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Author Archive
4anado, 4 Muscle Machines, 2 photo shoots
Photo by the author.
Elements of Fred Mandrick's remarkable collection of mid-size, high-performance Oldsmobiles have been highlighted on the pages of Hemmings Muscle Machines a number of times, starting in September 2010, when a pair of his W30 442s (one coupe, one convertible, both Rally Red) graced our cover. We've covered and photographed several of his 442s and Hurst/Oldses since, including some that haven't made their way into print yet.
It would be one thing if I had access and the cars were just so-so; it would be another if the cars were terrific and the owner was a headache. But a treasure trove like Fred's, practically in your author's backyard, is frankly hard to resist. We almost feel bad that we keep featuring the same owner again and again, but when the cars are this nice, and he's got such a wide variety to choose from, and he's so accommodating and easy to deal with, and he lives so close by, why not? (And a surfeit of gorgeous locations within walking distance of his driveway surely does not hurt.) For me, it works: I get easy access to a ton of great cars. For Fred, it works: I show up, I shoot a car, and six months to a year later in most cases, it's in print. The glory is his. And for you, the readers, you get to see some cool cars with interesting stories that you may not otherwise get to see. Everybody wins.
Which is why when Fred got his mitts on the Fouranado, he called us first.
on sale now, but he told us about finding it before he retrieved it from its quarter-century slumber in Oklahoma City in December, 2012; he had barely gotten off the plane from the 2012 MCACN show when he told us he was making arrangements to buy this one-off beast that no one had heard of or thought about for decades.
The story of Fred finding the Fouranado is in the June issue of HMM,Anyone could have a Hurst/Olds or a 4-4-2 in their collection. But having a one-of-one? George Hurst's personal ride? An engineering mule unlike anything ever seen before or since? Requiring a full restoration or not, it's the cherry on top of the Olds A-body parfait that's already in Fred's garage.
We got a peek at it in late 2012, in the days before the restoration started, and… well, it looked kind of sad, frankly. In the cold light of December, you'd swear you could see it shivering with nerves as to what would come next. The gold paint had lost all luster, a flat-black paint-stripe job was fading to gray (the stripes were on the car by 1970, possibly put on at the dealer), and there was a big repair on a rear quarter that was flaking off from beneath the paint. The front fenders were splitting at the seam where the wheel openings were pushed forward to match the Toronado driveline. But seeing this just distracted from the real story: It still had the complete Toronado driveline that had been installed at Hurst Performance Engineering back in 1968, making this special one-of-one machine a keeper.
Yet, there was a time when Fred was mulling over leaving it more or less as-is, blowing it apart and cleaning it, sure, and trying to buff that dead paint into something resembling a shine. It's only original once, after all. But there was a little too much here: the split in the fenders, the mushed rear quarter, the dodgy flat-black pinstriping added after George Hurst's ownership. The hood, they discovered, had been replaced at some point, so it wasn't original to the car, either.
And so a compromise was reached: Use as many original components as possible while bringing it back to factory-new specifications, with a bare minimum of NOS and hardly any aftermarket parts (beyond the period aftermarket pieces you'd expect from Hurst). We'll delve into this more in the July issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines, when the Fouranado will be featured as our Restoration Profile story.
The real shocker was the quietly-confided time frame: From a start in late December, Fred swore that the Fouranado would be done in September – maybe even August. It seemed like a lot of work, but the bulk of the efforts were completed by July, with the next couple of months spent fiddle-farting around with details that seemed minor for photos, but were crucial to the care and feeding of the build.
We finally got around to taking photos in the wee hours of the morning in October, some weeks before its MCACN debut. Most of the still shots that ran in the book were taken then. We also got action shots that morning, but, to be candid, they sucked. This car needed light to make it really pop, and my usual diffused-light trick did the color no favors. Like Blackadder's bumbling Lord Percy, I used alchemy to try and capture gold, but what I ended up with was green.
And so, a second photo shoot was arranged. MCACN came and went, and Fred and I met again. The second shoot was mostly for the action photography, a sunnier spot was picked, and I was keen to use a technique that I'd been working on for a little while. Outside of Scottsdale, there is a housing development that went bust; the roads are paved, but there are no houses.
We found a cul-de-sac and just drove around in circles for 15 minutes until I got enough shots to work. Because we're turning and moving at the same time, you can see the pavement textures swirling beneath the car, like stars in the night-time sky. As a bonus, the background gets blurred out faster, so we can travel at slower speeds, which means that my chances of getting a shot of the car in focus increase dramatically.
Fresh from MCACN, where the rule is a quarter-tank of gas or less in the convention center for safety reasons, Fred had not had the opportunity to refill. The shoot had been meant to double as an opportunity to get a driving impression, but we ran out of gas before we left the un-development. This meant a long walk back to the truck and trailer, with its attendant winch. My chance to drive it would have to happen another day.
I came back the next morning, post-fill-up, and drove all three of Fred's 1968 A-bodies on a similar loop – his basic 4-4-2 first, then the Hurst/Olds, to immerse myself in the hot Oldsmobile A-body driving experience. Our relationship has gotten to the point that, when I have to do a driving impression, Fred just throws me the keys and sends me on my way, so trusting is he that I'm not going to bend up one of his babies.
Driving a single car is fine for generating impressions and copy, but being able to drive other similar cars back-to-back really helps crystallize the sensations you register around you. Having the opportunity to get a sense of what the stock cars were like was a tremendous luxury, and helped us understand the Fouranado's specialness. The eight-page story in the magazine tells what it's like to drive this one-off machine.
There was even brief discussion of a third shoot, believe it or not; this one would have seen Fred light up those Goodyear Blue Streaks in a giant smouldering burnout, expensive tire smoke billowing out the front wheel openings – something that he wasn't quite up for when the Fouranado was fresh (and certainly not before MCACN) but was less opposed to as we put this issue together in late March. But, alas, we couldn't organize it in time for this issue. Maybe we" be able to convince him to do it in time for the restoration piece in July…
Driving Impressions: 2005 Pontiac GTO
Photos by the author.
[Editor's Note: About 10 years ago, Jeff Koch wrote up a number of articles and driving impressions for then-new performance vehicles that, for some reason or another, never made it into the pages of Hemmings Muscle Machines, as intended. As those vehicles now march toward collectible status, we've decided to take another look at them through Jeff's reviews.]
Remember the Mopar wing cars? Amazing automobiles, yes. Clever engineering, undoubtedly. But they weren't hot sellers. In fact, they tanked. Dealers were saddled with those things for years. They wouldn't move. Thirty-five years on, they're recognized as icons of an era, but back when they were new, they were expensive and funny-looking. Fast? No doubt. But other mitigating factors seemed to get in the way of whatever was under the hood – like that pointy beak and the Can-Am-refugee wing. Only in retrospect were they given the respect and awe they today come to enjoy, and the reasons that made them poor sellers are forgotten in the hype of their rarity and outrageousness.
We see parallels here with the modern Pontiac GTO. Low production numbers plus stonking performance generally make for some manner of future collectibility – hell, even soft-bumper C3 and Cease-Fire Injected C4s have come around on the secondary market. Which is all well and good 20 or 30 years from now. But for the modern driver living in there here and now, we think the GTO makes a solid case for being America's best V-8 performance bargain today.
How so, when a Mustang GT clocks in eight grand cheaper on the sticker? Simple. The Mustang is a hot commodity right now. Ford is selling plenty of them. They're in short supply. By the time you option one up the way you want, and assuming you find a dealer honest enough to sell one for sticker price and no more, you're looking at $27-$28K before taxes. There's also the notion that Ford will be rolling these into Hertz outlets soon enough, and that the V-6 models are nearly indistinguishable from the V-8s (wheels, grille, and badging are it) from the outside. Stealthy or snoozy?
Compare this to a GTO, which by all accounts is an underwhelming sales performer for Pontiac (barely half the allotted 18,000 cars made it over for 2004). Our Yellow Jacket 2005, with only the six-speed trans (a $695 option, boo hiss – remember when automatics were an added-cost option?) and a destination charge on the Monroney, comes in at $33,690. But any Pontiac dealer who actually gets sticker price for a GTO should be congratulated; realistically, you're looking at five grand or more off sticker, and the dealer will say thank you when you take it away, because he'll have more room for a series of G6 models that will turn over faster. Suddenly, you're under $29,000, and at that point, there's not much difference in money over the length of the payment book. Plus, there is no low-level GTO, no base V-6 called Tempest or LeMans to get confused. There is only the premium-level GTO.
There's also that extra hundred horsepower under the hood, the sheer throw-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration, the extra gear in the manual trans, the cosseting interior made of quality materials… yet because the Mustang looks like what everyone wanted in high school, it's selling by the truckload; the GTO, meanwhile, looking like nothing terribly special, languishes on dealer lots, with many outside the hardcore car-nut community simply unaware of its existence.
Everything we liked about last year's GTO remains: the feeling of utter solidity, the quality interior, the comfy seats, the shocking power, the big-block-sized noises coming out of a small-block-sized engine. Some things we liked were improved upon: namely addition of the corporate 6.0L LS2, now rated at an even 400 horsepower, which allows furious acceleration anywhere from 1,500 RPM clear up to the six-grand redline. Think of it as Corvette power at a $15,000 discount. Torque peak is at a surprising 4,000 RPM – because the power is so smooth and starts so low in the power band, you'd think it was at least a grand lower in the revs. We can also report that the six-speed gives the GTO more snap than an automatic LS2-powered Corvette we drove recently – unless you must endure bumper to bumper traffic for the majority of your driving life, the six-speed is absolutely the way to go.
