Ten Great Cars No One Ever Bought [Auto Sales]

I have always wanted a merkur and was pleased to see it make the list.
FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Ten Great Cars No One Ever Bought [Auto Sales]"
Bad timing, bad marketing and bad pricing have all killed a number of great cars. With a little help we've identified these ten great cars that sold like complete crap.

Some of these cars lasted only a few years before reaching their demise while others lasted as long as a decade, selling only a few models each year. Despite their lack of sales these cars still have numerous admirers. Click next to run through the list of these successful failures.

Renault Alpine GTA
Model Run: 1984 - 1990
Selected By: Bangernomics
Reason: Lighter and quicker than a Porsche 944 with a modern design and significant use of fiberglass and polyester plastics, the Renault Alpine GTA was a true sports car. Unfortunately, the rear-engined coupe could never overcome its high price and lack of interest in the Alpine brand outside of France.

Photo Credit: AutoHistory.blog.hu

Infinit M45
Model Run: 2003 - 2005
Estimated Sales: Less Than 600 A Month
Selected By: Burgesslshan
Reason: The Infiniti M45 was meant to hold the line for the company before it rolled out a series of larger, more powerful vehicles. Based on the Japanese Nissan Gloria, the sedan was actually more appealing than the larger Q45 and featured the same large 4.5-liter V8. Most complained of the styling, so it was a slow seller. We think it looks great and has aged much better than the Q.

Alfa Romeo 164
Model Run: 1989 - 1995
Estimated Sales: Less Than 6,000 Cars A Year
Selected By: Van_Sarockin
Reason: The Alfa Romeo 164 still remains a remarkably attractive sedan, penned by Pininfarina following the Ferrari Testarossa. It's just so Italian and, despite its FWD layout, quick and fun to drive. As with many great cars on this list, the high price made it hard to swallow at a time when the Japanese and Americans were offering similar vehicles at much lower cost — though not quite so striking.

Buick Reatta
Model Run: 1988 - 1991
Estimated Sales: 21,751
Selected By: Zacarious
Reason: The Reatta, though two decades old, is still one of the most fetching non-Chinese Buick products since the Eisenhower administration. It was a technological marvel, featuring a touchscreen computer and an early example of keyless entry. It was also hand built and features a high level of fit-and-finish. The price was high, as well, but this wasn't what killed it. Buick's sudden shift to an older audience meant performance concerns were thrown out the window, which robbed a great platform of a promising future. Because of this, sales were low. Still, it's a great-though-imperfect vehicle.

Merkur Scorpio /XR4Ti
Model Run: 1985 - 1989
Selected By: Paul-Michael Van
Reason: People are constantly complaining about not getting Ford Europe products. Unfortunately, the Merkur Scorpio and the XR4Ti were as close as America got for a good long while. Though the Scorpio wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, the it performed well for its day and offered a large hatch, European style and other great features. The XR4Ti was a much better performer, but was still part of a funky German brand no one understood.

NSU ro80
Model Run: 1967 - 1977
Estimated Sales: 37,204 (over ten years)
Selected By: Zacarious
Reason: "Rotary engine, cab forward design, 4 wheel disc brakes, semi-automatic transmission, independent suspension all in a 1967 sedan ... they should have sold millions." If only rotary engines didn't scare everyone.

Volkswagen Phaeton
Model Run: 2004 - 2006
Estimated Sales: Less Than 3,000 In The U.S.
Selected By: Jagvar
Reason: We've spilled a lot of electronic ink on the greatness of the Phaeton. It's subtle, Teutonic aesthetic and incredible performance outweigh even the price to maintain. It does answer the question: Would someone pay Audi prices for a Bentley disguised as a Volkswagen? Not in this country.

Fourth Generation Pontiac GTO
Model Run: 2004 - 2006
Estimated Sales: 40,808
Selected By: danio3834
Reason: "This was the car that enthusiasts demanded GM build for years, and when they finally brought them over, few followed through with their promise to purchase. Blame it on a bland exterior or poor marketing, but for those who knew and later found out, the last GTO was a near perfect car. It was a car everyone said they wanted, but couldnt buy."

