My dream car lineup, the first five...

I was having a conversation with my niece earlier this year about what my favorite car is. I said I don’t think I have a single favorite, but could come up with a handful of favorites. I asked what she liked, and she’s a huge fan of muscle cars, just like her dad. Specifically she loves the classic 1967 Camaro. Which is a super sexy muscle car. She likes GTO’s, Chargers, Chevelle’s, Mustangs, and the other classics as well. It got me thinking of making a blog post. I could spend the next dozen blogs writing about which cars I love, but instead I want to limit it. I want you to do the same thing. The rules for this thought experiment are simple. Let’s say you won the lottery, and could buy any car in the world, from any era. It could be bone stock, or it could be modified as long as it was street legal. This meant I couldn’t put a monster truck on the list. Although if I won the lottery then I totally would get one built. Also you can only choose 10 cars. None of this warehouse filled with cars like celebs have. These are 10 cars that you could cycle through to act almost as a daily driver. Do you have them in mind? To be honest I wouldn’t fit in most of the cars on my list. Maybe three are actually made for big people. The rest are made for people much smaller than me. Let’s start with one that would look good on me.

The Buick GNX (1987) is considered to be the last of the great muscle cars. It is the descendant of the grand national model of cars. We’re talking about the Oldsmobile, Fords, and Pontiacs that helped popularize NASCAR in the ‘70s. The Buick Regal T-Type was the base model, but the faster version was the Grand National. Then there was one with even more features, including twin turbos known as the GNX. As first glance it looks like something a grandpa would own in the ‘80s, and maybe drive it to church on Sundays. That is until you realize that it has supercar performance, and could destroy most sports cars on the road. Here’s a breakdown, and comparison between a Grand National, and a GNX. Here’s the Car and Driver review of the GNX from 1987. There was nothing else like it then, and could still beat most cars on the street today.

The first completely tuned up car I would buy after the GNX would be a Dodge Ram Van B1500 (1998). These are known as Dajiban in Japan, and they have a cult-like following in the tuning community. Similar to the GNX, it is a sleeper with fangs. To get you up to speed here a Jalopnik article about Dodge van racing in Japan, and also a Road & Track article about Dajiban racing. I used to own a ’97 Dodge Van so I know I could drive it comfortably. It belonged to my parents, my dad had it on sports tires years before the Japanese saw how brutal the stance was. Sadly we sold it, but I long to have a new one absolutely tuned up someday.

The next car in my garage would be a tough choice, at first I thought about getting a Volkswagen Bus. I’m sure my wife would love one, but I’ll let her make her own list. The VW Bus is far, and wide considered to be a classic Southern California ride after all. I would like to take my family camping, and nothing would make for a more suitable ride. Or would it? I’d like to not only drive to one of the many local campgrounds, but I don’t want to be stuck if the weather acts up. A VW Bus is a durable, but could also be a fickle ride. I’d like something that is tougher, and more reliable. Something with the rugged profile of a Willys MB (Jeep). This was the off road car designed to replace mules for the Army in WWII. To this day there are companies that make reproduction parts for it, and help keep the 80-year-old 4x4’s running in perfect condition. Of course as cool as a Jeep is there is no way that I could take my family camping in one, that is if I could even fit behind the wheel.

There are plenty of modern campers that have 4x4 capability, but I do want something that has a classic look. Since money is no object then I could get a retro-looking bus, and have a modern diesel, or diesel-hybrid engine, transmission, and suspension put into it. That is why the third vehicle I would have in my garage would be a Volvo Laplander (1966). Four Wheeler took a look at the military vehicle many years ago. The European 4x4 is as tough as they come. Newer versions are retrofitted for rally racing. I’d give this boxy-looking beast a complete makeover from the inside-out, and turn it into a reliable camper bus, with off road capability.

This isn’t the only retro car that I would love to have a restomod of. Restomod is a relatively new trend of car builders that goes beyond factory-accurate restorations. Instead of sticking with OEM parts they rebuild a car using modern engines, suspension, transmissions, parts, and technology. They have a classic, but updated look at the same time. Not everyone likes those rides, and I understand that some rides deserve to be accurately restored. There are so many possible classic muscle cars that I’d love to have in the garage. At the same time I don’t necessarily want them to all be stock. The GNX itself was already tuned up before it left the showroom floor. The biggest, most obnoxiously American muscle cars of all time were the Dodge Daytona, and Plymouth Superbird. Nothing screams ‘MURICA like a 20-foot-long, 200mph, boat with an enormous wing, room for four, and groceries in the trunk. That is why if I could only have one classic muscle car it would be one of those. Because of Richard Petty I’d lean towards a Plymouth Superbird (1970) restomod. Hotcars featured a concept restored of the Plymouth Superbird. It just looks too good. Of course I’d have the brightest paint job on it that I could. Too much excess is never enough.

