2000-2006 Nissan Sentra (B15)

This article was published in CarLustBlog.com on March 11, 2015. Minus some hyperlinks, it’s almost all the same.

Whether out on the street, in magazines or the web, I find that some cars are still the darlings of car enthusiasts.

This one isn’t exactly one of them.

I don’t remember anything about the B15 Nissan Sentra when new. How many of us do? It’s not a car that one counts down the days for an official announcement, its release to the public or something. It did grab my attention when the Need For Speed Underground videogame released its TV commercial. Well, any car shown pulling an automotive equivalent of a werewolf transformation was gonna grab my attention (it would still do today). I ended up getting the game for the PC (which took a good chunk of its capacity and was quite expensive for the time). After passing the game and getting all the cars I actually wanted, I got the Sentra. They didn’t even bother giving it the SE-R/Spec V-specific bodykit (more on those later). Fun car for what it was, videogame-wise. In my mind, if it was good enough to take memory space inside the videogame, it’s gotta be good in real life, right?

Adios, Nissan Tsuru

The long-lived Nissan Tsuru’s said to have ceased production as of May 31st. We’re now in June, so let’s pay our respects.

Every once in a while, I have to go to Yahoo!’s front page. For reasons that I can’t figure out, it’s the Spanish (read: mostly Mexican) version that appears, regardless how many times I click for the English version (personal preference). Amongst all the sensationalism, face-palm fodder, I-Don’t-Want-To-Live-On-This-Planet-Anymore moments and infuriating click-bait, there is the occasional nugget of news. The demise of the Nissan Tsuru is one of those occasions.

To those in the automotive world, it’s no surprise but still pleasant to read about ancient-by-First World-standards platforms still in production. For years. Decades. They’ve become part of their landscape; sometimes we’re unable to imagine their country’s roads without them. The Mexican Volkswagen Beetle, colloquially nicknamed the Vocho, was such a vehicle, its retirement still resonating in the ears of its fans locally and globally since 2003. Now it’s the turn of the Nissan Tsuru.

Death Race 2050, a review:

The year is 2050. The United Corporations of America has beaten Europe, Asia, and cancer, victories to take solace from, as radioactivity and insane unemployment abounds. But that’s okay, because with Virtual Reality goggles, everyone can see, hear, and even smell their favorite drivers in the Death Race! For the first time, it’s like one is riding shotgun as you race coast to coast while gathering points by killing pedestrians and just plain surviving to the finish line!

The 1966 Batmobile (In Loving Memory of Adam West)

For those of us of a certain age, there is only one Batman.  He was portrayed on early color television and in a 1966 movie by Adam West ( born William West Anderson), who just left us.  And also for us “vintage” Bat-fans, there is just one Batmobile, and this is it:

Batman (As Millionaire Bruce Wayne):  “Quick, to the Batpoles!”  Whoosh!  Dick Grayson (As Robin, in the car):  “Atomic batteries to power… turbines to speed.”  The hidden cave door drops, a sign falls, revealing it’s 14 miles to Gotham City.  “Da da da da da da da da da… ‘BATMAN’!“

There have been “Batman” cartoons and comic books and TV shows and movies, but the one vehicle that carried the Dynamic Duo and won the popularity vote is George Barris‘ 1966 TV Batmobile.  Originally a car show concept car, a 1955 Lincoln Futura was the donor vehicle for the Batmobile.  And how much did Mr. Barris pay for the Futura?  Try just one Bat-dollar!

Death Race 2000, a review:

The highly popular and brutally violent Transcontinental Road Race was to have its 20^th run, having existed for as long as the Roman Empire-like totalitarian regime that sponsored it after the collapse of the U.S. as we knew it. The machines built with speed and lethality for everyone outside the cockpit -particularly pedestrians, whose deaths tallied up as points- paled in comparison to the characters behind the wheel. Behind the scenes, we have a rag tag bunch of rebels doing their best to sabotage the race and ultimately the regime. The main character is Frankenstein (David Carradine), a masked and rough character winner/survivor of previous races, at the cost of many of his original body parts. He’s considered a national hero and also a friend of the deified Mr. President (Sandy McCallum). This makes him a far more significant target to the rebels. To get close to him, one of the rebels, Annie Paine (Simone Griffeth), relative of the rebels’ leader Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin), becomes Frankenstein’s latest co-pilot.