Drive Time – Page 62 – Splendid Isolation

Difficult Choice

April 2, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

Over at Timewaster’s place, he puts up this poignant statement:

I have to tell you that quite frankly, the whole 50s-era obsession with large fins on cars left me cold. Not really being infected with sci-fi/space obsession (which was what drove the styling motif of the era), I thought that the large finned American cars of the time were gaudy, ostentatious monstrosities.

However, of late, I’m starting to revise my opinion. Loyal Readers will recall how I often gripe about the wind-tunnel-driven shape of modern cars which renders modern cars pretty much indistinguishable from one another. So much do I detest this homogeneity that I find myself drifting towards a scenario whereby if someone were to offer me a choice between, say, an old Chevy Bel-Air:

…or a modern Chevy Malibu:

…I would most likely go for the ’57 Bel-Air despite all the modern comforts afforded by the 2018 Mali-Boo-Boo. The first has character, the second looks like a Toyota Camry.

Am I alone in this?

Dino-Palooza

March 31, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

As Longtime Readers will know, one of my favorite — perhaps my absolute favorite — sports car of all time is the (Ferrari) Dino 246 GT from the 1969-1975 period. I’ve written before about the rights and wrongs of the thing, but all that aside, I am in love with the Dino simply because it is so drop-dead beautiful to look at.

Which is probably why Fiend Reader Darrell M. (who should know better) sent me a video of a Jay Leno’s Garage episode which featured a modified Dino — modified not with a Porsche Cayman engine (as I’d thought about), but a Ferrari F40 V8.

Oh be still, my beating heart. Go away and watch the video now, and when you come back, there’ll be some Dino eye-candy from my personal collection of pics filched from all over Teh Intarwebz. (My only quibble with David Lee’s Dino is the color. Black is beautiful, but not as beautiful as some of the others…)

Future Models

March 29, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

I made fun of the new Ferrari Monza SP1 yesterday, but on a more serious note, it’s one of Maranello’s “Icona” series which, as the name suggests, will be cars based on iconic Ferrari models of the past.

Needless to say, only super-rich Ferrari fanbois will be able to afford them, but I have to say that if I had the dough, I’d not only buy the re-release of the 1959 Ferrari 250 (SWB) California, I’d kill anyone who stood in my way:

…as long as Ferrari produced an exact replica of the old 250’s body shape, that is, and not some bloated modernist excrescence that looked like a 10-year-old’s Play-Doh model.

New Product

March 28, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

Ferrari Incel: for the billionaire geek who still can’t land a girlfriend.

Then And Now #468

March 6, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

Seems as though Bugatti has made a one-off for some rich fart, based on the classic Bugatti “Atlantic” of the 1930s:

Leaving aside the price of the thing (which is of course insane because Bugatti), Loyal Readers will not be surprised as to which model I prefer. Both look like Batmobiles, of course, each for their respective era (assuming Batman was around in the 1930s, which he wasn’t), and both have amazing power (once again, for their respective eras).

I’d bet that the older one is easier to park, though, simply because the modern one looks like a bloated sow by comparison. And in a real-life setting, the Atlantic looks even more toothsome: