I’ll get directly to the point: I don’t like this car.

Judging from the ads for it (which I also don’t like) the Veloster (I don’t like that name either) is meant for the youth market. (And I’m not keen on that to stretch my crochets about as far as they’ll go.  The intention of the Veloster to appeal to young buyers accounts for its lack of cohesive purpose. In my experience today’s younger buyers are more interested in extreme “stylin’“ than in style and in gadgetry that caters to their obsession with texting and talking (if they must), constant music feeding directly to the inner ear and other forms of acute distraction from actual driving.

THE LIMIT: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit by Michael Cannell. (Twelve Publishing, $25.99)       
Reviewer: Leo Levine, Guest Critic

McCluggage observation: Leo was there, the book’s author was not. The difference? One gets it; one does not.

When writing about people in a particular line of work, if your effort is to have any validity you should be familiar with – should understand – the milieu in which they function. When attempting to get into their psyche, it is practically mandatory that you spend time with them.

If you didn’t have the needed experience(s), there would seem to be little point in trying. This is one of the principal reasons biographies of persons no longer with us so often reflect the writer’s prejudices rather than reality.

In the case of The Limit, which concerns itself with Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips and their competition for the 1961 world driver’s championship, we have been given to understand the author has never been to a race. In addition, Hill’s family informs us that Cannell spoke with Phil only on the phone—and briefly—when the champion was in his declining years. That he never spoke with Von Trips is obvious, since the latter did not survive the Italian Grand Prix in which Hill won the title.

As a consequence, what we have here is something considerably less than adequate. To be charitable.

But if YOU don’t know that HE doesn’t know, then you might find the book vaguely entertaining if a preoccupation with death interests you.

We were talking about car names.
“I don’t like cars with ‘V’ names.” Me speaking: Generalizing on a crotchety prejudice.
“You don’t like ‘Viper’?”
“Viper’s different. It’s a real word applied to a car. It’s the made-up ‘V’ names I don’t like, or ones that sound made up. Like Volvo. But for that matter I don’t really like Viper much either.”

[Published on The Detroit Bureau]

Anyone reading or most certainly writing about cars is delighted that Bob Lutz hasn’t gone gently into that good afternoon of retirement after all. Consultant to GM renewed. (Insultant to all deserving of it, if the Lutzian manner hasn’t changed.) Bob was always the go-to guy if a deadline loomed and no lively quotes sprang from a reporter’s notes.

Bob continues to swerve off course when it comes to what is officially OK to talk about. Wow, truly inside info beyond the press release. And he is sure to talk about it in more colorful terms that most. He’s always a car guy; he’s always his own guy. I join the gang that’s glad he’ll be around.

That said I take the opportunity to disagree with what he said in an interview with a German writer. (I read what only was translated into English not being bilingual as Bob is.)

Bob told the German journalist that the top three car companies in the world were now GM, the Volkswagen group, and the Hyundai group. Read more >>

First, last and in between: If you’re looking at hybrids this hybrid must be on your look-at list. Must.

Now some details. The Korean car maker did not take an easy way to offering electric assist to a gasoline engine and thus earn the right to scribble ‘hybrid’ on the handsome flanks of its midsize award winner. No way. Lots of engineering savvy, innovation and collaboration between stylists and engineers have produced what I think is even a better looking Sonata and one that claims it can score 36-40 mpg.

[Published on The Detroit Bureau] 

Is it just me or are there more fuel management problems than usual in racing?

Take Chip Ganassi’s team at Indy’s 100th anniversary run. A one-two finish looked to be a lock with either Scott Dixon or Dario Franchitti crossing the line first. Dario had set fastest lap of the race; Scott the fastest lap while leading. Combined they were assured of having led more than half the race already. At worst, with the pair on different fuel strategies, Chip was confident that one or the other of his drivers would be guzzling milk in Victory Lane.

Then the one-two finish turned to five-twelve as the checker dropped. Thanks to bloody running low on gas!

Not many sleek sports cars fit in a soft pouch, but this one does. The easier to tote it along to serve as a wireless USB mouse for your laptop. It’s comfortable at home or office, too. Feels good to the hand and looks sharp parked on your mouse pad. The trunk opens to load batteries. Order it in red, black or silver from http://www.motormouse.us.com for $49.95. They also have Mini mice. Or mouses in Mini. Anyway check ‘em out.

I think of Santa Fe’s Travel Bug as “The Map Store” and confound people when I say that’s where I’ll meet them for tea (or coffee if they must.) But there are more maps here than ever existed when cartography was middle-aged. Books too, travel guides yes, but books about the places as well. Flags. Phrase books in obscure languages. Travel gear like packable hats and useful gadgetry. All in home-owned quirkiness. And it’s my chosen coffee house because it’s prices are well below Starbucks; it has free WiFi (and great patience); serves homemade sandwiches, soups, salads and store-bought pastries; has indoor tables and two outdoors sitting areas; ample parking, and is never crowded. A best-kept secret and here I go babbling. At 839 Paseo de Peralta (walking distance from the Plaza.) 505-982-0418.

I’ve always said that if you couldn’t do it with WD40, a bungee cord or a skinny dime it didn’t deserve to be done. My faith in bungee cords even extended to my attaching rather large ones to my ankles and leaping off a New Zealand bridge toward a roiling creek some 149 feet below. (Well, if you were over 60 it was free so how could I resist?)

My new favorite bungee cords are aptly called The Perfect Bungee. They feature modifications, like looped ends or a gated hook or spider-like arms to suit specific tasks. Look at the photos here and think of the exact place you need them to do it for you. To order click here: http://www.justduckyproducts-store.com/

[Published on The Detroit Bureau] 

Held captive by disbelief we watched on TV that improbable tsunami, dark with disturbed sand, textured with the detritus of people’s lives ranging from children’s plastic sandals to grown-ups’ cars. How could this be? An uncontrollable King Kong nightmare flinging recognizable everyday things across a mundane landscape.

Our brains struggled to wrench some sense from the sight of seaside warehouses and absurdly colored plastic tubs, equally freed of normality, floating off together in a frothing soup in which cars bobbed like Halloween apples. Cars! And inexorably the invading wave rolled ever higher, up concrete stairs step by step where observers certain of their safe perch, were suddenly faced by a frothing mastiff broken free of its chain.

Disbelief. Theirs and ours. How often did we go back to our computers to view it again, stilled stunned.

But did we have any idea how it would disturb the way cars are bought and sold in our own neighborhoods?