our new Cobalt, doesn't it? I think the designers were drawing from the same playbook, and I think that book came straight from BMW. Am I on crack? Maybe, but if you look at the most recent crop of Beemers you'll see a lot of similar lines to these cars.

Anyway, I like the rear end on the Cobalt better than the Mazda 3, but the 3's front end (the overhang in front of the front wheels) is shorter and therefore better. The three also manages to look both sleeker and beefier at the same time. I'm not sure how or why, but the Cobalt looks a little more toyish or immature in comparison. Adding insult to injury, Automobile Magazine gives the 3 more props than the Cobalt. But at the end of it all, the Cobalt has one thing the 3 just can't match: The Cobalt comes in orange, and that makes all the difference!

On Empty

The fuel guage on the new car reads empty. I took this as I sat in line at the DMV inspection station to get the car inspected before it could be licensed. That took over an hour and most people just sat there idling their vehicles, polluting the environment to get a sticker that says their car doesn't pollute the environment too much. Makes sense, right? I kept turning the car off though b/c I was out of gas and thought I wasn't going to make it. I did, it was fine. I told this story already, didn't I?

A058

My ticket number as I waited in line last week at the DMV to register the new car. I think I mentioned that it took something like 8 hours to get the car inspected and licensed. The DMV personnel who helped me were all very nice and seemed to know what they were doing, so it wasn't their fault things took so long. Still, I hope someday I'll live someplace where I don't have to deal with this much bureaucracy to take care of things like this.

Mini For Reals

An original Mini Cooper sits on the street making its newer descendants look rather big and bloated by comparison. If you've seen Four Weddings and a Funeral and you remember the opening scenes and the first race to the first wedding, you've seen one of these original Minis in action. They were tiny tiny cars, which was a lot of their appeal. I like the new Minis, though. I haven't driven or ridden in either the new or the old, but I'm pretty sure I'd appreciate the new one even more if I did.

Cobalt Front & Back

The new car from the front, above, and from the back, at right. I think that takes care of most every angle of the car so I'll stop with the car pictures. ;-)

Oh, except that I might have some comparison pics showing the similarities between the Cobalt lines and those of other recent vehicles. But then again, maybe not; we all know that cars in the same class tend to borrow heavily from each other.

Someone asked if we've named the car. The answer is no. I don't know if I've ever named a car, although I know some people really like doing that. I did suggest “the rusty rocket,” but L. strenuously disapproves. My second suggestion would just be “Flashy.” It's short, it's sweet, I think it describes the vehicle fairly well. The only problem is that certain readers of blogs “with more sugar!” may confuse our car with Flashy Mcgeniuspants (see more from Flashy here). Plus, if you name a car and start anthropomorphizing it like that, you'll also have to face the question of gender—is the car male or female? Or something else? Perhaps we should just call it “the car”....

Window Stickers

The fuel economy window sticker from our new car (and another at right). The explanation for this sticker doesn't tell you much except that the EPA figures the average driver drives 15,000 miles/year. What I don't understand is why this car would be classified as a “subcompact.” If you look at the list of subcompacts, you'll see they're basically all sporty coupes. Class sizes are apparently determined according to interior volume, so from this I'm guessing that the EPA is talking about the coupe. (Is it possible that the coupe and the sedan have the same interior room? I can't see how....) Compare that to the list compacts; the compacts (the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, VW Jetta, Dodge Neon, etc.) look much more similar to our Cobalt. In a side-by-side comparison, the Cobalt does pretty well against the Civic and the Corolla, although it's not surprising to see that the American make is bigger in all external dimensions and smaller in all internal dimensions. Why must that be?

Sky High Prices

A sign at one of the many gas stations we patronized during our vacation shows the high price of a gallon of gas. At right is another glimpse of the new Cobalt taking a drink at the pump. (Yeah, it has a "spoiler." We wouldn't have custom-ordered that option, but when you're buying on short notice and you must have orange, you're probably going to end up with some options you didn't want and maybe without some you did. I do think the spoiler enhances the look of the car, though, so it's all good.)

The ever-rising price of fuel was only one of the reasons we were reluctant to invest in a new car. For some time we've talked about hoping we could postpone a purchase until there were better alternatives. For example, we really like the idea of the Prius, but it's not made by GM, and we sort of have to/want to buy GM for several reasons, primarily because L's dad worked there and because it's an American make. (Our Cobalt was “assembled” in Lordstown, Ohio; Chevy claims 75% of its parts come from the U.S. or Canada, including both the engine and transmission.)

Unfortunately, according to the government, the Cobalt doesn't do much better on fuel economy than the old Corsica—the Corsica supposedly got a combined MPG of 24, while the Cobalt is rated at 27. (I can't seem to link directly to the comparison, but here's a screenshot.) That's pretty sad considering the Cobalt should have the benefit of 10 years of technological advances, has a much smaller engine (the Corsica had a 3.1L 6-cylinder; the Cobalt has a 2.2L 4-cylinder) and is a smaller car. Maybe the extra 1 cubic foot of luggage volume in the Cobalt makes it guzzle more gas. At least we're doing slightly better, but I hope if we ever buy another car we'll be able to do much much better. For example, both the Cobalt and my my mom's car are considered “subcompacts,” but her car gets 41 mpg, on average. And yeah, ok, it's diesel and there are problems w/particulate in the emissions of diesels, but still...

The bottom line is that whatever we're driving, it seems inevitable that someday we'll all be singing along with the Kinks:

I can score you some coke and some grade one grass But I can't get a gallon of gas I've got some downers some speed all the drugs that you need But I can't get a gallon of gas There's no more left to buy or sell There's no more oil left in the well A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere For any amount of cash

I do hope when that day comes we can at least get the grade one grass.