There are many supercars that I would love to own, but the list of exotics that have a special place in my heart is very small. Of all the Italian supercars there’s only one that I consider my absolute favorite. In the ‘80s many of my friends were all about the Lamborghini Countach, or the Ferrari Testarossa. I thought they were amazing-looking cars, but had been featured in so many movies, music videos, and television shows that I thought some of their exotic appeal had worn off. All of that changed when I was in high school. The Ferrari F40 (1991) was the car that completely rocked my world. It was as if Ferrari had turned one of their track cars into a street car. It looked so brutal that nothing else could compare. If you want to know what it feels like to drive one here’s when Car and Driver tested the Ferrari F40. Sadly I’m certain there’s no way I could ever fit comfortably in this car. A guy can still dream right?

These are the first five cars in my dream garage. Do you have any of these in your lineup? We will look at the remaining five in the next blog. I’d like to hear what your top-10 cars would be if money was no object. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The (Videogame) Car Tangent, part 1...

Some of my earliest memories of going into the arcade were seeing the brightly colored arcade cabinets. Atari seemed to have a new racing game every time I visited. The graphics and gameplay on the early titles were not very realistic. Cars and motorcycles were a few blocky pixels and gamers really had to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. It was the cabinet art that really spurred my imagination. The bold colors and stylish designs of late '70s graphic artists were striking. Many of the illustrations would undoubtedly go over well today as a retro tee shirt design.

 

Whether in the USA, Japan, England or Europe, there were countless racing fans working in the computer industry. Those that became successful with a program, application or platform went on to buy the fastest and flashiest cars that they could. In Silicon Valley the nicest cars either belonged to the venture capitalists that backed companies like Atari, Apple, Oracle or any number of upstarts in the San Francisco Bay Area. The nice cars sometimes belonged to the young engineers that were on the ground floor when the companies started trading publicly. These developers and designers were looking for ways to make computer games and arcade games more realistic. They were also looking to make games about the things they loved. Racing was therefor an early favorite for arcade developers in Japan and the US. One designer in particular had a strong passion for Ferrari super cars like the Testarossa. The man was Yu Suzuki and the company he worked for was Sega. One of his most successful titles was a racing game named OutRun. Released in 1986 the game featured a red convertible that looked strikingly like the Testarosa. It even included a familiar "Dancing Horse" logo on the rear which looked like the Ferrari badge. Sega would not have the rights to the Ferrari name for another decade. Not until Suzuki produced SCUD Race in 1996, which featured the Ferrari F-40 but also included rival super cars the McLaren F1, Porsche 911 and Dodge Viper. As much as Suzuki loved the Ferrari he knew that the rest of the world had also developed amazing supercars as well and they deserved to be in the game. Before SCUD Race the red convertible in the Sega racers was known simply as the "Speed Buster."

Throughout his career at Sega Mr. Suzuki constantly pushed his teams to break new ground on each and every title they created. As the leader of AM2, the Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Team 2, he was tasked with helping develop hardware that was cutting edge and software that took full advantage of it. His work in 2D and 3D titles spans almost 30 years. Hits include Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, Virtua Cop and After Burner. The scope of his influence may never be fully appreciated by the game industry but his titles will certainly live on. Suzuki greatly improved from the development of Hang-On, a motorcycle racing game that was released a year prior to OutRun. The multiple branching paths that the Speed Buster could take, the complexity in the stages and animations had been bumped up considerably from what arcade players had seen just prior. Sega was always one of the most innovative arcade developers in the early days of the industry. They created one, if not the first arcade racer in color, Monaco GP in 1979. Atari by contrast had Sprint 2 (player) in 1976 and Sprint 1 in 1978 and both of which were in black and white and far more limited experiences. Sega was one of the trendsetters in a genre. Rather than trying to make the game player feel like they were controlling a driver in a racing game, they instead made the car the star. The driver and passenger in OutRun did have some memorable animations. Few could argue that the Speed Buster was not the true star of the game.

 

In 1993 the team at Sega AM1 produced OutRunners. It was a spiritual sequel to OutRun, the actual sequel produced by Suzuki would not appear until 2003. They expanded on the mechanics of the game, the graphics, courses and most notably the car selections. Each participating nation had a team of drivers, that varied from the silly to the serious. Again it was the cars that were the true stars of the game. Each car performed differently. No two handled quite the same and each had a distinct advantage and disadvantage, such as the ability to accelerate or recover from a crash faster than the other cars. The Speed Buster finally had a rival sports car in the virtual world, a bright yellow convertible named the Mad Power which resembled a Lamborghini Diablo. It was joined by other cars like the Bad Boy, Smooth Operator and Wild Chaser, which resembled the Shelby Cobra, Porsche 914 and Meyers Manx respectively. What Sega had demonstrated was that Suzuki was not the only car fanatic working at the studio. The developers understood and moreover appreciated the subtleties between the iconic cars from each nation. They were able to make amalgamations of popular vehicles without exactly settling on one brand. They were also demonstrating that some of the developers in the game industry were very good at trend spotting. The styling on several of the cars were not only good contemporary designs but also predicted the shape of sports cars and exotics yet to come. When developers realized that they did not have to lock cars into racing games then they went wild coming up with ideas. The next blog looks at the ways in which these cars began to shape gameplay. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!