I assumed it was a typo/autocorrect for Tahoe. TIL
not anymore …
SUV is a global phenomenon …
Yeah I’d imagine so. SUVs are taking over everything.
yes, quite interesting how they became the “one thing that does it all” of car-formats …
And tbh - it’s offering is quite compelling - beyond the ever-more-generic-looks, that not even Porsche managed to escape with their SUV…
It was the SUV that saved that company, Porsche. That and the Boxster. The Porsche Cayenne was first released in 2002, and the Boxster in 1996. Per wiki, the Cayenne was the first V8-engined vehicle built by Porsche since 1995 when the 928 was discontinued.
The Cayenne helped Porsche achieve record sales and profits. In 2007-08, the Cayenne outsold the 911 by almost 50,000 units. The Cayenne together with the Boxster provided Porsche with financial stability and the money to invest in its future.
It raised howls among the Porsche purists, though. IIRC, the Porsche Club of America initially refused membership to Cayenne owners. I don’t know if or when they changed that, but I presume they did eventually.
Today, yes, PCA allows Cayenne owners. I don’t know when that changed, either. We don’t go to many PCA events but when we do there aren’t many Cayennes or Macans there. Heck, there aren’t many 356s there either, so when we show up we’re almost greeted like royalty. When we do club events they’re usually 356 events.
I’m sureI shared this already but last October was the 356 WCH, West Coast Holiday, down in Santa Barbara. It was well attended with maybe 250 of our cars there.
The exact episode number evidently depends on the platform. S13E1 is for TV but it’s listed as S15E3 on Amazon Prime and YouTube; presumably the same on Discovery+ and Max as well.
Huh. Amazon UK has the same episode number as on TV.
I saw a Cybertruck yesterday. This time up close and personal. My wife and I went to a play at a community theater and there was a CT parked across from us in the small parking lot. They’re a rarity here – I’m pretty sure every time I see one I’m seeing the same specific vehicle – so it was nice to be able to get a good look at one rather than a passing glimpse in traffic. The headlight placement looks weird but honestly it probably is safer and more effective than the lights on most modern pickups that sit 5 feet off the ground. We watched it pull out of the parking space and the 4-wheel steering was quite evident. For its size that thing has a very tight turning radius.
Anyway. The CT was a novelty. The most interesting car I saw was this:
I have a long commute on a narrow mountain road and Friday this unkown car pulled out in front me just as I was leaving campus. The sky was just pissing buckets, as is the norm here, and this car was crawling down the mountain so I had about 20 minutes to watch and try to noodle out what it was. Because of the water I didn’t want to get too close so I snapped a couple of pics and simply hoped I would be able to ID it when I got home. I all I could tell was that it was a Dodge.
When I got home I started poking around the internet for clues. Google finally told me it was a second-generaton Dodge Lancer, a badge-engineered version of the Plymouth Valiant. I’d never heard of it and it’s rare to see classic cars out and about in the winter so it was definitely a treat to see something that unique.
Nice pics. My untrained eye was first guessing Plymouth Valiant, but then I saw the DODGE on the rear trunk. I had to look it up.
They had quite the interesting design on the front end. Here’s a wiki photo —
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It looks like an alien.
Chrysler Corporation cars had some very strange styling in the early 1960s.
Those Chryslers are referred to as “Plucked Chickens”, and they would have been awkward no matter what but what really did them in was a frantic downsizing of Chrysler vehicles based on a rumor the CEO overheard about GM downsizing their offerings. What he probably heard was a rumor about the forthcoming Corvair, but his overreaction almost killed Chrysler (which is a continual theme in US automotive history, Chrysler has never been particularly stable) and got Virgil Exner fired. Apparently the larger Chryslers were still a little weird but on the shrunken cars the styling was downright goofy, and the fleet having no big cars led to a massive drop in sales.
Holy crap it’s really a THING! I just searched ‘Chryslers Plucked Chickens’ and this was Google’s result —
https://www.google.com/search?q=Chryslers+Plucked+Chickens&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
This thread has been so educational.
My ex-FIL car guy (an award winner for his rebuilt/restored GTOs) texted me back with —
The term “plucked chickens” was given to the ‘62 mid-size dodge and plymouths ( dart polara savoy fury etc ). The term was given them by the chief designer himself after they started rolling off the assembly line. I guess he realized they looked better on paper than in real life. However, they were also the first year of the “max wedge” factory hot rods.
And then my reply —
Interesting. Never heard that before.
You probably know all or most of this but it was news to me — reading a little, Chrysler VP of Design, Virgil Exner hated those cars. In the now-famous phrase, he called them “plucked chickens.”
Exner had been ordered by Chrysler President Lester Colbert to downsize his cars because Colbert heard a rumor that GM was downsizing. Exner disagreed with this, thinking it would make his cars “ugly”.
For 1962 while Exner was recovering from a heart attack his designers ‘plucked’ away at his car designs to perform the downsizing. Exner wasn’t a fan when he saw them and the plucked chickens phrase came to him. And that phrase lives on.
The cars weren’t handsome and sales dropped. Chrysler needed a scapegoat, and Exner was fired.
If you ever want to dive down a rabbit hole you’ll never come out of, go over to Ate Up With Motor. The website’s owner and author, Aaron Severson, writes pretty comprehensive histories about car-related topics that interest him. If automotive history is an interest of yours you’ll love that website and hate me for telling you about it because you’ll never get away from it.
You’re not kidding! Lots of good, in depth info there. I glanced through their history of emissions controls and am now looking at their Porsche history pages starting with the 356. Thanks for the tip!
Honda Gold Wing 3-Wheeler
That’s fuchsia. This is Pepto (from Honky Tonk Freeway):
