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About Me
My work has appeared in a number of major publications either as writer, photographer, or source. I enjoy talking about all things automotive. Recent Posts
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CarSpace Hudson's BlogAll around the car world there are stories and these are just a few of them. A new blog is posted every Monday. Sometimes more often. Nov 5, 2007 - My DiseaseOnce in a while, I get to combine two or more things I really love. Among the things I enjoy are cartoons, music, Legos, poker, photography, writing, history, movies, trivia, and cars. Every so often some of these things come close enough that I can enjoy two at a time. Lately, I've been reading a book called Bricklin, a thirty-year old book on the demise of the title car manufacturer. I find it quite educational about the events leading to the collapse of this sports car maker and the people involved. But the errors that I'm noticing are almost at entertaining as the story. According to the writers of this book, the people who were working for Bricklin in 1974 were looking for another car to build instead of the SV-1 gullwing coupe that Malcolm Bricklin had proposed. The authors of this book stated that they had been looking at the "recently" deceased Studebaker for a potential product. It was portrayed that the Studebaker Avanti was on the table as a potential replacement for the still-under-development Bricklin. My first problem was that Studebaker had in fact stopped production of vehicles prior to 1974, but if any company were looking into their products at that time, they would have found them to be woefully out of date. Studebaker stopped producing vehicle in the United State in 1963 and stopped production in Canada (where the Bricklin factory was located) in 1966. Eight years after the last Studebaker rolled off of the assembly line, their cars would not be competitive especially since Studebaker cars were not cutting edge in 1966. The second problem focused on the Avanti. Studebaker introduced the Avanti in 1962 and it was radical for the time. Unfortunately, Studebaker was in dire straits and by late 1963, they could not maintain production of this coupe. Studebaker dealers Nate Altman and Leo Newman purchased the rights and tooling for the Avanti and started production of the Avanti II in 1965. There is no way that Studebaker, as the book states, was looking to sell the rights to the Avanti to Bricklin financiers since Studebaker no longer owned them. Items like this appear in "historical" contexts all of the time. And in the days before the internet, these items could generate lives of their own. Another such item also appears in this book. The authors of Bricklin talk about the promotional machine that sold the SV-1 to the public. Movies and TV shows used the modern-looking car in many different productions. Even non-automotive magazines ran articles showcasing the visual virtues of this swoopy little coupe. Bricklin mentions the SV-1's appearance in the movie The Betsy, a Harold Robbins book turned film about a family-run car company. I'm sure in 1977, the authors had very little chance to check up on the validity of this claim, but in 2007 I do since I own a DVD copy of said movie. And the Bricklin does not appear in the movie. I believe this is a case of mistaken identity and confused memories. The big-budget theatrical release The Betsy starring Laurence Olivier, Robert Duvall, and Tommy Lee Jones came out in 1978. Around the same time, a 1971 book by Arthur Haley entitled "Wheels" became a made-for-TV miniseries starring Rock Hudson and Lee Remick. Both stories followed tales of a large American car company attempting to release a radically new model. Most of the vehicles used in The Betsy were lightly disguised mainstream vehicles. The "Betsy" itself was a sporty coupe of relatively conventional styling powered by a revolutionary new turbine engine. The featured vehicle in "Wheels" was a model called the Hawk. The actual Hawk was a modified AMC AMX or Javelin (sorry, the movie still isn't offered on DVD yet). Like the Bricklin, the Hawk featured gullwing doors which, to me, led to the confusion. While the Bricklin never appears in either movie, someone connected the Hawk to the Bricklin and assumed that the vehicle showed up in The Betsy rather than in Wheels. It's these little bits of trivia that keep me going. And it doesn't end with strictly automoitve movies. The John Travolta/Arye Gross movie The Experts (one of my favorite "unknown" movies) is set in New York City, but the first time I watched the movie, I noticed a little car that made a brief and blurred appearance at the end of a scene...a car that was never offered for sale in the US (a Hyundai Stellar). Connecting the car with this knowledge, I assumed that this NYC scene was probably shot in Canada. And a glimpse of the credits confirmed this. Watch the opening credits to the movie Mannequin 2 (you needn't waste your time with the rest of the film) and you'll notice one of my favorite automotive-related film flubs. The main character in the movie is driving his Jeep to work in center city Philadelphia. He turns right onto Kelly Drive heading toward the city. As he's driving in, one camera angle is shot from his passenger seat showing the famous Boathouse Row passing by the driver. Anyone who's driven up or down Kelly Drive will tell you that if Boathouse Row is on the driver's left side, you're heading OUT of Philadelphia. There's a little glimpse into what's wrong with me. Finding enjoyment out of discovering trivial errors in books and movies especially when they're automotive-related. That's entertainment to me. And I'm sure that many of you have a version of this same disease. "Hi, I'm Hudson. And I'm a Trivia Flub-aholic!"