Volkswagen Corrado
Model Run: 1988 - 1996
Estimated Sales: 97,000 worldwide (lower in the U.S.)
Selected By: Us
Reason: The Volkswagen Corrado and its many iterations was one car we truly liked the general buying public didn't. Sure there's a big following, but people were not willing to fork over the cash for the platform. In various trims the Corrado could be had as an attractive hatch all the way up to the powerful-for-the-time 180 HP VR6 trim. It was quicker than a Porsche 944, handled better than your average FWD vehicle, and looked incredibly German. It was quirky, fun, had a hatch and was therefore mostly unloved enough to get canned. it did so poorly they'll probably never bring the Scirocco over here.

Tucker Sedan
Model Run: 1948
Estimated Sales: 37
Selected By: F1Morgan
Reason: The Tucker Sedan, with its exceptionally forward-thinking safety equipment and sporty design, was so good the not-so-Big Three sabotaged the company's efforts. Even if they hadn't, there was so much bad luck and bad press in the creation of the car that the car was Dead on Arrival. Had you purchased one of the few operational cars you'd now be sitting on a vehicle worth almost a $1 million.


jalopnik
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Why Bonneville Is Important [Speed Week]

A Great Article about Speed Week
FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Why Bonneville Is Important [Speed Week]"
After taking in the famous Bonneville Speed Week , the journey home provided time to reflect upon the experience. We've concluded there's a subtle importance not reflected in any record book of the event.

It was on the last day of my pilgrimage to Bonneville when the full importance of the place came into focus. I broke camp before the sunrise and watched the light blue melt the stars away and the fiery red sun rise rapidly on the horizon, turning the sky into a painting the Renaissance masters could never have captured. I drove out to the starting line well before the beginning of racing, and stood in the silence, occasionally taking photographs of the cars parked in anticipation of the day. It was cool, with a light breeze, and they'd moved the track over to a new path, virgin salt awaited the man eager enough to make it to the line first. A special kind of privilege on a day like that day.

One of the line officials asked another gentleman and me if we'd mind helping him set up their tent for the day, and of course we obliged. Afterward, I and the older fellow got to talking. This was his first time on the salt since 1963. He'd been active in the racing community in his youth and drag raced with friends all over southern California during the 60's. The joy which came from recalling those memories played on his face and in his voice. He recalled his plans of a Bonneville racer, but his life got in the way. He took a wife and had some children, and his drag racing had to be put on the shelf along with his land speed record chasing dreams. He gladly shouldered the responsibility of working for his family rather than himself. But that dream was still there, the salt fever was always present. For 45 years he'd played with various projects cars and eventually started his own shop having nothing to do hot rods or racing, but bears the name Bonneville as a reminder. An homage.

As he stares retirement in the face, he's honest about age in this sport; vision must be acute, reaction times fast, and strength at the ready. He can sense his window of opportunity closing, but it's not closed yet. Coming to this event, this Mecca of speed, he's found some measure of resolve, after the decades of "maybe next year"s, maybe it's this year. He's got a car perfect for the salt, and an engine that would do the job in a modified stock class. He'd be happy with just one run, just one time down the salt which has carried so many legends to their glory.

This is Bonneville. It is important not because of the records, but because it is a goal, a community, a dream. A marking post by which men and women measure their future and pay respect to the past. At every pit they share each others insights, their failures, and their successes. It puts men to the test as much as machine, and makes them think bigger, bolder. They live more because of Bonneville. It is said there is only one class of people on the salt, a community of people who leave their wallets behind. From the slowest stock class to the most unfathomable streamliners, the only difference is the record they chase, and all are given equal respect. Any man behind a wheel faces the same danger of death as another.
There are sponsors for the event, but they remain transparent. This is a rare commodity when modern wheeled sports are oftentimes in danger of dilution through promotion. The remoteness of the place and the brutality of the conditions filter out the riff raff and the hawkers and the television crews and the ready market demographics. Bonneville happens because of a burning competitive spirit and force of will, not because of network contracts and merchandise marketing. Bonneville is important because it has somehow in this day and age managed to remain pure. It is important because it can seduce a man to hold a dream for 45 years.

