Chrysler Turbine

This, gentle readers, was my very first post at the old Car Lust, way back on August 12, 2008. Not sure why I picked this one, but I vaguely recall that I’d seen something on TV about it and thought “Well, that’s certainly Lustable”. In a sense, a good chunk of my posts thereafter used this as something of a baseline as how one might examine certain ‘failed’ cars. I’ll have some thoughts along these lines at the end; in the meantime, I’ve done a bit of editing but this is substantially the same post.

Chevrolet El Camino/Ford Ranchero

Ladies, you may stop reading right now. Avert your eyes, if you must, because this post is about men.  Real men. Manly men. Men who do manly things in manly ways, etc. Men who mow their own lawn, fix a leaky faucet, and change their own oil. Men who brew up a pot of battery acid every morning and call it coffee. Men who use after-shave, not “post-shave skin conditioner with aloe, seaweed extract and Vitamin E with a subtle scent of coriander.” Men who wouldn’t touch a quiche with a 10-foot fork. Men who only drink whiskeys that are named after animals or people. Men who cry only when their father or best hunting dogs die. Men who frankly, my dear, don’t give a damn. Men who know every manly cliché from the last 30 years and aren’t afraid to use them.

These men drive a particular type of car. A car that drips testosterone like a leaky gasket. A car that says, “I know what I need, and this is it.” These type of men know that they’ll never drive the length and breadth of the Kalahari, but they will sure as hell be hauling 4-by-8s home from the lumberyard (note: not the “home improvement store”). Men who don’t need fine Corinthian leather or a station wagon dressed up as an Urban Assault Vehicle. No, this is the Steve McQueen of cars: no entourage, no workout video, and no frou-frou drinks with little umbrellas.

Yeah, I know, the lack of a Y-chromosome doesn’t disqualify anyone from appreciating these fine cars, let alone owning or driving one. There are no doubt many men who just don’t have the …… good taste to rate this kind of car, and plenty of women who do. It’s far more about the mindset than which restroom door you come out of.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Is he talking about one car or two?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. Read on, but only if you feel lucky, punk.

Car Culture: Gille’s Frozen Custard Drive-In (and Memorium)

I originally wrote this in September of 2012 and am posting it here as the founder recently passed away.

Ah, the drive-in. . . .a magnificent piece of Americana, highlighted in movies and TV shows as the place to be on a Saturday night. Driving up in the family station wagon or cruising in with your best girl seated next to you in your first car. A friendly carhop taking your order for burgers, fries, shakes, and sodas, good old American fast food and delivered with speed and efficiency — sometimes even on roller skates. Chowing down, meeting friends, and making plans for later that night, all from the familiar confines of your car. Good times, good times. . . . .

Well, not for me anyway. You might think that this brief reminiscence of a recent trip back to my ancestral homeland of Wisconsin will be another bit of musing on some nostalgic aspect of my childhood when, in fact, that’s not really the case at all: I never visited the establishment in question until about 10-15 years ago. On the other hand, the subject does go back to my childhood years and presents something of a case study in the right way to either “do retro” or at least maintain it.

There’s been a lot of retro-styling of restaurants the last few years. Up here in the Pacific NW we (used to) have Ruby’s Diner, and nationally there’s Johnny Rockets, both capitalizing on the nostalgia of old-timey diners. We also have a place called Burgermasters with some drive-ins, although our favorite is the non-drive-in University location, made somewhat famous by the fact that Bill Gates used to hang out there. Dick’s (a rather unfortunate name if you ask me) is the Top Dog in drive-ins for this neck of the woods, but there’s also the Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-In (another rather snigger-producing name, no doubt) which features a lot of classic car cruise-ins as well. And we have a smattering of A&W’s in the region as well.

The trouble with all of them — diners or drive-ins — is that I have hardly any nostalgia for them, at least not directly. Diners were mostly after my time and, while we had drive-ins while I was growing up, my family rarely went to them for some reason. So, no warm fuzzy memories of either one for me.

There is one, however, which fills me with joy just thinking about it, a true drive-in restaurant straight from the 1940s and largely unchanged since its inception, a staple of my hometown in Wisconsin, a true midwest heartland if there ever was one. And I was just there this past summer.

The 1935 Stout Scarab: The First Minivan?

To be honest, as I type this I’m not entirely sure whether to call this an It Rolls or an It Crawls. It’s kind of the automotive equivalent of the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six: utterly fascinating to contemplate but possibly waaaaaay too much of a good thing … and not a little weird. I first became aware of this automobile when someone sent me a chain email on it. After doing a quick check to make sure it was indeed a real car, I dove in.

Having obtained a degree in archaeology and specialized in Egypt, my interest was piqued initially by the name, obviously: The Stout Scarab. Looking into it a bit more, however, made me realize it has all the things we here at It Rolls often look for: quirkiness, limited success, lots of interesting engineering and design features, and possessing numerous other qualities that make it an outstanding artifact providing insights into the culture of its time. In a lot of ways, it was way ahead of its time; in others, it seems completely outside of any rational concept of time. There’s so much about this vehicle that’s fascinating, the fact that it is often referred to as the first minivan is perhaps its least interesting feature. Whether that appellation is deserved remains to be seen and evaluated as we delve into this topic over the week.

There are so many cultural and automotive trends that converge in this wonderful vehicle that I found it difficult to avoid writing a dissertation-length post on it. It embodies early 20th century artistic trends in spades: a sleek, aerodynamic look inspired by contemporary aircraft design, elements involving archaeology and ancient civilizations, and a number of engineering novelties, many of which would eventually become commonplace, albeit not for several decades. But fear not, gentle reader, for I have forsaken the urge to compose a long, boring, and pedantic treatise on early 20th century art, culture history and archaeology, and will concentrate (mostly) on the nifty features of this vehicle, its place in automotive history, and how it fits in with the story of this week’s featured vehicle.

Celebrating 50 Years on the Moon: The Lunar Rover

One horsepower.

Glorified lawn chairs for seats.

Total weight: Less than 500 pounds.

No protection from the elements.

Approximate cost per vehicle: $9.5 million.

Total distance traveled: About 56 miles.

But they were some pretty good miles. . . . . . .