EaDay#125

Comment

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on February 22, 2011 at 6:02am

Hi! Let me assume that 'interesting' cars started after WW2. Then there are 4 important differences between the US and the UK (and Europe, but not so much) in the early post-WW2 years. i) the US did not have a shortage of material resources for making things, like cars: ii) the US was not economically devastated like the UK/Europe was; iii) only in the late 40s/early 50s could people in the UK afford cars. About that time there was a shift from a bike & motorbike-owning society to a car-owning one. In the US you had always owned cars; iiii) in the Uk cheap and sporty cars were built to meet the new demand for motorised freedom, and much of it was 'sporty' -- hence MGAs MGBs, TR2s+ (up to Stags!), Austin Healeys/Sprites, Jaguar 120+ etc. In the US you kept on making 'motorised whales'.

A muscle car wouldn't have worked in the UK because there were no motorways (until circa 1960) and they were too big to drive down the high street.

The other end of this socio-economic spectrum in the UK was that there was extreme wealth (there always had been) and this led to Rolls royces, bentleys, Daillers, Alvises, etc.

Enough sociology...back to the art.

Regards, Val

Comment by Jen Staggs on February 22, 2011 at 12:22am

I don't know why American cars tend to be on the boring side.  We did have the 'muscle' car- Chargers and GTOs and such...but I think the steel industry was intent on making money through sheer bulk.  Maybe it's because the states cover so much more real estate, or safety regulations were tighter...I don't really know.  There just isn't much to choose from when it comes to a classy, sporty number.  Of my huge family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, husband, parents) there are maybe three American cars (mostly Jeeps.)  The rest are all German and Japanese (and English if you count new Minis as English).  And I really do (just to stick up for some American engineering)  really hold the 1948 Chevy pick-up truck in high esteem- I learned to drive on one at the family farm.

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on February 21, 2011 at 8:47pm

Hi! The only American cars that I think have any inkling of personality are the Caddys from the 50s/60s that had enormous fins and looked a bit like wurlitzer jukeboxes, and the early Mustangs. The rest, i'm sad to sy, are nothing special, although I do have softspot for the 1970 Buick Skylark convertible). How come Detroit produced so far cars of any lasting ineterest compared to what the European manufacturers managed to do?

Regards,

 Mustang sally, aka Val

Comment by Jen Staggs on February 21, 2011 at 3:43pm

I love this car!  I wish we had them in the states.  We need more cars with personality!

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on February 16, 2011 at 1:09pm

Bonjour! Yep, I have a 2CV. I bought it as a second car, a beach car, when I had a Porshce as my first car, which i bought when I went through my mid-life crisis (redundnacy, divorce, changing countries, etc). The Porsche was fantastic at going very fast in a striaght line on dry roads, but was useless at anything else; its engine blew up, and i couldn't afford to have it replaced; So about ( years ago my second car became my One and Only Car. It's a bit like a motorised sardine can, but is great fun to drive; And because almost all of France seems to have owned one/or their parents owned one/or they knew someone who owned one, everyone is very friendly when I drive it.

Vroooooom! Val

Comment by Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat) on February 16, 2011 at 12:00pm

Ooooh, I do remember Nice, and the boulevard filled with these little guys!

"Those were the days, my friend"!

And Val, you own this classic? what a treasure!