Memorials to the GMs fallen divisions.

Jalopnik posted the 10 worst car company websites.  On the list was Oldsmobile, not because of anything about the site but more questioning the point of the site.  Of course this made me go there and even post it on our facebook page.  This then had a friend Andy post the Ponitac site, and me looking up the rest.

While the sites all have a pretty standardized look the writing is different for each giving each their own bit of personality.  The other thing is they seem to have not bothered with Geo.  Not sure if they never had a website, if geo maybe had a weird site name since Geo.com was taken, or if they are trying to act like it never existed.

Well I'll start with Oldsmobile.  The site has a Bravada sitting on a tree covered lane.  Amazingly the Bravada has aged extremely well.  Styling wise in the pic  it could still hold its own with the newer crossovers, and the Alero that is cruising down the street really makes it seem like Oldsmobile lasted longer than it did.  The text takes a bit of a stand for Oldsmobile.  Basically it was, For over 100 years we were the best thing GM had, winning awards and make awesome cars.  GM closed us down for some lame reason, clearly it didn't stop them from going bankrupt, in fact they were doing better with Oldsmobile than without, but anything that doesn't suck on their current cars is based on the stuff we did for them.

This is a sharp contrast to Pontiac.  They have the Solstice where the Bravada was.  While it looks good still, it seems to have been abandoned in some dark empty building.  Maybe the pontiac plant, maybe an old Pontiac dealer who knows.  Pontiac's text also has a distinctly different tone.  Instead of Oldsmobile's bitter defiance, Pontiac depressingly says, if you were one of the few people who bought one of our cars, we hope you thought it was cool, and hopefully people will remember us for some of our cool liking cars, you know like Kitt from Knight Rider, the good Kitt, not the lame remake.

Hummer took a third approach to this.  They seem to still be advertising, maybe they are still hoping someone will buy the name.  They have one Hummer with canoes, and other ones on the buttons showing off the whole line.  Hummer sales pitch is still, Hummers will take you anywhere in the world, all off road and cool like that.  It can take you places that no other vehicle can, well except Jeeps, and Land Rovers, and......, well anyway, it had a line up of very distinct models that are each different, and no they aren't actually really similiar which caused me to have to say that they are distinct and different.

Finally comes Saturn.  They draw people in with a Sky cruising along with the top down on a long winding road.  They have the Vue shown to but smaller cause it really doesn't stand out well enough.  Their farewell actually seems to call back to Saturn's beginnings.  They tell of how they were a unique little car company, doing things their own way.  They cared about their customers, they made cars that were good for their customers.  But don't worry GM may have made us stop making cars but the spirit of Saturn will live on in anyone who ever drove one, or rode in one, or saw one in the street, or talked to someone who saw one, or visited the website, or even ever heard of the Saturn car company.

Well I guess that is it till GM kills some more brands

A MLK day panic

Today is a day off for me, and being that it is rather warm for January (almost 40 degrees) so I thought it would be a good day to do a couple minor fixes on the Cutlass Ciera. The last time I ran the car I noticed a couple leaks had appeared. The Cutlass was leaking a little trans fluid and good amount of antifreeze. A quick inspection showed that it was just a couple loose hose clamps that were causing the problems. The trans was pretty minor so not sure if we just never noticed before or if it loosened a bit after a couple races. The radiator hose was loose from where it connects to the radiator from the thermostat. Some corrosion go in there making it seem like it was tight when in actuality the hose was barely on. I don't recall removing that hose when I switched the engine back to antifreeze after the race although I do know I removed it when switching over to water. This make me wonder if the car ran the whole race with that hose barely on. Well I guess a barely held on hose is not something to really worry about after the race was is over. A couple turns of screw driver and they're both fixed. So check the fluids and they're all good. Well the trans seems a bit thin and runny but the in radiator trans cooler leak is something that can wait for better weather. Start the car up to let all the fluids flow and cover the stuff that needs covering. It starts right up and I walk away to do something quick. When I walk back I look at the gauges and see its up over 2/3 the gauge, a bit higher than normal but OK, so I turn on the heater to make sure the heater core circulates. This normally drops the temp pretty quick but it seems to do the opposite and puts it right near the red. I real I stick my head over in the engine bay and see the fan hasn't kicked on. Well crap, but this is why we put the switch in the cabin. I flip that and the gauge goes all the way to the right in the bad area. I real quick flip it off worried something awful is happening. fan still spinning I start looking things over. Check the exhaust and there doesn't seem to be water coming out so that is good. Next check the radiator outlet hose and its cold. Did the thermostat break? We got the fail open type but I guess breaking doesn't mean it will break correctly. Touch the engine and its warm but definitely not hot. I check the gauge again and see it wildly swinging back and forth, from the red to slightly less, then all the way past where the guage reads and then back to about 250. Well that doesn't make sense, that the temp would go all over the place when the engine isn't running. Looks like I should check some things. The in hose from the radiator is warm but not hot. I check the oil cooler lines and they're both cold. So either the thermostat, oil filter bypass, and the temp sensor for the ECM which controls the fan all failed at the same time, or the temp sender sensor for the gauge is flaking out. (not sure about how gm does it now but on this engine there is a completely separate sensor/sender that is used just for the gauge which in a case like this is nice since you would have several separate things that would need to fail to really damage the engine> Since we had to swap it out to a sender/sensor I knew exactly where it was. its right under where Duff like to nap.