A ton of items that the purists screamed about last year have been fixed. The hood now has twin non-operational nostrils, resembling Firebird Formula scoops from the mid-1970s (or the similarly non-op 1964 scoops, if you squint a little). You can see both pipes end at the back of the car now. And a Pontiac nameplate now graces the trunklid, opposite a quiet 6.0 badge. No one has ever had a beef with the power, beyond the notion that a "real" Pontiac engine (extinct since 1981) isn't under the hood.
Is it perfect? Of course not. The shifter on the T56 6-speed is a touch on the rubbery side, the pedals aren't set for heel-and-toe action, and the yellow gauges on our test car are a bit much, particularly with white numbers; we remain suspicious of pessimistic markings also. We would also plump for the color-coded Alcantara interior trim, though yellow probably wouldn't be the color we choose.
And there's the overall style, which has come in for wide bouts of criticism; reams of paper have been used to ream GM on the issue. Suffice it to say that we think it plain, but not ill-proportioned (though from some angles the rear quarters do look a bit thick). It comes off like 1997′s best guess of what 2005 would look like – just a shade behind the times. Not shown here is a mostly awful Sport Appearance Package body kit – we qualify it, because while the air dam and ground effects add visual weight it doesn't need, the replacement grille nostrils give the nose depth and should be made standard.
We worry for the future of the GTO. Despite all this cool mechanical kit, they're still not selling. With GM's recent notice that it's canceling all rear-wheel-drive Zeta-architecture chassis for North America, and with it a number of potentially intriguing 2007 models, GTO's future is in doubt – though it could continue on as a Sigma-chassised superstar (same platform as the mind-bending CTS-V). It's all in the air right now.
Total GTO production over three seasons will be lucky to clock in a quarter of the 2005 Mustang's first-year sales. Four hundred horsepower, just a few years in production, and a bespoke platform and bodystyle not shared by other divisions in this hemisphere? The Pontiac GTO we have now could be a long-term proposition for a future-thinking driver-enthusiast-collector. Despite the moribund styling (or, indeed, perhaps because of it), the current GTO could well be tomorrow's Superbird – an underappreciated performer while new that could take on a second life years down the line. And even if it doesn't, you'll have the most V-8 bang for your buck available in a showroom today.
Car: 2005 Pontiac GTO
Engine type: OHV V-8, aluminum block and heads
Displacement: 364 cubic inches
Bore x stroke: 4.00×3.62 inches
Compression ratio: 10.9:1
Horsepower @ RPM: 400hp@5200 RPM
Torque @ RPM 400lbs-ft @ 4000 RPM
Fuel delivery: Sequential electronic fuel injection
Weight: 3,725 pounds
Pounds per horsepower: 9.31
¼-mile performance: 13.3 @ 107 MPH
De ja vroom: Where have I seen that 1966 Mustang before?
1966 Ford Mustang. Photography by the author.
We occasionally tell the owners whose cars we shoot that Hemmings is a gift that keeps on giving. What we mean is this: We usually shoot photos for one of our monthly glossy titles (Hemmings Classic Car, Hemmings Muscle Machines or Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car), and those photos end up, unexpectedly but regularly, in the pages of Hemmings Motor News. With monthly stories on dashboards, grilles, engines, and any of a dozen other sections from which we can extract images from our mandated array of detail images, it's inevitable that someone is going to choose a particular car for discussion, and when we do, we reach into our considerable-and-growing files and (re)use photos. That being the case, even we get surprised sometimes.
Back in 2010, owner Vern Pfannenstiel contacted Hemmings Classic Car editor Richard Lentinello with word that he had an original-ish early Mustang coupe. Richard was tickled by both its cleanliness and the idea that it wasn't a V-8; he passed it on to me to make contact. Time conflicts, work travel, and a winter in Flagstaff that resembles winter in many other parts of the country – i.e. snow – meant that it wasn't until the summer of 2012 that I made my way from Phoenix to Flagstaff to photograph it. Part of the issue was economy: To help justify the trip, a second car from Flagstaff would be needed to shoot. (This would come later, once I heard about Suzanne Edmonds's original-family-owner Rambler up in that same neck of the woods.)
I wouldn't know Flagstaff from Fairfield, New Jersey (though I suspect one is more mountainous than the other), so I relied upon Suzanne and her family to organize a meet-up, so that we could investigate locations and take some shots. A spot near Bonito Meadow worked for our detail, engine, and interior shots, and then I set off to figure out what to do about the exterior shots.
There was a bit of a panic as I drove with Suzanne's husband around the nearby Sunset Crater park loop; it took about 45 minutes to traverse, and offered beautiful vista after beautiful vista, none of which I could take advantage of without blocking a road and raising the ire of traffic, park rangers, or both. So much lovely around me, so inaccessible. (Sounds like my social life at college, come to think of it.) And so we settled upon a spot just a couple of miles in from the State Road 89 entrance; it was one of the first spots we'd seen.
While waiting for the sun to drop on this July day, I did some car-to-car action photos on Vern's Mustang; the freshly-paved arrow-straight road went on for more than half a mile, which, when driving 15 MPH and shooting at 1/30 of a second or slower, is more than enough time to get a hundred shots or more. Once the sun was low enough, we returned to our chosen spot and got going. I shot Suzanne's Rambler first – it was a sort of dusky rose metallic, and because Vern's white Mustang was brighter I shot the darker color while I had more light. The two were in the same spot, at the same angle, same everything (a move I usually explain away by claiming "it ain't clever, but it works") – I may have adjusted the car's angle slightly because Vern's pony was smaller than Suzanne's wagon – and away I snapped until it was nearly black out. Such is the joy of a tripod and a camera shutter that will stay open for 30 seconds or more when you ask it to.
And in the moment, I must confess, I felt that there was nothing overly remarkable about the shoot itself; nothing to do with the cars or people involved, mind, but in the moment, I felt as if the shots had a corner-cutting hallmark about them. There are times when I can sniff out perfect locations in five minutes, and other times when I can search for an hour or more, and come up with almost nothing. This one fell somewhere in between. We were at the entrance to a parking lot adjacent to some native American ruins – and I had to position the cars just-so in order to avoid painted street lines and the inevitable end-of-parking-lot tree trunk that makes it impossible to drive headlong into the desert. The sun was off to the side, rather than directly behind. What little grass was visible was dead and brown. The wispy clouds above failed to reflect low-sun light onto the top of my photo, and the sky was a yellowish gray. And in a place full of gorgeous mountains and breathtaking topography, not a single one of them was in my viewfinder. All those mountains around me, and my background was dead grass and a low hill. The photo read "hot" to me – not sexy-hot, but I-could-use-a-cold-drink-because-I'm-parched-hot. I put a brave face on it, but in the moment I thought the result was, as they say, "good enough for government work." I managed to remember the parking lights, but not to line up the logo on the hubcap on the front wheel, such was my panic.
So you'll forgive my surprise, then, when Vern's Mustang popped up on the cover of the June 2013 issue of Hemmings Classic Car. It scarcely looked like what I remember shooting; the Mustang really popped! The shot looked very desert-y, a look that I know is of interest to at least one editor who would be very happy if he never saw another green tree in a car photo again, and far less dodgy than I had remembered it in the moment. And once again, the indefatigable Hemmings art department nipped and tucked and tweaked and made it look good.
That issue had barely gone off sale when I saw that Vern's Mustang would be on the cover of the 2014 Hemmings Cars of the '60s calendar (still available!); I knew that an early Mustang coupe would speak to vast swaths of our readership, but seeing it front the calendar so soon after the issue was out (though now with a bluer sky added in) was a surprise. And the Edmondses are also to thank: I never would have found this location without them. (Suzanne's wagon ran in the December 2012 issue of Hemmings Classic Car. Doubtless we will use images – many taken and unused in the restoration profile story, eagerly awaiting the light of day – of her Ambassador Wagon again.)
Now I see that Vern's Mustang once again graces a Hemmings cover – this time the May 2014 issue of Hemmings Motor News, on newsstands now – in a montage with another early Mustang or two, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the vaunted ponycar, now just weeks away as this is written. I haven't seen a final copy as I write this, but I'm pretty sure the background has been stripped away – thus removing my largest initial reservation about the photo in the first place. Even so, that makes a trifecta for Vern: the cover of a calendar and two Hemmings magazines inside of a year. A record of sorts; he made the cover three times in less than the time that it took for us to get our act together and meet to shoot his car in the first place. And it seems likely that, even after this, you'll be seeing Vern's Mustang again at some point.
Just probably not on a cover.
Driving Impressions: 1958 De Soto Firesweep
1958 De Soto Firesweep. Photography by the author.
Note: I write up driving impressions of virtually every car I photograph within a couple of days of the drive, so everything is fresh in my memory. Occasionally, because of the constraints of the story's format, the prepared text doesn't run. Now, thanks to the joys of the blogosphere, it can. This week, we reached back in our archives to January 2008, when we ran a 1958 De Soto Firesweep in Hemmings Classic Car.
Look out the windshield, and see the hood rising in the middle, tapering nicely. It points the way ahead. Ingress/egress is easier here than in some other cars of the era we've tried – traditionally we smash our knees on something while winding our girth behind the wheel, but there was no such case here. (At least, not initially.) The bench seat, part-vinyl with cloth seating areas, is admirably grippy – supposedly this is base trim, but it's pretty sharp for something that's supposed to be on the "economic" end of the scale. The pedestal mirror, as ever, manages to show little behind you and take up rather a lot of room where you'd rather be seeing traffic.
