I have to crank this WCSAGD post out before the car at issue disappears from the internet. As I said before, Squeaky is a sneaky car guy and baller. And the perfect car is now on sale a few miles from his home. I don't mean the perfect car for Squeaky, I mean the perfect car, period. This car.
This is a 2024 Goodwood Green over Cognac Audi RS6 Avant Performance available at Herb Chambers Audi in Brookline, MA, the dealer from which I bought my first Audi. In addition to having the practicality of all-wheel drive, 30 cubic feet of cargo space with the rear seatback up and 59 cubic feet with it down, it makes 621 horsepower. And it's beautiful.
I want one of these very very badly, and in fact I recently went to my local dealer to inquire about getting one in Goodwood Green, an Audi Exclusive special order color, over cognac. Despite the fact that you can build an RS6 in myriad Exclusive interior and exterior colors online using that link, you can't get Audit to do it for you in real life. This is the last year of the current generation of RS6 so all the builds are spoken for. I thought my Goodwood Green dreams would never come to fruition. But then I started poking around on the Audi USA inventory site and found this unicorn in Brookline! The car gods had smiled upon me! I called them up and the car is available!! It is the only new Goodwood Green RS6 for sale in America, possibly the world. The person who special ordered it in this color combo flaked out so it's up for grabs. A red (or really Goodwood Green) mist descended upon my mind and clouded my vision.
Then I started doing the math. Every Audi dealer charges at least $10k over sticker for these beasts and they are insanely expensive to begin with. With tax, title, tire and wheel insurance, etc., the total nut would be about twice the cost of my undergraduate and law school tuitions (thank you, Virginia public school system). I just couldn't do it. I walked away.
But Squeaky doesn't have to walk away! He only has one kid to pay for! He needs this goddam thing in his life!
If not the RS6, then this 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible in New Hampshire. Viking Blue paint, convertible top, seating for six, and 455 cubic inches. What's not to like?
I like cars. Always have. Some of my earliest memories revolve around my father's 1969 Butternut Yellow Chevrolet Impala convertible which as much a member of the family as any human being ever was. I do not take poetic license I say "earliest memories"--I remember driving along the West Side Highway with the top down (it was always down) and an American flag flying from the antenna to celebrate the Bicentennial. That car was more than a car, it was the first big purchase my father made after he graduated college and got a job, and for a young man who came here in the 1950s (as a refugee, really) it allowed him to tell the world that he made it. As a result I've always had a fondness for big American V8s and convertibles. If you think you don't like convertibles you're wrong. You've just been driving them in the sun too much. Convertibles peak at night.
On my 48th birthday I realized that this ride called life is about halfway over and that bothered me. I'm also bothered by the way things are changing. Our political system is a mess and our democracy might implode in a few years. Liner notes don't exist. Our economy appears to be on the brink of collapse. Former pro athletes who are younger than me have sons who are now pro athletes. Terrible viruses pop up out of nowhere. My kids have no concept of live TV.
I have automotive anxieties too. I will never be able to afford an air-cooled 911. New cars don't have buttons anymore, it's all touch screens. In ten years all new cars will be massive lozenge-shaped electronic transportation pods that drive themselves without your involvement so that you and six other people can stream movies to your phones or tablets while the pod delivers you to your destination. Don't even get me started on the dearth of cool car colors.
Or the dearth of cars! Everything is an SUV now and I have no idea why. I'm sure all of you have one but you shouldn't. The trunks are not bigger than a wagon's and the center of gravity is too high. They are a study in badproportion. Who looks at this and says "Yes! Take my $100,000 now!" Someday we will look back at these massively stretched front grills and laugh at them like tailfins from the 1950s.
And there are no sports cars! In 1995, Nissan sold the 300ZX, 240SX, 200SX, and the Sentra SE-R. Honda had the Civic Si, Civic Del Sol, and Prelude. Toyota had the Celica, Supra, and a go-fast version of the Corolla. Even frickin' Mazda had the MX-3, MX-6, Miata, and RX-7. Today? Nissan has the Z, Honda has the Civic Si, Toyota has the Supra, and Mazda has the Miata. And no one buys any of them.
All of this makes me feel sad and old. So I yearn for an analog car to take me back to simpler days when my future was big and bright and exciting.