Eventually the salt will go silent. The memories of the racers and their triumphs will disappear. The record books will reduce to dust. Our rational mind tells us when these things happen the world will go on, this dry lake bed will continue being a dry lake bed, and the trivialities we place importance on will continue being trivialities in geologic time, but a little, irrational part of us hopes the salt will remember.


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Top Gear Season 13 over! :C

The last episode of Top Gear aired last week, the final this season. Have to wait some months till the fall season starts back up. Here is the last rather unique and sobering clip from Mr. Clarkson about Aston's brand new V12 Vantage. She's a pretty one.

Nissan cube

What a funky little car. This was a huge hit in Japan so they decided to try it out in the states. Check out out that headliner!
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Tiny Texas Houses

http://www.tinytexashouses.com

I have always been fascinated with small houses. There is so much wasted space in modern living. Every square foot in your house costs money. It costs money to build, furnish, heat, cool, and maintain. Is less more? Or only for the single and adventurous? Wouldn't it be great to build one of these little guys on a beautiful plot of country acreage with a rain capturing and storing system, 3 or 4 200 watt solar panels on the roof, and a composting throne. Completely self sustaining and off the grid. It has a wonderful allure, doesn't it?

Failure: The Secret to Success

From Honda Motor Company

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

This is another very important and favorite of mine. Rus I thought of you around 9:40.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

A Few Ted Talk Videos

If you have never watched any of the presentations at the TED Talks before, I highly recomend you do.

Here is their Youtube channel

House watching

Scotch and I are here holding down the fort at the lentz house while they are in England. I will be here all next week. More later.
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New glasses, getting the shop buttoned up

I decided to try a new look when getting a new pair of specs a few weeks back. I was a little unsure of them at first but they have grown on me. Other than that I am just finishing up the compressed air system in the garage. I had problems with wiring and smoked a motor on a compressor so ended up piggybacking 2 together and them piped them both into a dryer to remove any moisture and oil that made its way from the pump. Auto paint is urethane based and cannot mix with oil or water. So basically it ruins a paintjob if any gets through. Hope this setup works. More later.
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WOah, where has time gone!?

Isnt is funny how time slips away sometimes. Forgot to update this recently. Not a whole lot new. I am still getting the finishing touches setup in the workshop. Right now Im getting my compressed air system setup. Other than that, I have been trying to get out a few times a week metal detecting. I enjoy it a lot, I go to new places, and it does a swell job trying to clear my head. I recently figured out how to import an image into goggle earth. I can take a historical map and lay it directly over the current view of the area. I can then plot out points of interest and see that area might be a good spot to start detecting around. Pretty fun.

Other than that, I have been kicking around the idea of a small web based business that I would run in my spare time. I have a few ideas. But send along a few if you have any. More later~

The Shop Project -

Life with a Smart Phone

Its pretty darn cool.

Growing up with technology around me basically since I can remember (all the way back a Commodore 64) it takes a lot to impress a gen x'r as myself.  I recently got a Blackberry Pearl 8130 FREE through a promotional deal my cell carrier had.  What these smart phones can do in pretty amazing, but what is better is the ease at which they do it.  

There is a learning curve to these smart phones, the keyboard, the ways to access menus, etc.  But in the next few years I think phones are going to definately going to be cropping closer to complete pocket versions of our home pc than a traditional phone.  I mean, this Blackberry is basically last years model, and I can send a recieve email, text, get news, weather, use facebook, myspace, take 2mp pictures and post them anywhere, listen to any internet radio streams, watch youtube, get gps navigation, have preset searches on craigslist constantly updated and forwarded to RSS feeds, just about anything.  The only limit is the software developers imagination.