The speedometer employs a drum rather than a ribbon. The angle of the red slash leaves a question, however: Is it the top or the bottom of the angle that we read to sort our speed? The difference between 75 and 80, on a California freeway, might be the difference between safe passage to your destination and a set of wigwags in your mirror as the local revenue-generators pay for their day out of the office.
In any case, the face of the dash seems surprisingly flat, lacking the 3D depth of Mopar instrument panels just a couple of years later: Wiper and cigarette-lighter knobs jut out, but the face itself, from the clear speedo cover to the metal trim, feels very two-dimensional. The clock, off toward the center of the dash, is too far away to do the driver any good, but the pods containing oil, amp, fuel and temp gauges, proper gauges mercifully, jut out like Playboy fantasies. In pictures they're not so massive, and they're a bit low, but considering the sheer cliff face of the rest of the dash, they seem very in-your-face.
Twist the key in the dash, and as the engine alights, the sound of the starter disengaging grinds loudly enough that it obliterates all other noises emanating from under the hood. Once it trails away, what's left is a grinding whirr – or maybe it's more of a whirring grind. That'll be the idle, then – vaguely agricultural but not to the point where it feels like it wants to shake itself apart.
We drive with the AllState free-standing air conditioning unit on the driveshaft hump. It is sufficiently wide, straddling the transmission hump, that we have a hard time getting our right leg over to the gas pedal, thus negating the charm of its mere presence.
Press the shift button – there, next to your left hand as you grab the wheel at the proper 9-and-3 position – and it takes a second for it to clunk into gear. Acceleration is gentle and smooth on the uptake, if noisy: The De Soto 350 is a roary little thing, which, properly channeled, could be mistaken for spunk, but in a two-plus-ton full-size sedan is an ever-present reminder that you were too cheap to tick the next box for a less-stressed powerplant.
The manual steering, which we suspected coming in would be leaden and lifeless, in fact offers surprising response, has only about 10 degrees of slack in the wheel, and doesn't require Franco Columbu-sized (or even Big E Langston-sized) arms to wrangle it into position at low speeds. (It's not a fan of re-centering itself post-turn, however, and offers no assistance righting itself once the curve is behind you.) Happily, the wide whitewall radials on the wire wheels offer plenty of bite in turns, meaning that you can lean over quite a bit in the corners (and you do, even at 30 MPH it feels like one degree of lean for every mile-per-hour with which you attack the turn) but still not lose grip.
We would be remiss if we didn't say something about the brakes: The day of the photo shoot, the front drums weren't feeling particularly well. In truth, even a halfway-down press of the manual drums was enough to send a shudder through the entire car, shaking the instrument panel and steering column, making us wish we'd planned better and simply coasted down instead. Clearly this isn't representative of the line, and is restricted to the example we drove.
Even so, Forward Look De Sotos are few and far between these days, and those that see road duty instead of being squirreled away in museums are more unusual still. More the pity.
'Tis better to have loved and lost… a 1970 Mercury Montego
Photography by the author.
When routine bites hard / and ambitions are low / and resentment rides high / but emotions won't grow / and we're changing our ways / taking different roads -"Love Will Tear Us Apart," Joy Division
The cover of this month's Hemmings Muscle Machines takes your author back – further than the early January shoot date, anyway. The story of the revival of Chhay and Leapy Taing's 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler is well-told in the pages of the May 2014 issue (on sale now!), so I won't delve into it here. But seeing the build-up shots reminded me of my own mid-sized Mercury travails in the late 1990s.
My fascination with this generation of mid-size Mercury dates back 20 years now. Briefly, in 1994 and 1995, I owned a Thunder Jet 429-powered GT with C6 trans and hideaways; although the seller had brought it from California to New Jersey and the body was clean enough, it was kind of a chunk. It had been Competition Orange, but was repainted Earl Scheib Dark Metallic Blue, had some sort of Fenton spun aluminum wheels on it, and little else going for it. Not much work was done in the year and a half I owned it before I sold it in despair. I made a connection with the head of the Cyclone-Montego-Torino registry, and he helped me find a home for it, somewhere near him in Delaware.
But I was determined, and for a decade, when I lived in California (and, briefly, in the Midwest), I owned a 1970 Mercury Montego, another connection made by the head of the registry. I lived in Los Angeles and bought it in San Francisco, with only a phone confirmation from the owner that it ran. (No Internet pictures in 1997 – at least, not that I had any ready access to.) He picked me up from the airport in Oakland in it – a good sign that at least it ran. It had a Cyclone nose piece, but was otherwise a standard MX – exposed lights, two taillamp pods per side instead of three, flat hood, and a vinyl top that I would later remove with a four-inch putty knife, it was so dried and cracked. The paint was baby blue, but had largely tuned to chalk. Three of the four endcaps were mushed. The heater didn't work. But the two-barrel Cleveland got the job done. And the price was absurd – something like $750. For a running, driving, nearly-30-year-old car? For someone who grew up in New Jersey, where rust ate alive anything more than half-a-dozen seasons old, this was mind-melting stuff.
And the stories! It was December 1997 when I picked it up, and quite by chance a high school buddy had just left the Peace Corps and was visiting his sister in San Francisco. I invited him to come to Los Angeles, and he bit – but he wanted to go to Reno first, and he played blackjack till the sun came up. That Montego's first 1,000 miles in my care were cold – Interstate 80 from Frisco to Reno in December, at night, in a car with no heat, wasn't something I'd planned for – but successful; I actually slept in the back seat for a few hours on the way home as my buddy hurtled back down I-5 into Los Angeles.
The paint job was held up when the guy who offered to paint it – not for free, mind you – decided he'd rather run off with his underage meth-head girlfriend, leaving my primered and disassembled car in a friend's backyard for someone else to finish…. The stories that came out of Motor Trend track tester Mac DeMere's mouth when he recalled dates he'd had in the front seat of a Torino of similar vintage, just before he handled skidpad testing for us… The hilariously filthy picture someone (presumably on the line) drew on the inside door, under the blue vinyl door panel… HMM editor Terry McGean did more than his fair share of work on that car, a fact which almost certainly crossed his busy mind briefly when putting the recent issue of the magazine together and choosing a shot for the cover.
What's more, everything we did to that car largely made it better: better looking, better feeling, better riding, better handling, more responsive. I called it Monte1go – a punny riff on the idea that it was supposed to be a corner-carver – but truth be told, it wasn't on the ragged edge of anything, just a street driver with some kinky stuff done to it (like a carbon-fiber front bumper). A close second in the naming had been Psych!clone because it had a Cyclone hood and nose but was actually a Montego. Everything I did to it, everything I asked someone else to do and I documented with my camera, I liked. I regretted (almost) none of it.
And then time moved on. I found a new job making toys in the Midwest, leaving publishing altogether after a crisis of confidence. (I even made that car into a die-cast!) Then I moved back to Los Angeles, once I understood that publishing was, in fact, really what I wanted to do with my life. Back and forth across the country, it came with me. In the intervening years, it got occasional use – hardly a daily driver, but still good fun when I could afford the gas.
In 2006, it was stolen out of my garage; four days later it was recovered, sans driveline and keyed all around. I didn't have the cash to make it right, and I also found myself thinking this way: That car was my prize. It was my takeaway after four and a half years under the white-hot spotlight of California publishing; and through all of the nonsense (and oh, was there nonsense) that I endured during that time, I could drive this car and say, man, this is what it was all about. I got out alive, I won, and I know I won because I have a car. It was a palpable symbol of a world that I walked (or drove) away from on my own terms.
But now, if I went and got it all fixed, the whole time all I'd think about is how this is the car that was stolen from me, and how this used to be right and how that used to work better. (A 1964 Dodge Dart replaced it in my garage, the thought being that if I lived in a warm climate, I needed a convertible, but even it has been a compromise of sorts. But that's another story for another time.) I loved my Montego. It had to go.
And so, having kept the carcass when the insurance folks issued the check, I moved it on to a new home. Texas, if I remember right. I took pictures as the transporter disappeared down the block and around the corner, the Montego nestled deep in its belly.
It's now coming up on a decade since I've last seen it in person. It's taken that long for the anger surrounding its theft to subside. I saw an ad for it in 2009, here in Arizona, now running and driving. It had a 429 now, and a C6 automatic, but the basics were all intact – wheels and tires, hood, suspension, four-wheel-disc brakes, all of that. When I saw the ad, I briefly considered marshaling my meager resources to try and get it back, but the idea never gained traction, and later I found the ad had been withdrawn.
I dropped mention of my old Montego when I first introduced myself to Leapy, the son who helped get his dad's yellow Spoiler on the straight-and-narrow path toward our recent magazine feature, at the car show where I met him. He remembered it; his face lit up when I mentioned it. For some reason, I never think anyone ever would remember anything I've done from all those years ago. We set a date, and took photos just this past January 7. And in the early morning light, with the sun reflecting off the clouds and the pink sky and that dramatic nose and those curves, the pictures all came together. Really, Chhay's and Leapy's photos tell the story; mine just show off the fine work that was done.
And while I was shooting, all I could think about was what a fool I'd been to let mine go.
Old advertisements from unexpected sources can be a rewarding treasure hunt
Images courtesy the author.
The edges may be yellowed, but the message remains the same. Black-and-white or color, hard or soft sell, old magazine ads of your favorite car (or cars) do more than just simply pitch a product. They capture a moment in history, however stage-set and idealized it might be. The Art Deco 1930s, the jet-age 1950s, the horsepower-fueled 1960s, the compact austerity of the 1970s… ads exemplify their time. Not just because they are of their time, but because they want to capture the situation of the moment and use those criteria to help sell you a car. They become part of the zeitgeist of the era that your favorite car was built in.