But I also hate to let people down. Part of this translates into saving, rather than spending, to assure that I will never come up short if my family needs something. I currently drive a VW Golf Alltrack that costs me $323 a month (financed at 0%) and has a 6 year/60k mile warranty, a trunk bigger than your SUV, and storms through snow with aplomb. It pulls 0.84 g on the skidpad, which is pretty crazy considering that a Ferrari Testarossa pulls 0.87 g. You can't find a better deal--you probably pay more each month on your cable/internet bill, or your cell phone family plan. So I can't justify spending a lot of money on a toy car.
My financial advisor likes cars too, we met in the parking garage of our building when he pulled in with his 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible. In our last meeting I joked about buying a toy car but he replied seriously with something like "You know cars. Go get something you will enjoy and that will hold value. It's a durable good! Think of it as a way to diversify your portfolio." He gave me a price range to work with and I started thinking and perusing BringaTrailer.com.
The first car I ever remember seeing and saying "Whoa! This changes everything!" was the 1984 Corvette. This was the fourth generation of the model so it's referred to as the C4. It looked like Chevy took a paring knife to a C3 to whittle away all the excess geegaws and indulgences of the 1970s and wound up with a land-going missile. There are no fender flares, no flying buttresses, no ducktails. There is zero chrome. When viewed in profile its pointed nose and notched back make it look like an arrow shot from Artemis's bow, especially the convertible.
Car & Driver previewed the gonzo ZR-1 version of the C4 in their October 1988 issue.
This issue also featured the only letter I've ever written that anyone ever published.
I can explain in the comments why that's funny if anyone cares. The ZR-1 captivated me. It had an engine made by Mercury Marine churning out 375 horsepower and Lotus helped design the whole thing using their Formula 1 experience. It was faster than just about anything from German or Italy but it didn't stand out. Aside from the square tail lights it looked just like a regular C4, and after a year or two all C4s had the square tail lights. Stealth speed!
In high school I wrote my AP English term paper on the history of the Corvette. It held my interest any my teacher's--she gave me an A and wrote me a letter of recommendation that helped me get into W&M.
All this is to say I've been a C4 ZR-1 fan for a long time. It seems like I should drive a 1994 Corvette ZR-1 in Polo Green over beige. And I almost did.
But I waffled. This is the right ZR-1. It's crispy as hell but with 48k miles you can actually drive it without incurring serious depreciation. These used to sell for $20k to $25k but the vintage car market is up and so are ZR-1 prices. This one hammered at $32k and for me that's just too much for a 28-year-old car that has a lot of rare (only about 6900 were made) fussy parts that you probably can't get at your local Chevy dealer. This one won an award or two so the owner is really more of a caretaker than a driver. I absolutely would love to drive this, but it isn't my WCSAGD.
My real weakness is small, light roadsters like the Lotus Elan which inspired the Mazda Miata. Owning an Elan is like owning a sailboat, you're constantly throwing money at it, and I already had a Miata. I want something relatively reliable with readily available parts and that service stations know how to repair. I also want something interesting--I love cars with five cylinders, French cars, three-wheelers, anything that involves a different engineering take on the automotive experience. In a perfect world I would have a Porsche 959 in my garage but that isn't in the cards.
I should drive a 2004 Porsche Boxster S in Lago green over Savannah Beige with a black top and basket wheels.
And now I do.
2004 was the last year of the first generation Boxster, the 986. The S version has a 3.2 liter flat-6 good for 258 horsepower. That isn't a ton of oomph these days, but it only has to push around 2,911 pounds of car. Flat, or horizontally-opposed, engines are cool. They make it easier to fit more cylinders in a tight space like a V, but because they're flat they allow for a lower center of gravity.
I've owned a flat-4 and a straight-6 but never a flat-6, until now.
Even cooler: the Boxster is mid-engined. This means that the engine sits between the driver's back and the rear axle, exactly where God and Isaac Newton intended. Putting the engine there puts most of the car's weight there, which means it handles really well.
A mid-engined, flat-6, rear-wheel-drive, two-seater convertible? Sounds like a different automotive take to me.