This thing makes life, easier.  And that is worth the price alone.  HOWEVER - 

I can see a down side.  After having that kind of information in your pocket at all times, getting along without it would feel like someone just ran off with your pants.  It takes away a sense of adventure a bit, the kind where you want lunch or a coffee so you just drive down the street not knowing where you might end up.  You can never get lost with this technology, and that might not be such a great thing.  Maybe somone should write a "Get Lost" program for them, so a computer could do that for us too.

The Last of a Dying Breed - A Favorite Article

The Last of a Dying Breed

Tony Long  12.07.06

An old friend of mine died recently. Well, I mean he wasn't an "old friend." He was in his late 70s (which I think still qualifies as "old") and he was a friend, even though I was privileged to know him for only five or six years. Still, his passing leaves a pretty big gap in my life, and I think I know why.

John was a dabbler, a sort of Renaissance man, if you will. And you just don't see a whole lot those around anymore, not in this age of narrowly defined interests. He was a courtly man, a retired cab driver who thought of himself as an artist. He was an accomplished painter. He could sculpt. He wrote poetry, which wasn't very good, and prose, which was top notch. He played some classical guitar and fooled around with the piano. He was a lifelong scuba diver who hunted abalone up the coast and had once been a competitive swimmer. He traveled the world several times over. He spoke a couple of languages. He was married three or four times. (He never got the hang of domesticity apparently, but he always spoke fondly of his exes.)

He was one of those larger-than-life guys who always made you smile when he hove into view.

But he never learned how to use a computer. What's more, he never had any interest in learning. For John, life existed "out there," not on a screen. He never owned a cell phone, or any phone, for that matter. Didn't have a TV. Probably never heard of an iPod. But he was one of the most interesting people I've ever known.

I think what made John so interesting, beyond the adventures he had and the great stories he loved to tell, was that there was always momentum to his life. He could make a lot out of a little. His days were full and I'll wager that, after Viagra came along, his nights were pretty busy, too. He personified the active over the passive. He was a doer, not a watcher.

Which is probably the biggest reason John didn't care about computers. Yes, they're efficient and good for business, if business is what you care about. But sitting at a computer when you don't have to is to be cripplingly passive, even if you're playing the bloodiest, most maniacal shooter game ever. Sorry, podnah, but that doesn't make you Billy the Kid. You're just a couch potato with twitchy fingers.

Computers have changed the nature of the workplace, the nature of work itself. This is the information age so a lot of us are cubicle-bound and tethered to the screen, whether we like it or not. It's also the age of specialization. You gotta work to live so unless you've cultivated a rare skill -- like you can really hit a curveball or something -- there's a good chance you'll wind up behind a desk. And on that desk, inevitably, will be a computer.

Which makes it really important for your balance and well-being to get out into the world in your free time and do something -- anything -- that doesn't involve some kind of software.

The physical toll of computer overuse is well documented. And while I'm unaware of any statistical data supporting my thesis that sitting in front of a computer for more than a few hours a day is spiritually draining, anecdotal evidence abounds. You just have to look around you, at a society growing more dysfunctional, discourteous and disconnected every day. There are a lot of reasons for this, of course, but technology that discourages real human contact is certainly a prime contributor.

We are social animals. We are meant to see each other, speak with each other, touch each other, smell each other. "Connecting" online with people you never actually see face-to-face doesn't count. If that's what passes for "community" in the 21st century, well, poor us.

Should we be more like John? Sure, if you can swing it. If you're resourceful enough and not materialistic you might have a shot, but the world has changed since John was young. It's hard to poke around in the interesting corners of life when you're under the gun to make as much money as possible just to stay afloat.

Pity. We'd be so much better off.

Tony Long is copy chief at Wired News.

A break for my mind in the depth of the cold dark winter. Motorcycling Truth

I found this and unfortunately cannot provide a reference as the author is unknown, but very much the truth and how I feel.

A motorycle is not just a two-wheeled car. 

The difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes, and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets. 

On a motorcycle, I know I am alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it, and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sun that fall through them. 

I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pan-A-Vision and IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle, I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and 
flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. 

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride is one of the best things I've done. 

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride. 

Author unknown...