There are probably ads for your favorite car that you've never seen, and for plenty of reasons. So discovering new ads for old cars seems like an odd pursuit… yet it can be done.
Of course, buff-book readers know lots of the ads for their favorite performance cars, but some car companies ran multiple campaigns in the United States simultaneously: Witness Pontiac's evocative, image-heavy Art Fitzpatrick/Van Kaufman color illustrations versus a simple, stark, studio-shot piece. Magazines specializing in fleet management would have their own ads on base models, emphasizing durability and cost to run.
The Big Three also advertised in magazines like Time and National Geographic, often with completely different ads for the same cars. Time readers might be more interested in pricing and economy, for example, while NatGeo ads would be more geared toward traveling in comfort. (National Geographic also produced an English-language version of the magazine for Benelux countries in Europe, which came with a whole different set of ads, though the content of the magazine itself remained identical.)
Magazines like Ebony ran parallel Big Three campaigns, utilizing ethnic models to shift the same product. Magazines specializing in fleet management would have their own ads on base models, emphasizing durability and cost to run. Though few and far between in our experience, ladies' magazines (Redbook, Ladies' Home Journal and the like) also run car ads – frequently for station wagons, with the emphasis on shopping and shuttling the expanding familial brood to and fro with a minimum of difficulty.
Many American cars were sold in foreign countries, and their ads were more than just carbon copies of American ad campaigns. Mexico and Canada had their own campaigns for the early Mustang, for example. And some American cars were assembled and sold overseas: Fords in Australia and Brazil, for example, or Ramblers and Chevelles in South Africa. Every country has their own language and their own magazines; they are worth pursuing.
And they even trace the history of publishing. Marvel at color ads taking over for black-and-white as early as the 1930s, and even earlier. See how photography gradually took over for line drawings in the 1950s. Recall that Life magazine ceased publication in late 1972; their gloriously oversized, framable artwork ads largely petered out before the launch of the 1973 models. But that leaves models from the 1920s to the dawn of the 1970s intact and ready to be framed. The NatGeo-sized ads are colorful but small; they remain a delightful addition to any enthusiast's collection.
In terms of value, it's hard to say: online auction sites are choked with $5 and $6 ads, nicely bagged up with an acid-free cardboard backing, so chasing them is less about finding a piece you're going to retire on than it is about expanding your knowledge about the history of your favorite car – even if that history is in a language you can't read.
Driving Impressions: 1967 Ford Galaxie 500
Note: I write up driving impressions of virtually every car I photograph, within a couple of days of the drive, so everything is fresh in my memory. Occasionally, because of the constraints of the story's format, the prepared text doesn't run. Now, thanks to the joys of the blogosphere, it can.
Now this is room! Maybe I've been driving muscle cars for too long, but slip into a Galaxie and it seems positively cavernous in here. (Perhaps having the top down helps?) Turn the key, and the idle saunters between 600 and 700 RPM; it seems a little grumpy when it's cold, as idle sends shivers through the big ragtop's bones (and into my seat, and through the steering wheel). Even the reverse lockout bar chatters, something that disappears when the engine warms up a bit. It does this in due course: In the meantime, there's a blue idiot light on the dash (perfect for your tester) to remind a driver that the engine is cold, and that perhaps progress should be halted for a moment. We've seen enough hot-engine red lights to haunt our dreams for decades to come, but a blue cold-engine light is something else entirely – particularly in San Diego, where the climate is generally pretty temperate.
The Galaxie's soundtrack comes almost entirely from the rear of the car: The engine hums at all revs once it's warm, but the exhaust renders it stuttery and guttural. Let off the clutch, which is nicely weighted and progressive as you lift your foot, and you're off. We've felt muscle cars that haven't offered this degree of grunt, and the engine/transmission combination is absurdly flexible. Start in third? No sweat. You can lug it in any gear and the engine barely registers a fuss. (Good thing; the shifter is a little on the floppy side, and sometimes it's a little too easy to forget what gear you're in, even while looking at the shifter.) In fourth, 70 MPH reads 2,700 RPM. Yet, in third you can go from idle to 70 MPH without shifting. It's very easy to forget the need to shift – not because of the Galaxie's imposing size, or the automatic thought that a car this size must have an automatic transmission, but because of the driveline's flexibility.
The ride is fantastic – smooth but not Marshmallow Fluffy, with enough connection to the road that you can feel what's going on – and while there's some lean in the turns, the modern tires keep you firmly planted at legal speeds. The steering is a mixed bag: There's no on-center slop, as there is on so many big cars from this era, but it's more numb than your arm after a night of sleeping on it. The brakes are set up for highway driving: Perfect when grinding down from 70 MPH, with minimal dive and no pulling to and fro, but the power booster seems keen to try and throw you through (or over) the windshield with even the gentlest pedal pressure around town.
For a full four-page color feature on this car, check out the April 2013 issue of Hemmings Classic Car, on sale now.
I've got the blues… and the turquoises, and the aquamarines
Two-car shoots are always fun: Driving them, you can easily get a sense of what each has to offer, how they're alike, how they differ, and very quickly the words pile up and there's a story to be told. Done right, they're also usually strong cover contenders: With two cars on the cover you'll get twice as many people interested (or, at the very least, fewer people who will say "feh! My favorite car isn't on the cover again" with two cars instead of one). And, selfishly, I notch another cover credit into my little black book.
Back in April 2013, I was privileged to shoot, and drive, a pair of AC roadsters: a Bristol-powered Ace, and a Ford Windsor-powered export Cobra. Perfect Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car fodder, though of course they weren't really showroom competition for each other. The Bristol was a sparkling bright blue; the Cobra, a more traditional darker blue. With a good, warm sun at my back and plenty of desert nearby, I sought to place them both in a desert backdrop; the neutrality of the background would only serve to make the blues pop in the shade. I posed them with the Cobra in the foreground with no thought to the popularity of the machine itself: My thinking was that, if I put the lighter car in the foreground, the darker car will disappear in the background. To prevent this, the Cobra was in front in my driver's-side front three-quarter shot.
Back in early December 2013, I was privileged to shoot, and drive, a pair of full-size GM machines: a 409-powered 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne, and a 389 Tri-Power 1961 Pontiac Ventura. Perfect Hemmings Muscle Machines fodder, though of course they weren't really showroom competition for each other. The Chevrolet was a sparkling turquoise; the Pontiac, Bristol Blue. With a good, warm sun at my back and plenty of desert nearby, I sought to place them both in a desert backdrop; the neutrality of the background would only serve to make the blues pop in the shade. I posed them with the Pontiac in the foreground: My thinking was that, if I put the lighter car in the foreground, the darker car will disappear in the background. To prevent this, the Ventura was in front in my driver's-side front three-quarter shot.
Oh, did you just read nearly the same thing twice? Well, that'll explain why our two latest covers, for the March 2014 issues of Hemmings Muscle Machines and Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, respectively, look so similar. Shot months apart, at completely opposite ends of town, but the same schmuck behind the camera, using the same reasoning to shoot a pairing that are near enough to being the same color(s) as the other. With the same type of background to boot. (Oh, the hilarity. Someone fetch me a corset; my sides are threatening to split.)
I can assure you that despite the external similarities, the stories inside, and the words used to describe each vehicle, almost certainly tell completely different stories.
Just your average shot of a freshly restored, original-owner, four-speed 1972 Malibu getting pulled over by one of Phoenix's finest
Photography by the author.
I have a road.
Well, it's not mine – I'm hardly in a position to own my own street – but it remains so infrequently traveled that it certainly feels like mine. It's in the open desert, a road that was meant to connect to a freeway but has not been; as a result, the only traffic goes to and from a couple of communities built out in the hinterlands. It's been open for about a year, and the pavement still looks and feels fresh; it's not rutted with tire marks. It also gets spectacular morning light, rendering the car in delicate color while the mountains and sky are varying shades of purple and blue out in the distance. (As much as I dislike getting up for morning shoots, I find it hard to argue with the results, and this spot gets terrific morning sun; it's also hard to location-scout in the dark, before the sun comes up on a morning shoot, so I have a handful of places I know that work. I'm lucky enough that car owners are usually willing to join me at the crack of dawn.) And lastly, portions have a median that's wide enough to park a car lengthwise inside its parameters.
All of these are important factors to me, because the one thing I try hard not to do on a photo shoot is cause trouble. (Or, I suppose more correctly, get caught causing something resembling trouble.) I just want to stay out of the way and get on with what I need to do. But somehow, it occasionally finds me. I got a fix-it ticket for moving a couple of traffic cones on a newly paved, as-yet-unlined portion of a Garden State Parkway rest area. I've been chased out of more public parks and off more Indian reservations than I can name. (Helpful hint for all of you California-based photogs out there: In California, you can use a nice camera to shoot an old car in a park, but as soon as a tripod comes out, the rangers will be on you like flies on dung, demanding permits.) I once got a speeding ticket in one of those parks when the sun was going down fast and I was scrambling to get something – anything – at the end of a fraught day of having a ranger step in front of me and say "move along." (And picture me explaining what I was doing to the officer when he caught me lying on the floor across the width of a Dodge Grand Caravan, sliding side door open, photographing a car as it and I both moved (at the speed limit!) down the road. He was so freaked out that after yelling at me for five minutes about how dangerous my positioning was, I was downgraded to simply not wearing a seatbelt. It probably saved some paperwork that way.) All because I wanted to take a picture of a car.
I learned early on that if I was approached – by security, by the police, by whoever – and said that I was with a magazine, that person wanted permits, money, or proof that one or both of these were secured; having none, they were far more likely to kick me off whatever patch of land they were guarding. Permits? Money? What are they? If I'm a professional, I "should know better," according to more than one who has strong-armed me into leaving the premises. So, if I'm "caught" (in quotes because I don't take any precautions to hide myself; I'm not Hans Lehmann or Jim Dunne), the rap has always been that I'm just taking pictures. No mention of a publication or calendar; I'm just taking a picture. (I usually give this rap to the car owners, so that they have plausible deniability too… but because we were so far out in the middle of nowhere, I didn't bother this morning. 'Cause who would bother us?) If I'm lucky, a judicious car owner will intercept the head muckity-muck in charge (that would be the one with the car with the flashing lights on the roof, not me) long enough to get in the shots I need so we can bail without losing anything. Years back, one particularly aggressive box-store security goon would not be put off by the car owners trying to engage him as I continued to work, and after asking me three times to stop what I was doing, finally asked the car owner, quite seriously, "Is he deaf?" I got the shots I needed, so I stopped, smiled, and said "No, I'm just ignoring you." And we left.
That said, I've never had an issue here in Arizona, which I've called home for the last four years. (Not on public roads, anyway. The reservation is another story.) I've shot cars on the shoulder of, let's call it an active morning-commuter road, and the only time an officer has stopped is when the hood is up as I photograph the engine; from 300 yards at dawn, an open hood is surely a signal that something has gone wrong. Invariably, the first question after he inquires and we tell him that all is well, is, "What year is that?" And then he roars off. Hell, I once blocked a high-end residential street once just so that I could get a mountain in the background, and the two women cops who visited hung out for 15 minutes just watching, making sure that no one was going to plow into us, until they got a radio call and had to split. It's magnificent – the feeling of being able to do your job and continue doing it after only a brief conversation. Rarely, if ever, does the idea of me shooting for Hemmings come into the picture; I've learned to keep conversation friendly, but brief – short answers, nothing leading if possible. After four years of not getting hassled, you'd think I'd relax a little, but the previous dozen and a half years in New Jersey, Indiana and California have produced an involuntary tensing of the muscles, and have surely contributed to my Kenny Rogers-quality gray hair and beard.
And so this morning, when a patrolman rolled up, nestled all snug in his Tahoe, his wigwags flashing all of the colors of the American flag, I shouldn't have worried. But I did. I always do. It's a reflex. I keep shooting, keep my head down, and my concentration is split between shooting the engine, and figuring out where else I can go at this time of morning. The owner and the restorer approach the Tahoe, undaunted, to explain what we're up to. Turns out, he saw the hood up on the Chevelle, and a couple of other cars on the side of the road, and assumed there had been an accident. And then someone, I couldn't tell who, said those fateful words:
"These photos are going to end up in Hemmings Muscle Machines magazine."
My heart sunk. Jig's up; game over. Two more gray hairs in the beard blanched themselves white at the root. Better get those detail shots over and done with and head somewhere else; apologize to the officer and move on while the sun was still good. Then the officer called me over. I was crestfallen, certain that I was going to be asked to fork over ID, or a business card, or some such. But then, something magnificent happened. The officer had a glint in his eye, and asked:
"Can we do a picture where it looks like I'm pulling him over?"
Holy cats, the man with the badge wants a gag shot. Mind you, I'm now fully mid-panic about the sun coming up at the wrong time and not getting the shots I need while monkeying around with a shot that there's little hope (probably) of turning up in the magazine. My head is abuzz with getting the shots I need done now, now, now. But, something in my primordial lizard brain recognizes that I'm not in trouble, and my man in the Tahoe is being cool about us being here. Despite living in the desert, I can occasionally see the forest for the trees. I figured, for once in my life, I should be cool right back.
And so, the picture you see here: The (original) owner of the freshly restored 1972 Chevelle 400 four-speed behind the wheel with his head in his hands (it's hard to see with the pillars there), the police Tahoe dazzling my Canon 50D's light meter with its blinking strobes; everything shot into the morning light rapidly climbing its way up the mountain. The timing, the positioning, the hot spot from the Tahoe's lights on the Chevelle's rear quarter, everything here is all wrong. There is nothing in this photo that went as I wanted it to. Everything in this photo is as it should be.
Best of all? I still have a road.
Look for a full story on the Malibu in an upcoming issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines. In the meantime, Happy New Year, everyone.
Maserati vs Citroen on the cover. What could possibly go wrong, besides everything?
Note: For the 100th issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, editor David LaChance asked the magazine's writers and shooters to recall a memorable shoot or story. Deemed too long for print, this peek behind the scenes is now a Hemmings.com exclusive.
It was the one where nothing turned out the way I had meant it to. It was the one where things ended up better than they had a right to.
Comparison drives, I feel, are the truest measure of a car – take two machines that are aimed at the same market and pit them against each other, so that you can really feel the differences between them. (Plus, on an incredibly selfish note, I suspect that comparisons are more likely to make the cover, as the odds of getting someone to like the car on the cover roughly double when you slap a second car on there.) For years, I've been nursing a list of comparison pieces I'd wanted to do – the list runs two single-spaced pages long and hinges entirely on finding cars that I, admittedly, don't see that often. (Hence the reason why so few of my orchestrated comparisons appear in the magazine these days.)
One comparison idea that had been hovering near the top of my list was comparing a Maserati Merak to a Citroën SM. I thought that it would be fascinating to look closely at two completely different cars, that nevertheless share many similar components, and see whether they could feel really different. I had driven neither, ever, and so had formed no impressions ahead of time.
The idea was kickstarted one afternoon in September 2010 on my way back from lunch. As I'm waiting to turn left at a light, a dark blue SM glides by in front of me. It looks clean, and by God, it's running. It's not the sort of thing you often see in Phoenix; I take it as a sign. Once my light goes green, I cane my Dodge Grand Caravan into pursuit and track it to a local high school, where I meet the teenage student owner, William Titus, and learn more about his family's collection of SMs and DSs. I make the appropriate noises and we keep in touch.
My next stroke of luck came when looking for the Maserati. We've covered cars from Californian Doug Magnon's extensive Maserati collection in our pages, and because Maseratis are a little thin on the ground here in Phoenix, I shot him an email. He didn't know of any Meraks in the Phoenix area, but quickly offered up his own freshly restored deep blue Euro-bumpered Merak, the first Merak on American shores in 1973, as well as suggested a meeting at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway in Desert Center, California, a spot that was roughly halfway between the Citroën crew in Phoenix and Magnon's own digs in Riverside, California. It didn't hurt, either, that Gagnon has a membership at the Chuckwalla track. The idea was that we'd have our run of the place on an off-day, and I'd be able to drive both cars at something approaching their limits without fear of freaking out other people on the highway. Things coalesced brilliantly. We scheduled a time late in a week when William, now in college, had a couple of days free in his schedule.
Almost immediately upon this happening, things went awry. William's blue SM, an automatic, went away to college with him and ended up getting keyed in a parking lot. That left his father's two SMs, a gold one and a brown one. The gold car was automatic and immaculate, with a fresh engine rebuild; the brown one was a five-speed that was still lovely, but wasn't quite as factory-fresh looking. Also, it was brown.
Both went with us as we caravanned out to Chuckwalla that day, and while I had been planning on shooting the gold one, because gold and blue would have looked great together, having like-for-like with the Merak was more important for the story, so the brown five-speed got the photo nod. At the same time, the blue Merak was misbehaving just before the shoot, and so the reliable white one came out. So in the space of a week, I went from shooting fresh gold and blue cars to clean-enough brown and white ones. As a bonus, the November morning offered thick cloud cover that helped ensure that the brown SM was going to die, visually. My heart sank.
I also had the opportunity to drive the better part of an hour on Interstate 10 in an SM; generally, my driving impressions are gathered over a space of about 10 minutes at the end of a shoot. Photos come first. So spending the better part of an hour driving and getting to know the SM was unprecedented for me. (I had a photo assistant with me that day – someone who had fetishized the SM since he had a Matchbox version as a child – and the elder Titus was generous enough to give him a spin behind the wheel as well. Words could not convey his joy as a life-long dream was realized, and my assistant for the day silently figured whether he could refinance his home mortgage to buy one.) My experience behind the wheel, chronicled in the story itself, was tempered only by my low-level panic at how everything was going to look through the lens.
The desert sun broke through the clouds at around noontime, nearly burning them clean off. Helpful? Not necessarily so: We shoot details in even light to prevent hotspots and high contrast areas, and waiting for the sun to arc around so that we had enough shadow to do what we needed to do was taking rather longer than we'd hoped. One more hour of clouds could have made my life much easier. Another hilarious bonus: There was some track activity running clear through to dusk the day we were there, and the actual racetrack itself was off-limits to us – but we could have this rutted light-aircraft runway instead. Sigh.
Atop all of this, we had an unexpected guest: the cleanest unrestored Citroën DS Safari I'd ever seen. The owner, a friend of SM owner John Titus, was coming from his home in LA to watch the fun, and had met Magnon and his Merak at a gas station en route quite by accident. They followed each other in. I made an executive decision: I needed to shoot the Safari that day. It was too perfect not to, and when would the opportunity come again? The Safari hasn't run yet in our pages, so we won't say much about it here except to say that timing gets tricky when you have to shoot three cars in an afternoon instead of two. When everything demands just the right lighting conditions, there's only so much you can shoot and make it look good; two cars is generally my limit.
I had been tasked with getting action on the SM and Merak together, which would only happen with me up high. Could be a cover, I was told. In the late afternoon, as the sun was sinking, I balanced on the corner of the roof of my Grand Caravan, rolling along at 15 MPH. John and Doug kept pace. I fiddle-farted around with this setup for the better part of 45 minutes. All for naught: not a single shot was deemed worthy of even including in the body copy. Mercifully, the individual action shots (one shot out the back of my van, one out the back of the Safari) were deemed usable. If the Maserati shot seems speedier somehow, it's because the back of the Safari was vastly smoother than my own van, allowing me to slow down the camera that extra fraction of a second to allow more blur.
So, to sum the day up to this point: I drove almost 200 miles to shoot and drive two cars, in dull-ish colors I hadn't planned for, under murky skies that weren't going to put either car in its best light, to a track that wouldn't let us run. The hour I spent shooting action for the cover didn't coalesce. And on top of that, I decided to shoot a third car, when shooting only two would have allowed me to comfortably work within my limits. Good times.
In truth, it could have been worse. I've halted things mid-shoot when cars have stopped working for no apparent reason, or the weather turned to rain in a flash, or when I popped the hood and found that the engine isn't nearly as clean as the body. Both cars were clean and ran impeccably all day, and the owners didn't utter a grumble (within my earshot, anyway) when asked to stand around and do nothing for long periods of time. Their patience and perseverance greatly helped things turn out as well as they eventually did.
Late in the afternoon, a couple of things clicked. First was just in my own head: It occurred to me that the streaky gray airplane runway we were allowed to use in lieu of the track, disappearing into the distance and ending at a distant mountain range, made for a compelling background. That meant that visually, we wouldn't need the track – I just needed to come far enough down the runway that we couldn't see it, or the Skittles-esque race-prepped machines that circulated it. Second, a couple of wispy clouds floated overhead at sunset. Rather than block or diffuse my light, the clouds reflected it; the sunset bounced off their undersides to cast a warm, pinkish-orange glow over the runway for half an hour while I set the two cars up and shot like mad. The white Maserati became warm and creamy, while the brown on the SM became far less murky than it had at any point during the day, with just a hint of purple straining to break through. Throwing the parking lights on for a spot of color (as is my habit) was one thing, but I will leave it a secret as to how we got the SM and its notoriously self-centering DIRAVI steering to pose with its wheel cranked hard right. (Hint: unlike the Maserati's disappearing front license plate, it wasn't PhotoShop.)
And it worked. Or did it? "Seventies Supercars" blared the February 2012 coverline. My concept, my struggle, my execution. And, once secret and now public, my heartbreak. In a market where we do pretty well with cars people recognize (MGs, Porsche 911s, Datsun Zs and the like) a Maserati and a Citroën didn't exactly light our newsstand sales on fire; below average, I'm told, a full two percentage points below the February 2013 cover. And the story? The two cars shared parentage and mechanicals, but their personalities offered no other commonalities. I took eight pages to explain how two cars, designed to be so very different, were so very different. I remain proud of the result, but shall always wonder how things might have been different had any one element been altered.


text:
MISSOULA — The nurse practitioner who performed a medical examination on the woman who said she was raped by former University of Montana quarterback Jordan Johnson testified Friday that the woman's injuries were consistent with "sexual trauma."
Under cross-examination by defense attorney David Paoli, however, Claire Francoeur said those same injuries could have resulted from consensual sex.
Francoeur, who works at the First Step center that treats victims of sexual assault and child abuse, examined the woman on Feb. 5, 2012.
Johnson, who is charged with sexual intercourse without consent, maintains that he and the woman had consensual sex as they watched a movie at her home the night before.
The public was excluded from the courtroom during much of Francoeur's testimony, which involved explaining intimate videos and photographs taken during the examination.
Friday also featured testimony from Francoeur's supervisor; the friend who gave the woman a ride to First Step; and the woman's high school boyfriend, who remains a close friend.
Jurors also heard from Brian O'Day, the son of former UM athletic director Jim O'Day. Shortly after driving Johnson home the night of the alleged incident, the woman gave Brian O'Day a ride home from a downtown bar, as they'd arranged earlier in the week.
Once again, members of the Grizzlies football team were in the courtroom for part of the day, showing their support for Johnson, who was suspended from the team after being charged in the case.
The day also was marked by an escalating series of objections from both sides, at one point resulting in palpable tension between the attorneys as Paoli muttered something to prosecuting attorney Adam Duerk after being overruled on an objection.
"What was that?" Duerk demanded of Paoli, who glared at him until District Court Judge Karen Townsend ordered, "You may continue."
Paoli questioned Francoeur about helping the woman get in touch with an attorney in what Paoli repeatedly termed "an Atlanta law firm that sues for money." During her own testimony earlier this week, the woman said she has no plans to sue Johnson or the University of Montana.
"It's part of my job to refer them (patients) to whatever resources they need, including attorneys," Francoeur said Friday.
She also testified about a text message she sent the woman upon hearing about the firings of O'Day and football coach Robin Pflugrad in March, not long after the news became public that Johnson had been accused of rape.
Francoeur, who was at a conference on domestic violence in San Francisco, texted: "Wahoo! One step in the right direction for mankind."
"I did say that, but not in the context of those men being fired," Francoeur testified.
Paoli pressed her on to her follow-up text: "Hell, yeah … all 1,000 in attendance at domestic violence training are celebrating your heroism."
"Did you say that in response to the news?" Paoli asked.
"No," said Francoeur.
Francoeur's supervisor at First Step, Mary Pat Hansen, testified later that she found no issues with Francoeur's examination of the woman. Nor, she said, did Francoeur's role in aiding with the law firm referral, or in sending the texts, nullify the results of that exam.
Text messages also were the focus when Brian O'Day took the stand. Within a week of the alleged incident, the woman texted O'Day that the news that she was going to report the assault would hit Johnson "like a ton of bricks," according to testimony in the case.
In response to questions Friday from Assistant Chief Deputy County Attorney Suzy Boylan, O'Day testified that when the woman gave him a ride home that night, she was "pale ... with kind of a blank stare." She later told him what had happened, he said.
O'Day told the seven-woman, five-man jury that he texted the woman a few days later, seeking more details.
"I knew how big a deal allegations like this could be, so I just wanted to make sure what was in her head," he said under cross-examination by Paoli.
"You asked did he (Johnson) completely know what was going down or did he just think you two hooked up and that was that?" Paoli said.
That's right, said O'Day, saying that the woman replied, "I don't think he did anything wrong, to be honest."
"I asked, 'You don't think he did anything wrong, or you don't think that he thinks he did anything wrong?' " O'Day said he responded.
The latter, she replied – adding that, in response to his question as to whether she told Johnson to stop, "she said (she told him), 'No, I don't want to do this.' "
When Paoli queried him yet again about the "ton of bricks" text, the attorney said he couldn't find the exact piece of paper it was on, and turned instead to a blown-up version of the text on a huge piece of poster board:
"Nope, he does not. It will hit him like a ton of bricks which I'm OK with. (Smiley-face emoticon) So wanna grab lunch Thursday?"
The judge said Paoli could refer to the board as long as he didn't display it to jurors, who had their own copies of the evidence.
Boylan returned to that text when she questioned O'Day after Paoli's cross-examination, reminding him that Paoli hadn't asked about the entire text exchange. The woman went on to write:
"Brian, if I didn't tell him to stop, it wouldn't be rape, would it? But I told him no, I don't want to do this," O'Day testified.
The woman had testified that a few days after university officials interviewed her parents about the incident, Jim O'Day and then-Grizzlies football coach Robin Pflugrad were fired.
University President Royce Engstrom has said only that he sought change; however in a newspaper interview, Pflugrad linked the action to the Johnson case.
"I don't know if she technically had anything to do with it," Brian O'Day testified Friday, "but it might have resulted" from her reporting the incident.
Both Ali Bierer, the friend who drove the woman to First Step the day after the incident, and Loy Bink, her former high school boyfriend, testified that she seemed withdrawn after the incicent.
"Worried, tense, shaking, scared," is how Bierer described her the next day. And Bink, who saw her later that day, said she was "obviously not herself. She was real reserved. It felt like she wanted to cover herself."
The two have remained close in the year since, he said.
Both denied that the woman in any way enjoyed the attention she's received as a result of accusing Johnson of rape. In opening statements Monday, defense attorney Kirsten Pabst talked about "a little bit of drama and a little bit of celebrity," for the woman. "She found a new identity: victim," Pabst said then.
"I don't think she's enjoying this at all," Bierer testified Friday. "In fact, I don't think she's liking any aspect of this."
What if you heard her described as attention-seeking in connection with the accusation, Assistant Attorney General Joel Thompson asked Bink.
"I'd say that was absurd," Bink replied.
The trial resumes Wednesday. Monday is a holiday and Judge Townsend's regular court day is Tuesday.

subset: commoncrawl


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text: My husband and eat dinner at "A Cave" every time we go to Fatima (and that's annually). This is my favourite place to eat and in a seven day visit we will eat here at least four times! The creamed cod is my favourite dish. It's to die for. My husband has probably eaten everything on the menu and has... More


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I just got my C & R License in the Mail today!!! Yeaaaa!
Now what do I do with it?
I know that I have to make copies of it and then sign the copies but do I copy both sides of it?
How do you guys send them off and do you have to call them to tell the companies you are sending it?
I have to get a book too. Now do I have to put the guns I have now in the book?
Where do I get a book?
I know, probably a question overload.


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($55; a selection of fruit from Coccinelle Vineyard, vinified with a portion of its stems; 14.5% alcohol) Saturated full ruby. Blackberry, flint, pepper, spice and violet on the perfumed nose; has the rawness of young Northern Rhone syrah. Dense and spicy in the mouth, with superb flavor intensity and good verve. At once broad and focused, and far fresher than a syrah with a pH of 4.1 has any right to be. The firm tannins (and the inclusion of some stems) provide structural support. Finishes long and ripe, with a suggestion of roasted nuts. The most promising syrah I've tasted to date from Washington, in the style of an Hermitage.
Author: Stephen TanzerProfessional content appears courtesy of Vinfolio
Ripe, generous and distinctive for the herbal, soapy grace notes swirling around the rich black cherry and mineral flavors, echoing enticingly on the open-grained finish.
Drink Dates: 2003-2006Professional content appears courtesy of Vinfolio


text: HomeBlack & RightThe B&R Thursday Skim ©2015 Black & Right January 24, 2013 Black & Right 5 Comments The showstopping emerald earrings worn by Beyonce at Obama's inauguration – and they're worth a cool $1.8millon LOOK AT ME, I'm rich!!! Lip service: Beyonce faked anthem at Obama inauguration Sure, it was cold but she's supposedly a professional who was asked to perform The Star Spangled Banner, not some Italian aria sans amplification. Poor thing; looks like she may have to really sing at the Super Bowl. Hillary on Not Doing Sunday Shows After 9/11/12: 'There Are Other Things I Prefer to Do on Sunday Mornings' Remember this in 2016. Bet'cha it will make a difference then…. Women in combat? Pentagon says yes Inhofe: 'Unacceptable' That DoD Leaked 'Women in Combat' Plans Before Briefing Congress The Reality That Awaits Women in Combat ACLU, In the spirit of equality let's have women register for Selective Service at 18, just like the boys as well. Do ya have the guts to back that? Conservative group slams A&M for liberal bias Kirsten Powers: Liberals Shun Opposing Views Because They're Used to Controlling the Media What we already knew: liberals are the most intolerant species on the planet Now They Tell Us: Obama´s Tax Promises Were Bogus Confused professors shocked schools are cutting their hours to avoid Obamacare penalties Stupid fucks, you voted for this after mocking our warnings Where's the Retaliation for American Deaths in Benghazi and Algeria? Retaliation for Benghazi was/is the YouTube director still in jail. Algeria pending… Egyptian president to U.S. senators: Watch out for those Jews who control your media Have any of you seen Egyptian television lately…? The difference is we have no reason to believe one word that comes out of Hillary's mouth. Egyptian Authors Speak Out: Muslim Brotherhood Means 'No Hope… No Democracy' Flashback: Was Clinton's Egypt visit a mistake? Impressive list of miscalculations and fuck ups Ryan blames Republican election loss on poor communication, turnout Thanks to Reuters for clarifying this Revealed: New York's Democrats Wanted to Gut the Second Amendment Dems Introduce Bill Banning High Capacity Magazines Hollywood will consult with David Gregory on how to circumvent this Rand Auditions for Role of Insurgent Leader I could be with Rand Romney to be honored Friday at D.C. luncheon For what, losing? Damon's anti-fracking flick bombs at box office Somehow that will be the fault of an ignorant public (that incidentally elected Obama) Gun control proposals could split President Obama, Harry Reid Obama's safe and could give a shit about 2014 Video: Security guard pepper-sprays pro-lifers outside abortion clinic Song and prayer is stepping over the line The man who trademarked 'Harbowl' a year ago, until NFL lawyers pressured him to abandon it The NFL decrees protecting players and their lawyers fuck the fans RightSide Now They Tell Us: Obama´s Tax Promises Were Bogus Confused professors shocked schools are cutting their hours to avoid Obamacare penalties Stupid f#cks, you voted for this after mocking our warnings Zero common sense and an undying faith in the liberal media. Maybe now a few will awaken from their stupor. Igor Now They Tell Us: Obama´s Tax Promises Were Bogus Confused professors shocked schools are cutting their hours to avoid Obamacare penalties Stupid fucks, you voted for this after mocking our warnings Karma, that bitch, shows up AGAIN. The nerve! *snort* Me Lindsay Women in combat? Pentagon says yes didn't the military have a program were they put women in "combat training" and none could pass the program. What are they going to lower the standards. http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-White/100000876763962 Richard White RxQwYt qksncdseojuj, [url=http://kvhtmploafwo.com/]kvhtmploafwo[/url], [link=http://skfcbigyfdqz.com/]skfcbigyfdqz[/link], http://nkkkzujlugvu.com/ Igor The very definition of insanity! The RINOs are insane, the Donks are totally corrupt and bereft of *any* semblance of virtues. TEA party time!


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Emergency medical technicians transported Cunningham to the Dade County Jail several blocks from the hospital. But when she continued to complain of pain in her leg, she was taken back to Ward D, where she says she was handcuffed to a cot in a corridor, her clothes still sopping from the paramedics' earlier drenching, while male corrections officers ridiculed her. "They called me a 'fat old bitch.' They were talking about their wives, saying how 'pussies should be beaten once a day, like that one over there,' referring to me. They were watching some television show about how a cop had put cocaine in someone's car, and they said, 'That's what you should have done to the bitch outside.'"
Dr. Gerald Kratz, medical director of Ward D, says Cunningham's allegations about his staff are hearsay. "The problem that I face in a situation like this is that you have someone saying all these terrible things happened," he explains. "I wish she would file a complaint; we would investigate it. I can't swear to you that people don't misbehave, but I can tell you that it is totally against policy."
Cunningham says she intends to file a complaint.
While she sat in Ward D, Cunningham's husband Peter Eves and a friend were trying to track her down. They called the Beach police headquarters shortly after her arrest, but they were told she wasn't there. Calls to local jails elicited similar responses. (Because Cunningham had been taken to Ward D, she was not technically booked, and thus was, in effect, in limbo.)
Finally, at four o'clock in the morning, they caught up with Cunningham at Ward D, and as Monday dawned, Eves was able to arrange for the $10,500 bail. He took his wife to Mt. Sinai Medical Center, where she was diagnosed with a soft-tissue injury. Her bad leg was placed in a cast. Later that morning her optometrist removed her contact lenses. The optometrist, Dr. Herbert Weiss, says Cunningham suffered a mild chemical burn in her right eye and an extensive one in her left.
Cunningham retained an attorney, but criminal charges against her were dropped this past Wednesday, May 29. (The traffic charges are still pending.) She intends to report the incident to the Miami Beach Police Department's Office of Internal Affairs this week, and is considering filing a civil suit. She took no action earlier, Cunningham explains, for fear that to do so would antagonize the police department.
Miami Beach Police Department spokesman Al Boza says such fears are groundless. "We have very well established complaint procedures, and in a situation where a person feels they have been treated wrongly by the police, they should go to Internal Affairs or to the State Attorney's Office," Boza says.
But he is inclined to reject Cunningham's allegation that her arrest was improperly handled. "From the very start, it was a full-blown situation with that woman," he says. He will not speculate about the decision of the Dade State Attorney's Office to drop the charges against Cunningham. "They can have a thousand and one reasons, none of which has to do with the validity of the case," Boza says.
The assistant state attorney who handled the case, Maria Hickman, could not be reached for comment.
Several eyewitnesses who were nearby when Cunningham was pulled over contradict the police department's account of events. Postpop surrealist artist Kenny Scharf and his wife Tereza were sitting in their car near Tap Tap waiting for Cunningham to arrive. "We thought, 'Oh, Gina's getting a traffic ticket, what a drag,'" Scharf recalls. "All of a sudden Tereza starts screaming, 'He's beating her, he's beating her,' and the two of us jumped from the car and ran to the corner. Gina's face was red and swollen, her eyes were bleary, and she was foaming at the mouth from the pepper spray. The scene was very violent."
Tony Lopez, who is not acquainted with either Cunningham or Rivera, was leaving his apartment on Meridian Avenue, and later wrote out a statement at Peter Eves's request. "As I approached the scene, the officer was beating on the lady with a stick," the statement reads. "Then he sprayed her with mace like she was a roach!"
In his report, Rivera claimed that Cunningham jabbed him with her elbow as he was trying to handcuff her. "I sprayed her to minimize injury to her or me," he wrote.
A special order issued by the Miami Beach Police Department in January 1995 details procedures for using a police-issued aerosol deterrent. According to the regulations, the cayenne pepper spray should be used from a distance of two to twelve feet. Cunningham claims Rivera held the canister inches from her eyes; photographs taken the day after the arrest show a blistered welt under her left eye, where she claims Rivera directed the spray.
The departmental order also prescribes treatment for suspects who have been sprayed: "After spraying a suspect, afford him/her an opportunity to wash the contaminated areas. Apply wet paper towels to the face, discarding each towel as it is removed from the face. Use the fan in the holding facility to blow air on the suspect's face. This will hasten recovery."


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Archive by Article Title | Archive by Date Broccoli and Carrot Containers Shop bought vegetables just do not stand in the same queue as your own home grown ones - that fresh, delicious, healthy crunch that comes from your own container cannot be beat as they say. Companions are mates and two good ones are Broccoli and Carrots, easy to grow and so versatile in the kitchen! Buying Container Plants Buying new stock for your container garden may be just the bit of retail therapy you need but these guidelines will help you look out for good and bad signs in the planted pots you finally purchase. Don't be in a hurry! Don't go cheap! Enjoy your choices, speak to those in the know at the nursery. Cactus Containers Not home much? Travel a lot? Work odd hours and weekends away? Treasure your black thumb but need something to grow? If you answered yes for just one of these questions then maybe a cactus container garden would suit you. It is easy enough to set up and simple enough to maintain. Waterwise too!
