Watching an episode of the second season of “Las Vegas” with James Caan, I was fascinated by the car he drives as his film persona Ed Deline. The first shots of the car were so short, I never even bothered to look closer and find out what model it is.

Then the car started to play some kind of role. And I thought, nooo, this is no Aston, it looks fake, a bit like a replica based on a Corvette or Mustang. It looks…

…, mmmh, ugly really. Cheap.

So my curioisty had been awakend and I googled a little, after a few tries, voilà. The car is the real thing, AM has really produced this, ahm, thing in 2003 and called it Aston Martin DB AR1 . Check out Tim Cottingham’ s is an interesting Aston page about the American Roadster (hence AR).  Flickr has a few more pics here. Some 99 were made for the US, less than 10 ended up in Europe and the only RWD one is currently for sale.

Aston probably didn’t know what to do with this no-beauty, so they gave it a no-name. However it is a good fit to a city like Las Vegas: artificial, flashy and new rich. And interesting and fascinating. And it doesn’t have a roof.

Photo CC 2005 by Dan Smith

technorati tags:Aston Martin, Film cars, Aston Martin DB AR1

Blogged with Flock

Eusanz and I are thinking about to make a two week trip across the US, probably not the whole way from east to west, that would be more like a race.

Of course, we needed to discuss some urgent issues first, such as, well, which car we should drive. Much more important than where we would be going It’s not about the location, it’s not about the trip, it’s about the transport…

So what would two car nut Europeans think about? No SUV, please. Not some shitty low budget rental. No, the car should be something more original, something big, something with a V8.

So here is my thought, how about a used government issue Ford Crown Victoria? Possibly an unmarked police interceptor of the late 90s, with uprated suspensions, engine, brakes, tires and so on. It’s one of the US trademark cars, prominently appearing in nearly every US TV show as taxi or police cruiser.

The Crown Vic is the last of it’s kind with it’s siblings, the Mercury Grand Marquis and the Lincoln Town Car.  The great competitor is no more as the Chevrolet Caprice (also a nice alternative) production ended in 1996.  The Vic is a relic, a dinosaur.  And for Europeans quite exotic as they are not sold over here, nor would anybody buy them if they were. The nearest thing we sometimes see over here are some stretched Lincoln Town Cars – always rentals for special occasions, always in white and always ugly.

But Crown Vics are cool and pure. And while we are at it, why not ugrading the car little by little during the trip. First would be sound improvement.  Not the stereo, although that might be nice too.  No, I mean the engine of course. The V8 needs to be heard. Like this one:

The some engine uprating please. And some rims?

Well, those might be a bit too big:

Sounds and looks like a great holiday in the making

technorati tags:Ford, Ford Crown Vicoria, Crown, Vic, Crown Vic, Crown Victoria, Interceptor, holiday trip, road trip

Blogged with Flock

Nun hat endlich auch der Spiegel Jeremy Clarkson entdeckt. Genüßlich wird berichtet wie er den Phaeton V10 niedermacht. Der widerum ist ja auch ein leichtes Ziel. Hier ein älterer Filmbeitrag Clarkson und Phaeton um Wasserkochertest.

Allmählich mausern sich die Autoecke des Spiegel und etwas verborgener, die Autosektion der Zeit zu echten automobilen Schmankerln.

Ein Zeichen, daß der der Umgang in Deutschland mit dem Thema Auto lockerer wird. Die verkrampft neutrale Berichterstattung im Stile von "auto motor und sport" weicht einem ehrlichen und selbsttbewußten Bekenntnis, das Autos sich so herrlich als subjektives und emotionales Streitobjekt eignen. Und mal ehrlich, welche Entscheidung, auch im Flottengeschäft ist frei von Emotion oder "Image"? Warum sonst gibt es nur sowenig Toyota, Mazda und Dacia Dienstwagen? Wiederverkaufspreis? Das ich nicht lache

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