Oct 29, 2007 - The Ultimate Car Dream...Part CIn past blogs, I've discussed having the dream of manufacturing your own car. This is different than BUILDING your own car, a dream that many car nuts have accomplished, and they should be proud. But when it comes to building a series of vehicles for other people to buy, very few people have done this successfully. People like Benz, Olds, Buick, Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, and Honda have all done it and succeeded. There's a video blog on CarSpace where a guy discusses the car he wants to produce. He's naive about this dream, and I'm jealous. Every couple of years, I revive my version of this dream. When I was younger, I sketched potential designs for my car; I've got hundreds of them. As I got older, the business of a car company became more important to me. Currently, I'm in the stage of learning from the mistakes of others. There are books and movies that cover many of these failed attempts. Most famously is the Francis Ford Coppola movie "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" starring Jeff Bridges. This movie glamourized the attempts of Preston Tucker to compete against the major automakers just after World War II. The movie is quite entertaining (I purchased it on LaserDisc many years ago), but some things must be noted. First was Coppola's attachment to the concept. Apparently, he had wanted to make this movie as far back as 1976, but nothing came of it. The idea popped up again before George Lucas decided to finance the project in the mid 1980s. Coppola was interested in the story because his father had been one of the early investors in the company and Coppola always admired Tucker's idea and inventiveness. Second George Lucas (producer of the film) and Francis Ford Coppola (director) each, at the time, owned two Tuckers. Between the two of them, they had a large portion of the total run! So it can be said, they were not the greatest objective minds for covering this story properly. Back this whole story up a few years to an issue of Special Interest Autos dated December 1972/January 1973. The great automotive historian Michael Lamm interviewed a number of people about the legend of the Tucker, only 25 years after its infamous production run. People like Ed Cole (force behind the Chevrolet small block design) and Road & Track editor John Bond and automotive historian Karl Ludvigsen and even Tucker's own designer Alex Tremulis. Lamm's "drive report" on the 1948 Tucker was titled "Hoax!?" and the side bars that included the interviews carried the headline "Was the Tucker really a hoax?" Lamm's conclusion was not that it had been a hoax but more that it had been "a small time promoter" who "was out of his pond." And now I'm reading a thirty-year old book about the demise of Bricklin. The authors of this book, like Coppola and Lucas, have a story to tell, but theirs isn't as positive. H.A. Fredricks and Allan Chambers were telling the side of the Canadians who lost tens of millions in the Bricklin deal. The book "Bricklin" covers all of the negatives of Malcolm Bricklin, his staff and employees, and even the various Canadian government departments. But if focuses primarily on the lack of knowledge within the Bricklin camp. The authors make him out to be a Preston Tucker with a better working knowledge of sales and probably less inherent abilities when it comes to organization and production. While Tucker died only eight years after his ail-fated car company, Bricklin has gone on for three decades using the same methods to take money from investor after investor leaving dead companies in his wake. Tucker and Bricklin were great talkers. But there have been dozens of stories like theirs over the decades. People with big dreams and the ability to talk people out of money don't make good automakers. It takes skill and knowledge and an ability to find and manage the right people. Tucker and Bricklin both accidentally stumbled upon a few of the right people but did not have the ability to manage them properly. These are among the lessons to be learned here. My dream is still alive but my maturity keeps getting in the way. If only I had the naiveté that I enjoyed when I was younger. Back when finding $100 million was my ONLY barrier to success in reaching my dream. Back when I just assumed that I knew the type of vehicle that would have buyers lining up around the block even if companies dedicated for decades to do just that can't consistently generate demand. As they say, youth is wasted on the young.