Chayote in Containers Chayote in containers may be unusual for some but everyday for others I say we should join the others and grow some. Like courgettes in a way, this vigorous climber belongs to the gourd family is popular in southern warm areas, it has many uses in the kitchen and is a medicinal vegetable as well. Choose a Chocolate-coloured Container! Chocolate in the garden? Why not - there are many plants you can use for containers and the colours and textures and beauty will have you and yours smiling. Its a lovely theme to think about especially if you are starting out, setting up a new container garden or replenishing for new season needs
Christmas Gift Containers Gift Christmas Containers are great holiday and gardening projects and you know how it is, the busier you are and the more you have to do the more you get done and well too! Did you plan ahead perhaps? Many do and as many or more dont, but whichever's the case, here are some last week fun ideas! CLevva Containers Oh how I have longed for a new gardening product to come into the shops - one that can be useful, innovative, adaptable and a good buy for the budget. Guess what? I think I have found one. It is called the CLevva Container and it would be a foolish notion to ignore this amazing invention!
Climbers in Containers Climbers are versatile plants which, besides their beauty, can have good use for us Container Gardeners. They cover, cascade, creep and curl for us on command! Want to cover an ugly surface or wall? Grow a wind-break or define a space? Offer a flowering backdrop to your planters? Use a climber!
Coffee Compost for Containers As an organic soil conditioner and fertiliser for plants, spent coffee grounds make a fine 'green' compost that will enhance your gardening space without a fuss its a green gardening practice that costs very little except your effort. Smell the coffee and get going its an amazing product!
Companion Planting for Containers The role of plants can be a complicated one ... not for the plants ... but for us to find out about and use to our advantage. There are some plants that nurture, others are martyrs or mask plants and yet others attract beneficial goggas to our gardening spaces. What does what? What goes with what?
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Get a graham craker and break it in half.
On one half put a piece of your favourite chocolate (you can use chocolate chips to make it melt faster).
On top of the chocolate put a big fat white marshmellow ;)
Next get the other half of the graham craker and put it on the top.
Put it in the microwave for about 20-25 seconds. This is my guess though, when the marshmellow has melted it should be done!
(dont worry when the marshmellow expands-like when it poofs out this is okay)
Now enjoy!


text: MasterChef: The Professionals Series 5 - Episode 17 Facebook Google Tumblr Pinterest Blogger Reddit VKontakt Print Email Play clip About this programme 17/25. After four weeks of competition the semi-finals begin, and the eight remaining contenders must prepare a dish to impress judges Michel Roux Jr, Gregg Wallace and Monica Galetti. Against the clock, they have to show skill, flair, flavour and immaculate presentation, with only the six best chefs progressing to the next stage. Cast and crew Cast Judge Gregg Wallace Judge Michel Roux Jr Judge Monica Galetti Crew Series Director Dave Crerar Series Producer Rachel Palin Categories Food Like this? Share it. Facebook Google Tumblr Pinterest Blogger Reddit VKontakt Print Email


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Article |
March 31, 2006
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Padmini Kolhapure (born 1 November 1965) is an Indian actress who appeared primarily in Bollywood films during the 1980s. She made her television debut recently by portraying Pallavi Modi in the Sony Entertainment Television India series Ekk Nayi Pehchaan.
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Originally published Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 3:12 PM
'The Institute': caught between fact and fiction
A review of "The Institute," a semidocumentary, which doesn't always distinguish between fact and fiction, about an interesting social and artistic experiment.
Special to The Seattle Times
Movie Review
'The Institute,' with Jeff Hull, Arye Bender, Daniel Shoup. Directed by Spencer McCall. 90 minutes. Not rated. Northwest Film Forum, through Thursday.
Lively but exasperating, "The Institute" blurs the line between straight documentary and pure fiction. It's hard to tell where authenticity ends and an alternative reality begins.
In fairness, that's the point of director Spencer McCall's approach.
Playing mind games with the audience is a reflection of the film's subject: an urban adventure, set in California's Bay Area, created by several artists to engage the public in mystery and wonder.
Somewhat reminiscent of David Fincher's 1997 puzzler "The Game," "The Institute" concerns the now-defunct Jejune Institute, created by Jeff Hull. Several years ago, fliers instructed San Franciscans to call a phone number, which in turn gave the curious an address for the organization in the city's financial district.
People who showed up were induced to explore quirky little discoveries around town, dance on the street and learn about two compelling individuals — one a 1970s-style, consciousness-raising guru and the other a young woman, Eva, who disappeared in 1988. McCall films a search through underground tunnels looking for a man who allegedly vanished while looking for Eva.
The extent of the Jejune Institute's elaborate production is remarkable, and past participants who recall their experiences on camera seem to have been profoundly moved by surrendering themselves to a remote, guiding hand.
The problem here is that McCall expects "The Institute's" audience to yield as well. A viewer is dropped down a rabbit hole of made-up nonsense mixed with truth, but distinguishing one from the other isn't always obvious.
If you're in the mood to be fooled, then fine. But if you're genuinely curious about the phenomenon Hull and his allies pulled off — and why it mattered to some people — you might find your involuntary compliance gets in the way.
Tom Keogh: email@example.com


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Patient Reviews
Patient Reviews ? Write a Review
Overall Rating:
Total Ratings23 |
Total Reviews3 |
He seems to be a great dr. And was very helpful
Just send your laptop computer with your symptoms to this doctor. He wasn't too bad on my first visit-just yawned three or four times, and he did do some testing with hand held equipment. However, he did not say anything to me about his observing me during this initial exam. I waited 50 minutes in the waiting room to see him for a second visit and then another 10 minutes in the exam room. He wasn't quite so bored as he was on my first visit-he only yawned once. I don't think he spent more than 10 minutes with me during this appointment, and he was more focused on his computer than me. I don't know if this doctor is a wonderful clinician, but I do know how I felt being his patient, and that was not good. I felt as though I was a bother to him. I will avoid seeing this doctor again if at all possible.
I must say that I only have seen this dr. ONE time, so it may be 2 soon to give a fair rating, but 1st impressions I think go a long way sometimes. Did not introduce himself very well. Did not have all the medical records and had not reviewed what info. he did have beforehand. Acted like hadn't even heard of my nerve problem before. His shots were roughest I've ever had, too deep and hurtful. Hope and pray things get better next time. If not, then I'll be going to someone else.And even thinking I may even do so sooner.


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As if to make up for its listless driving dynamics, the ML350 strives to please with a richly trimmed interior, comfortable and supportive seats, and ample elbow room for five adults. Cloth seats, aluminum accent panels, and a central Comand screen are standard; leather and vinyl upholstery and bird's-eye maple accents are optional. Every surface is polished or padded to a fare-thee-well, and there isn't a fit or finish flaw in sight. Rear seats bow out of the way with a 40/60 split to provide 72 cubic feet of cargo space. The only notable aggravation is a view of the outside world obstructed by massive A- and C-pillars.
For the off-road course winding through olive trees and grape arbors at the 275-year-old Chteau de Berne vineyard, we switched to an ML350 equipped with a package Mercedes calls Off-Road Pro. The hardware consists of a two-speed transfer case, an air suspension providing five ride heights, electronic controls to aid climbing and descending, two locking differentials, and a video screen indicating which way the front tires are pointing. It's as close as any luxury SUV gets to full Caterpillar capability. An ML350 so equipped clawed up wet-clay grades, across cratered landscape, and through a deep stream without hesitating. Expect to pay an extra $3500 for this off-road gear when it's added to the 2007 model year options list.
Switching to the ML500 for the second day of our Provence passage, we found something more satisfying than the 302 hp generated by the flagship's V-8: a hearty appetite for hammer-down driving. This M-class had the aforementioned Airmatic package, another $3500 option, which neatly eradicates most of the dynamic flaws noted in the less well-endowed ML350. While the steering is still slow, the extra frontal weight adds heft to your link with the road. Set to sport mode, the electronically adjustable dampers give the suspension athletic tension. The active-assisted brake pedal is still mushy, but there isn't a hint of dive during deceleration or squat exiting a bend. Compared with a BMW X5 4.4i, the ML500 has a bit more torque pulling slightly less weight, lending credibility to the factory's sub-seven-second 0-to-60-mph claim. In short, this is the Mercedes-Benz SUV of the enthusiast's dreams.
Neither black ice nor wet pavement im-peded us from our appointed rounds up and over the Tanneron Mountains. When the steering goes light, that's the driver's clue that the 255/55VR-18 front Michelins are sliding. Unperturbed, the ML500 holds the line with sincere confidence. Mid-corner bumps and last-ditch steering corrections are taken in stride. While American M-classes will be downgraded to H-rated rubber worth only 130 mph, Mercedes U.S. product manager Ron Mueller promises that the Airmatic suspension settings we experienced in Provence are exactly what customers who invest the extra money in that optional package will receive.
The ML500's sticker will start just under $50,000 and climb rapidly. The options list goes on and on, including DVD navigation, directional bi-xenon headlamps, Sirius satellite radio, a Harman Kardon audio system, a rear-seat kiddie screen, an iPod interface kit, rear side air bags (supplementing the six standard inflatable restraints), and park-by-ear sensors. An AMG Sports package is an interim place holder for the inevitable power upload.
Finally, Mercedes has the wherewithal to wage formidable SUV war from $40,000 to who knows how much. Luckily for us, the new M-class is as good as its predecessor was average.
Price: $50,000 (ML500 base, est.)
Engine: 5.0L SOHC V-8, 302 hp
Drive: 4-wheel


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New Living Translation (NLT) | New International Version (NIV) |
28 And Jeremiah remained a prisoner in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured. | 28 And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured. |
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. (New Living Translation - The Bible Online) | Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online) |