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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. Jan 21, 2008 - Car AuctionsIt's that week again. That week in January where I plop myself down in front of the tube with an A-Treat soda in one hand, pretzel sticks in the other, and both eyes glued to the Speed Channel for another 40 hours of auction coverage...the Barrett-Jackson auction from Scottsdale. Back in 1990, FNN (the Financial News Network...now CNBC) covered this auction for one Sunday afternoon and it was wonderful. Watching some of my dream cars like the Ford GT40 roll across the block and sell for, as I recall, right around a million dollars each; there were two that sold to the same person for a combined total of $1.9 million. And this was in the days before the Muscle Car boom. Now the true classics and exotics have been replaced by 1950s American classics and 1960s muscle cars. It's still an exciting event, especially now with SIX DAYS of coverage. But I wish the hosts were better at describing the vehicles (they sometimes don't know details that they should know before the car reaches the auction block like what engine's under the hood) and I wish the directors showed more cars instead of long boom shots of people parading in and out of the auction. And I wish the vehicles were more interesting. Sure, a Hemi Cuda is a great car just like a Yenko Nova or a Shelby Mustang. But on TV, it's just a Plymouth or Chevrolet or Ford. The occasional Packard or Kaiser Darrin or pre-War anything stands out above these modern vehicles that were basically everyday drivers with rare powertrains. But this weekend, I actually got up from my easy chair to see a live auction. Not too far from home, an auction featuring a variety of oddball and interesting vehicles was held. About 60 vehicles in all were there. And not one featured a 426cid Hemi V8. Actually some of them featured engines with substantially less than 60 cubic inches of displacement. I don't get up early for many things, but a good car event will make be part from my bed. And this one required that I get up around six...something I don't even do for work. The early start was required to see the auction items before the 9 o'clock sale. We arrived at the auction site only to find that the cars were at another site about a mile away. We checked out the parts and automobilia that was on sale which numbered in the thousands! There were pallets and crates of stuff...parts and tools and supplies collected over many decades. Steering wheels in various states and doors dating back to the 1920s and various parts that only a model specific expert would be able to identify. After quickly checking out the parts, we headed across town to where the vehicles were stored. The Hatfield Auto Museum had about 50 cars on display and ready for auction. Only two or three looked to be in a state to be driven away and the rest would have had to have been hauled. The relatively common vehicles were a late-1990s Ford Taurus SHO, 1970s-vintage Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and a 1960s Mercury Comet Caliente. Oh, and there were the two Volkswagen Beetles, two Volkswagen Buses, and one Volkswagen Vanagon, none of which could be driven in their current state. But the reason I was there was to see the oddball cars. And this place had them: four Isettas, two Bianchinas, a Saab Sonnet III, no fewer than seven "bugeye" Austin-Healey Sprites, a Mini Moke, a Goggomobil, and a Austin Bantam van, just to name a few. Oh, I was in heaven. Maybe it wasn't heaven since I would have bought one or ten in my heaven, but it was a fun Saturday afternoon. If you're a fan of odd little cars, check out my pictures from the auction. I'm trying to find out what some of these vehicles sold for but I'm not entirely sure if I want to know. What if I should have purchased one? The license plates at the auction site which ranged from Connecticut to Virginia and the fact that the auction was being offered on eBay as well makes me think that nothing went cheap.
Jan 7, 2008 - CAFE and Your Car ChoiceIn a previous life, people relied on me to keep them abreast of the goings-on in the automotive world. My current life makes knowing the restoration market a little more important than the global production of cars and trucks, but that doesn't mean I've stopped paying attention. All the buzz in the American automotive industry today, aside from "when is the market coming back," is about CAFE. CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It's the basis for improving the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the US and has been for well over 30 years. The fuel economy of each manufacturers fleet of vehicles sold in the United States is averaged together, weighted by the number of vehicles sold, to generate a CAFE number. Currently, up to three CAFE numbers are generated per manufacturer: domestic car, imported car, and light-truck. The idea is that each manufacturer would be required to sell more fuel efficient vehicles to keep their CAFE number above a set level or else face a stiff penalty. The CAFE levels peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the car number set at 27.5 and the light-truck number set around 23.5. (Please understand that the CAFE number is not the number, city or highway, found on the EPA sticker on every new car. Rather it's the "combined" number formulated way back when before the gas mileage rating system was revised...twice.) In reality, CAFE has done very little to help improve the economy of the American fleet. Since the mid 1970s, the advent of fuel injection and other technologies have made engines smaller, more powerful, and more fuel efficient so the manufacturers have been able to keep up with the rising CAFE (which was slowed because manufacturers petitioned the government in the mid-1980s). By 1990, the average fleet fuel economy in the US was TWICE what it was only 15 years earlier. But fuel prices didn't rise as expected in the 1980s and early 1990s. Demand for larger, more fuel hungry vehicles rose but since CAFE didn't allow for the supply of large cars to meet the demand, manufacturers turned to trucks. And the SUV market bloomed! From just a couple hundred thousand vehicles in the early 1980s, the SUV market in the US peaked at about 2 million vehicles a year in the early part of this decade. Car production made up less than half of all vehicles built in North America just a few years ago, mostly due to CAFE regulations. Another "benefit" of CAFE was to be the added domestic production of small cars. General Motors tied up with Toyota to produce some small models in California. But Ford, on the other hand, moved production of the large Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis to Canada (later NAFTA would make Canadian vehicles "domestic" in CAFE formulas). The whole concept was to get more fuel efficient vehicles on American roads. Bob Lutz, former Vice Chairman of Chrysler and current Vice Chairman of GM (and a real "car guy"), described CAFE as being akin to getting everyone to lose weight by requiring clothing manufacturers to produce smaller clothes. And now CAFE is potentially on the rise again. How will vehicles change with the rise of CAFE from 27.5 to 35? How will truck sales change with an increase there? Whatever will capitalistic Americans do without gas guzzlers? We'll be just fine. Cars today are much smaller on the outside than they were before CAFE, but have much the same interior space. Cars today have more power, far better fuel economy, are much more reliable and dependable, pollute far less and are safer. All of this, and cars are just as affordable as ever. I expect the same in the next 15 years. And I don't expect gasoline to fall from its perch as the number one fuel for personal transportation. I, personally, am looking for a commuter car that doesn't tie me to oil companies. When oil companies get government assistance and generate record profits, I can't imagine why gas prices jump every few days. Are they at risk of losing money because a barrel of oil went up a few cents? Why should I continue to fuel (pun intended) their record profits? And why should ANYONE worry about CAFE do any harm to the car as we know it? The first 30 years of CAFE didn't hurt the car...or the oil companies. I'll keep my gas-consuming cars for fun, but I'm in the market for a good, used Standard-Vanguard Citicar electric for my daily commute. If you've got one sitting around, I'd sure like to talk to you, but it seems like many people have the same idea as me. Have you seen the price of a Citicar on eBay? As Economics professors taught me....supply and demand!
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