When looking at it I noticed that the pair of wires run really close to the EGR line. Between the first race I had rerouted it a bit after seeing the wires getting a bit discolored from heat. When I looked at it again it was rather close to the EGR again, and guessing that since that exhaust gases would be hot that it might be messing it up. So I unplug it, blow into the connector since that always worked with Atari games, rerun it again and check the gauge again. The temp dropped straight away and when I start the car again it is down about 100. And while the car ran everything seemed to go as expected. The Temp slowly rose till 185 where it dropped again when the thermostat opened and the hose warmed up. after running a bit more one of the cooler lines warmed up. the line back to the engine didn't really warm but that's probably caused by the fact that the cooler is cooling the oil(go figure). It ran for a while and is back to its normal since the cooler was put on not wanting to warm up much. So I guess I'll have to put the sender on the list of things to look at this spring in case we have to spend the $15 for a new one.

1989 Oldmobile commercials

This week Murilee Martin wrote about a junkyard 1989 Oldsmobile Toronado he found.  While reading it I watched the Ad for the car and found a rather odd theme for their ad campaign that year.

Before I get into the theme I will start with how they launched the 89 model year with ads.  While most people think it was a bad ad campaign you can't really say it wasn't affective since people remember it even though the car company hasn't existed in several years.


Now that was a start but how do you advertise the cars.  Well the people at Oldsmobile decided you should put famous people's children in the car.  In some ways it makes sense cause it is not their fathers oldsmobile, but not all famous people were equal.

We'll start with the Cutlass Ciera with one of the least impressive of the stars.


The Toronado got a nice step up from Frankie Avalon Jr to Deborah Moore.


While the Toronado was suppose to be a sporty coupe, the 88 Royale was suppose to be more of a family car what says family more than Abigal Rockwell's grandfather.

I was only able to find commercials for one more model the Cutlass Supreme, however there are 3 different Celebrities children for this car so it might have stolen the starts from other cars.

We'll start with the guy who has a deal for you and Monty Halls son Richard. They left off his last name so possibly Monty's illegitimate son.

In addition for the coupe they need someone to show how advanced the cutlass supreme was with amazing futuristic features like a computer. Nothing says future like the daughter of a guy who was in a scifi show in the 60s.

For the four door they went a different direction. The Dad in this commercial actually was featured more than their kid. Not only did he take up most of the screen time, but he said one catch phrase and sang the other.

I know some of you are saying with ads like these its no wonder Oldsmobile is no longer with us, but they lasted a long time after this, and its still more entertaining than most of the car commercials know which give you a bunch of facts to make their car seem better than the competition, well as long as you don't look at the other facts that prove its worse.

Thems the Brakes

In a continuation of the I really should have posted this 2 weeks ago series, Here is the autopsy of the front brakes after the race.

For those who didn't make it through the last post (with how long it was I can't blame you) we ran the hour and half with the front brakes squeeling pretty bad.  So the Saturday after the race we decided to see just how bad it was.  When we removed the front wheels this is what we saw.

Probably a good thing I tried to not use the brakes at all last stint.

The pads we used were Hawk HPS.  We used these  last year and they did pretty well and when we inspected them they still had roughly half their material left.  So we figured we were going to the same place and just moving about 100 feet from where we raced last year, how different could it really be.

