I spent a considerable amount of time this past weekend looking at and thinking about new cars. On Saturday I test drove a Honda Accord 270 hp V-6; I had it up to 80 mph on I-66. (The sales guy was Moroccan; it was funny to listen to him complain about Asian drivers.) As with the 1997 Accord we bought my daughter, I can see why Honda sells so many - this is a car that gets everything right. I am now convinced that this is the car for us - with sat nav and all the bells and whistles. But it is given to Cari to decide, she has to be comfortable driving in it. This afternoon we're going to drive into Woodbridge to test drive and Accord and its competitor, the Hyundai Sonata, as well as the SUVs Hyundai manufactures.I went to the D.C. Auto Show on Saturday with the Five Families dads; it was a lot of fun. I haven't been to a car show since 1979. I spent a lot of time moving my hand across clean, shiny painted metal surfaces - nice. I was most impressed with the Buick Lacrosse (Cari refuses to look at one for various reasons, not the least of which is the association of the word "Buick" with fat, Midwestern bingo players of a previous generation or two), and, oddly enough, the new Fiat 500. (Interior shown above. It looks like a smartly dressed woman would have to have to wear a pair of white leather gloves while driving one, doesn't it?) I would never buy one - it is well known that Fiat stands for "Fix it again, Tony" - but I will grant that the stylists have managed to design a car that looks utterly unlike the usual Japanese or Japanese inspired econobox. It looks chic in a way only the Europeans can pull off. Only time will tell if it can get down the street without a major engine overhaul.
I was also totally unimpressed with a new thing the luxury manufacturers (Lexus, Infiniti) are doing: covering the engines with large castings of plastic in an apparent attempt to organize and clean up what's under the hood. No, no, no. When I look under the hood I want to see an engine block, an alternator, easy access to the battery and fuses, oil dipstick, etc. I don't want to look at a styled sheet of plastic with a Lexus logo.
Let's see, what else? Mercedes-Benz had a used car on the floor. Used? At an auto show? How weird! Their new Gullwing is a beautiful car, but I have to wonder about the one they were showing, in a matte silver finish, which is apparently the aluminum finish. It looked like cheap plastic. Bleah.
I thought the Ford Raptor SVT looked utterly ridiculous, like it was designed by a consortium of comic book readers, or a bunch of wannabes in a gym. The worst name, however, was a Jeep: the Nitro Detonator. We got a kick out of that. I'm guessing that perhaps the special edition of this model will be called the Nitro Detonator iPectoral Benchpress Magnum.
Saab didn't include the prices on their cars on display, which I thought was cowardly. Speaking of car prices, I mentioned to the others that I was only interested in cars with prices which began with a "2" or possibly a "3." I saw a lot that began with "6," "7" and "8." Jaguar, however, had one that began with a "1..."
The new, restyled Volkswagen Beetle hasn't been unveiled yet. And I was hoping to see an Alfa-Romeo 18C Competizione or a Bugatti Veyron, but didn't.
Me and one of the equally tall Five Fathers dads crammed into a Mini Cooper Countryman; it was funny.
The weekend noirs were as follows:
Loophole (1954): A bank teller is unjustly accused of grand larceny and is hounded by an insurance investigator, played by the gruff-voiced Charles McGraw, who doesn't know when to quit, apparently. It was pretty good and I enjoyed it. But what was the loophole? I have no idea. Sometimes I think they name these films totally at random.
The 13th Letter (1951): An unknown gossip distributes poison pen letters which cause social havoc in a small French-Canadian town. I don't think this film was film noir at all, but somehow it made it into the Silver and Ward film noir encyclopedia, go figure. It was okay.
The Sleeping City (1950): Richard Conte plays an undercover cop at a hospital in New York City. I enjoyed this one, but then Conte is one of my favorite noir actors.
I also spent some time digitizing King Crimson Lps over the weekend; I'm now doing my Judy Collins Lps. But just the ones from her early 1960's folk period. I don't care for her later art and pop songs. I have to admit, however, that sometimes her folk songs get pretty trite. I just listened to one from 1962 where she and Bob Dylan boldly demands to know if arms manufacturers have souls. With music of such power and persuasiveness, can peace be far away?
