GM slashes Chevy Volt prices to spur flagging sales

My son, who works and attends school in D.C., has the Focus for a few weeks. I hoped he'd get a replacement power cable for the Garmin so I'd have it when he brought my car back.

Last night I asked him how the Garmin was working -- he took his girlfriend to a concert in Columbia, Md., and I knew there was no way he'd find it without a GPS (he's hopeless with a map -- hasn't read one in years. He'll have a Master's degree in math in about six weeks, and the squirt can't read a map!)

"Garmin"? he asked. "I don't use it. That's what smart phones are for, Dad." [implication by tone of voice -- "Dad, you hopeless dinosaur."].

That's me, at least. And I was so up on this stuff until, oh, maybe 15 years ago. I just don't care about it anymore.

The squirt did get me two Yankees tickets, for him and me, for Father's Day.

That's easily fixable. Find a heater hose on your modern car, and clamp it off with vise grips. Pull the fuse on the AC. Leave the doors on their safety latches, and roll all the windows down an eighth. Install a little hotplate in the glove box and trickle some oil over it while driving. etc. :)

LOL!! Yes, I think I had a couple of those.

The windows are a nice touch. That reminds me of my friend's TR3. In the rain, a trickle of water ran down from the front corner of the side curtain, right onto your thigh. Driving it in the rain required bending your left leg over to the right, so the water ran down onto the floorboards. Working the clutch was tricky that way.

I eventually had to drill some holes in the floor of my MG, to let the water out. I almost never used the top but the tonneau was effective, except where it wasn't...

Which brings up the one thing you're missing, common to all old British sports cars -- the smell of mold rising from the floor carpet on damp days. They all had it. It's like perfume to an old sports car nut.

Reminds me. Had a '67 VW squareback too. As fond as I was of the bug, hated the squareback. Sure , it had a little blow-by, but I never could seal the engine cover to keep the smell of burning oil out of the interior. Dumped it for that reason. Not the heater. It had a gas heater. Then again, that was a bit scary when it lit off - but it sure heated well.

There are cars that push the technology and are more interesting and fun to drive, and also less reliable. I might put the Volt in that category along with a bunch of BMW products.

But there are also millions of dull but reliable cars out there. Then again, back in the sixties there were millions of dull but reliable cars out there too, it's just that people don't remember them so much because they were dull. And, the amount of preventative maintenance required back then was substantially more than it is today. Modern engines, you can drive a long time without doing proper maintenance before they blow up. Back in the sixties this was not the case.

--scott

Reminds me of a story from my gas pumping days. Beetle seemed to be taking too much. Opened the hood to find cargo submerged in a lake of fuel. What a mess. But these days I suppose you'd have to put cones around the vehicle and call Homeland Security. :)

Oh, sure. I agree completely. Driving most of today's cars is like hurtling around in a nice, safe, reliable, shiny...cocoon.

Most of the interesting cars are out of my price range. However, I'm sometimes sorry (not really) that I didn't go for the $4,600 dealer option on my Focus XR3. You could get a 4.7 liter V8, and conversion to rear-wheel drive. I think the conversion kit was from Kugel but Ford dealers would install it -- with warranty.

It really was a simple conversion. No joke. And it's still available as an aftermarket item...hmmm....

Aha! Like the day my fuel-oil company tried to put 350 gallons into my

The smell didn't leave the house for over five years, but I had no termite problems after that.

(I converted to gas a few weeks later.)

That is very, very cool. I've never heard of it... I assume they drop a regular transmission in? Available with a manual?

--scott

Manual or automatic.

Here's Kugel's site. I see the price has gone 'way up in the past 9 years, but they've probably improved it a lot from the original, too.

The original was just the frame members and a Ford crate engine and gearbox, but the whole package was available for $4,600.

There are other sources, but Kugel is the best-known.

I can explain GPS in more technical detail that you'd ever want to hear, and I don't use or care about it, but navigate by paper maps and the sun and stars. jsw

I keep a pocket compass in my arm-rest pocket. My son asks, "What's THAT thing for?"

If he ever read a map and there weren't good road signs, and the sun was behind the clouds, he'd know.

I've been using Google Earth to explore property. I use an online cadastre with legal lines and an opaque satellite photo layer on one side of my PC screen, and GE on the other side. Draw property lines or whatever in GE by azimuth and distance or in relation to landmarks, then save the file to a phone or tablet. In the field I can be in dense bush with no view out or no sun, and thanks to GPS still know exactly where I am in relation to whatever I drew, along with a satellite (or aircraft) photo overlaid with adjustable 3D representation of terrain, vegetation, buildings, abandoned vehicles, whatever was there when the photo was taken. The GE data can be cached ahead of time and used in areas without cell reception. It's absolutely amazing and there's no practical paper substitute. Even better, anyone who has a smart phone has free access to all this tech.

Ahma be mighty pissed if you don't swing by my place!!

We're gonna take the subway up from Penn Station, and the date won't be set until he has a free day -- and seats are available.

I don't think we're going to come close to Yonkers. Not this trip, anyway.

That's the smart way to go.

But, ahm so LONELY over here!!!!!

Hey, yer not one of these old guys that goes to Yankee games in full Yankee regalia, are you?? Uniform, cap, baseball glove, AND bat?????? PLease tell me No..... LOL

We'll send you an inflatable friend to tide you over. d8-)

No. I wear a Yankees cap. In fact, I'm wearing it right now, aftraid to take it off after Mariano nearly lost one last night. This is it on my head, with me wearing glasses. d8-)