Well I guess about this different

So I guess we will actually start listening to everyone on the forum and actually look into buying real endurance racing pads, along with decent tires.  The odd part is that both Porterfield and Carbotech seem to actually stock pads for A-bodies.

Semi official Showroom-Schlock Shootout writeup thing

Well its been two weeks so I guess one of us should actually do a writeup for the last race. (and it doesn't look like anyone else is going to do it)

The race weekend started with me getting up way to early on Friday. It was dark. My car was stuffed full of a bunch of random stuff, and Albert showed up ready to tow the car so we can get there as the gates are opening, which pretty much worked out since we pulled up just as the gates were suppose to let people in. we park and get out and get in the line to find out that if you weren't paying the money for testing you couldn't go in. so we took the time to talk to people and about the time the judges came in blasting Nazareth out of the to be reviewed charger I got hungry and went to grab some cookies to spread around. the cookies i guess worked since somehow I started moving up in the line by just giving them to people. Eventually they let us not paying in and we found ourselves a pit spot and started to setup.

We got the car off the trailer and emptied of all the stuff that doesn't need to be in it for tech just about the time that they were ready to start tech. Unfortunately Pete wasn't there with half the bribe yet, Luckily he wasn't far and i think pretty much once he got out of the car we made him take out the bribe and hit tech. We had the honor(?) of being teched by Evil Genius. The Evil One (TEO) made a comment about our car sounding like nascar as we pulled up. Then went about checking the car out. Having me strap in while asking me to do thing that are difficult to do while strapped in like pop the hood, TEO pronounced 2.8 Liter Multi Port Fuel injected? And we confidently said Yeah (60 Degree V6 Represent Yo)

The rest of it went pretty easily. Our exhaust made him exclaim brilliant, No idea why since its pretty non exciting, Although you never know what came through tech before us, maybe simple and boring is brilliant compared to some of the others. We ended up being told to duct tape the area that was cut in the doors for the door bars so it doesn't cut us or the suits, mainly the suits cause they are expensive. That and a compliment on the cars cage a prep saying we read and understood the rules (There being rules was news to us also).

Actually this was a huge relief after last years cage conversations. The new TEO seal of approval makes me feel much better about the cage, at least until the rules are reworked again.

 BS once again went way to easily. They took the Cheese Cake and Cookies before we even made it through tech, and the beer and some root beer during tech.

We were stopped barely long enough to get the bribe stencil and we were back in class c with 0 laps.

So the rest of the day was getting the gear teched which Jay commented on my "professional helmet graphics"

 

We setup camp and walked around and talked with the other teams.  Talked with Team Resignation to tell them our cage passed with compliments and since they had the same cage builder they should be good.  This I thought would calm them but they had a different problem, their car hadn't arrived.  Their arrived well within time for teching it unlike Speedcop and his gang of outlaws.  when we talked to them that night not only had their car not arrived but they hadn't talked to the guy who owns it.   They were amazingly calm about it. While their first alternative the imaginary car didn't pass tech.

 

They had been looking at some local cars and found a dirt track nova that just needed a few minor things (engine put back together, to find a drive shaft for it and then whatever they would find once they bought it.   However they finally go a hold of the impala wagon owner and they promised to be there by 7 am on saturday.

Race Saturday starts with a drivers meeting which was pretty standard except with Jay telling us all to ignore some JackA$$ who was saying something that was the opposite of whatever he just said.  Also the track guy said they would like to do 2 races next year?  We'll just have to wait to see if it works out though.

With the meeting done we casually walk back to the pits and shove Duff in the car.

Even with our incredible casual non rushing pace we cruised around under yellow for a real long time as cars fail before the green.  While waiting I start talking with one of the guys that are pitted across from us.  their intrepid started making lots of "Bad" noises during testing yesterday (the reason we avoid testing) and they were expecting it not to last long and the long yellow before the race was worrying him.  The race did go green and a couple laps later it went yellow as they had to tow in the intrepid.  Which shortly after got this sign on it

The did win the I got screwed trophy for their 2 laps though.

The rest of the stint went pretty eventful less,  So I guess Duff and the Cutlass have finally made up and decided to play nice unlike last year.

So out goes Duff, in goes Albert.

Albert was putting down some good laps until he called in about a tire he felt was going flat and before he could make it around to get to the pits it blew out. (around 10:39)

luckily no damage was done to us or anyone else and the made it back to the pits leaving chunks of the tire as it went.