Oct 1, 2007 - The Ultimate Car Dream...Part DeuxA few weeks ago, I wrote about my dream of manufacturing cars. With this long-held dream and my work with and around automakers, I've become very skeptical whenever someone announces that they're going to introduce a new brand of cars or trucks. The first thing to do is poke holes in their plans with basic reasoning. I do not get my kicks out of deflating the dreams of others, especially when I share the same dream. I do, however, get some enjoyment out of deflating gas bags...people who talk a good bit but have little or nothing to back it up. As a fan of "orphans and oddballs" (see earlier blog on the subject), I want these guys to succeed. I would have loved to see Tucker or Bricklin or Delorean or any of a few DOZEN automakers make a second or third or fourth generation of their ideas. But it is a very difficult market. Delorean was the big success here with about 9,200 DMC-12s built. Bricklin produced 2,854 SV-1s by September 1975. And many people know about the 51 mostly hand-assembled Tucker 48s built before the plant was closed. The men behind all three of these cars, Preston Tucker, Malcolm Bricklin, and John Delorean, said they would build a successful car even after their first attempts ended in bankruptcy. Tucker and Delorean died before they could accomplish this goal but Bricklin is still trying. It's a tough dream to overcome. And to many, it seems like an attainable dream. I wish it were that easy. The latest in a long line of dreams is Carbon Motors. In the early days of the American automobile industry, there were companies that produced nothing but commercial cars. Companies like Yellow and Checker produced vehicles almost exclusively for the taxi industry. There have been brands of cars produced exclusively for rental fleets. But Carbon claims that they want to produce dedicated police cars. It's a great idea. The police forces in the US have been very limited in the vehicles they could operate. When Chrysler stopped making rear-wheel drive, V8-powered sedans in the late 1980s, the choice was down to the Chevrolet Caprice and the Ford Crown Victoria. And Ford was the last one when the Caprice ended production in late 1996. Dodge re-entered the field recently with a modern sedan but Ford's offering can trace its production back to the Jimmy Carter administration (and engineering work dates back to the Nixon era). When the most popular product in the field has seen three two-term presidents (and two one-term presidents), there's either a great product on the market or there's little-to-no money in the market. But still others see this as an opportunity. Enter Carbon Motors. The Carbon E7 looks like something created for a movie set. Angular lines and suicide doors along with integrated brush guards give this car the look of a futuristic prop from the movie "Demolition Man." It seems like the modern interpretation of what a police car should be. But then the skeptic in me wakes up. Who are these people behind Carbon Motors? What experience do they have and why would they attempt to launch a car company? It didn't take a full scan of the officers to get my answers. William Santana Li is the man in charge of Carbon Motors. He has experience at senior levels of Ford, which is a plus. But on the negative side was the mention of his previous venture, Build-To-Order (BTO). BTO planned to revamp the automotive industry. Vehicles would be...wait for it....built to order. These vehicles would be produced in such volume that prices would be in the near-luxury range. It seemed nice on the surface, but the business plan lacked any appeal to investors. Even BTO's claim that they would re-launch a famous American car brand, rumored to be Auburn, wasn't enough to light the investment community's fire. And BTO quietly faded into the scenery. So now from BTO's ashes rises the Phoenix of Carbon Motors. A few hundred million dollars invested in the E7 could get it on the road. And assuming that Carbon can get a 300hp turbodiesel certified in a mass produced sedan...and assuming that 50,000 are ordered by police forces across the country each year from a no-name company...then I'd bet they can be a success. But do you think that Carbon can do put all of this together and sell the cars for about $25,000 each and make over $1,000 per vehicle? I do not. I know that my opinion about a car that has yet to be produced has little bearing on your opinion. So I'll give you a few reasons why this car, as shown on the company's own website, will not go into production as is. First, there's the powertrain that has not been certified for light-duty use by any company so Carbon Motors must complete the certification,which is very expensive. Second, there's the suicide doors that BMW claims to have an exclusive waiver on for its Rolls-Royce. Third, the brush guards will not pass federal regulations for bumpers which require that the bumper withstand a 2.5 mph crash with no damage to the vehicle. And this is all assuming that the vehicle is based on the Chrysler LX platform (Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger) and can pass standard crash tests. Good luck to you, Carbon Motors. My money's betting on no cars being produced to the specs (or even close) outlined on the Carbon Motors press release. If only Las Vegas would take my bet...and give me odds. I've got to figure that even the bookmakers can see the ultimate fate of this venture. Can't you?
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