I still have to figure out OBX Dave's car, but the rest of you have already been given your assignments. Go out there and get your WCSAGD.
rootsminer is next up for WCSAGD. rootsy has a history with vintage German cars, including the greatly celebrated Spirit of '76, a red 1976 VW Rabbit with four on the floor and some rust on the door, and his dad's 197-something chocolate brown Porsche 911 which he wrapped around a tree when he ran out of talent in the middle of a turn. The moral here is don't lift off the gas in a rear-engined car while turning, you lose traction and the back of the car suddenly swaps places with the front. Here's how to properly corner in a 911:
Cars aren't rootsy's only vintage interest, he's an accomplished musician in an old-timey band. He is also an accomplished outdoorsman--he famously pioneered sleeping in a hammock underneath the Martha Wood.
Taken together, he should drive something old and German, preferably air-cooled, that you shift for yourself, can go off-road, and can carry his band and all their gear.
rootsy should drive a 1983 VW Westfalia Vanagon Camper in Escorial Green.
The interior should be shod in Van Dyke EN Boogie Woogie fabric, of course.
1983 was the last year of the air cooled engine and the first year of the 5 speed transmission so it's something of a sweet spot. Kinda like my sweet spot for rootsy. As the name Camper implies, these vans are meant for camping. The top pops up to give you a tent over the cabin below.
And it really is a cabin. The P27 deluxe version (which is of course what rootsy should drive) has a fridge, a sink, a stove and two tables. It even has a water tank so you can run the sink without having to hook up to a water line at a campground.
You can pick up one of these for under $20k. This crispy-but-high-mileage specimen sold for $15,500 on BaT recently. If you don't like green, Assuan Brown is the other right way to go.
I'm sure you're saying "rootsminer deserves a B32." You're right. But they only made fifteen and they cost well into six figures so it runs against the spirit of WCSAGD.
You might also say "rootsminer deserves an older cooler 'On the Road' type of VW van." Sure, but they are suddenly through the roof.
I keep it very literal on this week on The Test. Special guest Gabby Green joins us, and so all of my questions revolve around colors. This is because her last name is a well-known hue, created by mixing yellow and blue. Stacey and Cunningham are not particularly impressed by this rather superficial connection, but the quiz proves to be tougher than they imagined. Nevertheless, the theorize and hypothesize valiantly, and Stacey even creates a test within the test.
Near the end of the episode, we give a shout out to our youngest fan. This nearly goes horribly awry, but God saves the day with a well-placed BEEP. Give it a shot, see how you do, and let us know what you think.
As we eagerly anticipate the first day of Gheorghemas, we start your week with to two vastly different yet tangentially related topics, of equal interest to me (and on which I can write a post in under 10 minutes).
In March, the eagerly anticipated sequel to The Muppets opens in the U.S. As there's significant affection for muppetry in the G:TB community, I know you're all kinds of excited. I caught the trailer in a theater last week. You'll enjoy it, too:
Keeping with themes related to international criminal conspiracies and green-clad heroes, interesting news out of the Bitcoin community last week. For the uninitiated, Bitcoin is a virtual currency developed by a mysterious (frankly, anonymous) Japanese computer scientist who goes by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. (Or as, Wikipedia describes it, "Bitcoin is an open sourcepeer-to-peerelectronic money and payment network introduced in 2009 by pseudonymous developer "Satoshi Nakamoto"). Though there are other virtual media of exchange, Bitcoin has generated the most public interest, with speculators bidding the value of a single Bitcoin over the $1,000 mark today. I've got a professional interest in the currency, given the substantial interest in it at the intersection of regulation, finance, and law enforcement.
A week or so ago, a pair of Israeli researchers published a paper linking Nakamoto to Ross Ulbricht, generally thought to be the man behind the identity of Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder and operator of and online exchange known as Silk Road. Ulbricht is in a spot of bother at the moment, as Silk Road is alleged to have facilitated millions of dollars in illicit transactions, including the movement of narcotics. Ulbricht is also alleged himself to have solicited no fewer than five murders for hire while operating the exchange. It's an engrossing mix of technology, greed, cloak and dagger, and dipshittery, if you have a few minutes to Google it.
Texas technologist Dustin Trammel quickly debunked the Israeli research, claiming ownership of the early Bitcoin account used to link Nakamoto to Ulbricht. (As an aside, if he was in on the Bitcoin phenomenon back at the beginning, he's sitting on a shit-ton of real, live cash money, even if it may be represented by ones and zeros at the moment. I've got a colleague who mines Bitcoins, and his several hundred dollar initial investment is worth north of $70,000 at the moment - and that's just what he's willing to admit.)
But while Trammel's unusually public response is interesting, it pales in comparison to the suit he's wearing in the picture below:
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