So we swap tires, and drivers and Pete Goes out and has a nice uneventful stint

Then my turn came up and while the front tires were pretty well getting worn especially the front left but I take it out and try and conserver the tires as long as we can.

Mine goes pretty uneventful and we start the order all over again.

Duff goes out and after a bit of confusion over wave byes during a yellow he gets black flagged for passing under yellow, then Albert goes by with a good stint and in goes Pete who spins into the grass.(around 18:10)

Pete goes in claims his guilt and the powers that be take pitty on him and let him go and he finishes his second stint, and I go in with some pretty not good front tires again.  I decide to take it easy on them and just finish the day, knowing we only had 2 good tires left that were mounted thought we would save them and find somewhere to mount the 3 tires we had from last year that weren't mounted.


While Causally driving trying to stay out of people way most of the time.  I did kind of miss Skid marks racing going beneath us which ended up getting me called in for a black flag where they thought we had contact.  There wasn't and I didn't actually think it was that close and I guess neither did Skid mark, but after an inspection of our car without any damage and both our stories matching and the lack of damage on either car we were allowed back on the track to finish the day. (about 2:15)

Saturday was more talking giving away of cookies and beer and general good time with the other teams. Speedycops wagon finally showed up shortly before the checkered flag needing lots of work done to it. so we helped get it off the trailer and pushed to where it was going to be worked on.

Sunday started pretty much the same as Saturday, quick drivers meeting, Casually strapping in Duff and send him on his way. Pete and i went looking for somewhere for us to get our tires mounted. Luckily we found a team to do it at the track but while they were working on it theire was a call from their team that they needed hammers for the car. That is never good so we figured we would leave the tires and go back later. So after Albert switched into the car Duff and I went back and picked up the tires for a completely reasonable mounting charge. The stints all went pretty well at this point and uneventful. When mine came around I noticed if I pushed hard on the brakes started to get a bit of a wobble. Figured we finally started warping the brakes I thought to try and take it a bit easier on them to let them cool. Even with that my stint ended with a bit of confusion as everyone stopped on the back straight. it seems that it ended because the red Fiesta lost one of its back wheels. Duff took his stint and had another mistaken contact. 1st for the day so judges really didn't work to hard on it, but how they approached it with another look at the car and no damage either there were a number of mistaken calls being made out there or they believe our car is indestructible. (Personally I beleive that the other cars where scared of the Oldsmobile's awesomeness and jump away from it making them believe there was contact) but we were put back on the track quick enough. Albert wasn't feeling well so Pete took the next stint and came in with the brakes squeeling pretty bad. With about an hour left figured we could nurse them the rest of the way. Albert went in for a short stint, and while trying to limp the Cutlass home It appears the Impala wagon had enough of this race and committed suicide.

The corner works decided that both us and white trash racing should get a by on that little trip into the grass so no black flag. We switched drivers again and I drove slow and tried to not ever touch the brakes and brought the car home with a 48th out of 98 cars and 4th in class c,  and taking the checkered flag and getting the high 5's and the applaud coming off made it feel like we accomplished something incredible.

So park the car and walk over to the awards. Honestly was a bit of disappointed in the Safety Vehicles getting the grassroots motorsports award thinking we might have had an outside shot at it, but if you are going to lose atleast lose to something funny right. That was then followed by Speedcop get screwed out of the got screwed, and all the rest that can be read here http://murileemartin.com/wordpress/?p=1630

So it got to the big prize the IOE.

Jay starts out with how hard a decision it was, which I knew it would be, Team Lemonade had another amazing race in the 3 cylinder Metro followed closely by the big old Olds 98.

He then went on how this car was probably taken out of some grandmothers garage. Hey our car was literally taken out of a grandmothers garage, but Jay doesn't know that so yeah whatever.

They ran here last year and was in the running for the index there, hmm we were here last year, which other teams were here last year too...

They ran all weekend under the radar just kept putting up laps,  I wonder how many times they lapped us

The winner of the Index of Effluency, Racing 4 Nickels and the Murph and the Magictones Cutlass Ciera, Wait What?!?!?!?

After that was a blur of handshakes and congratulations  in which we somehow got a trophy and a check(still wish it was nickels but I guess we have something to still work towards) and a bunch of pictures and more congratulations.

 I guess thats about it.  Although I doubt anyone has made it to read it all the way down here.  But if anyone does I guess I'll conclude this with the old Cutlass Ciera did good and will return next year.

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