Peter Behrens's Blog, page 174

Chevrolet COE Utah

 

Becky Smith caught the beast rolling east in Utah.AL posted some more Chevrolet COE's in New Mexico a while back.

Caught a Corvette

Heading west on MA 2. Thought it was something Italian, but no.
 

Pontiac Aztek, Montclair N.J.

 

The shape of crossovers (and takeovers) to come.
from Jonathan Welsh, in Montclair NJ:While many consider it among history's homeliest autos, Pontiac's Aztek from the 2001 to 2005 model years foreshadowed the rise of crossovers, which have taken over the family-car market. As manufacturers try to attract buyers with increasingly extreme styling, Aztek doppelgangers proliferate. How about that Lamborghini Urus? Pretty close.

Monster Trucks

 

Thanks to Matt Dallet for the heads-up on this piece in Citylab :
"To get a handle on what’s happened to pickup trucks, it really helps to use a human body for scale. In some nerdy Internet circles — specifically, bike and pedestrian advocacy — it has become trendy to take a selfie in front of the bumper of random neighborhood Silverados. Among the increasingly popular heavy-duty models, the height of the truck’s front end may reach a grown man’s shoulders or neck. When you involve children in this exercise it starts to become really disturbing. My four-year-old son, for example, barely cleared the bumper on a lifted F-250 we came across in a parking lot last summer..."

(read the rest of the article here). 

And see AL's cranky post  on truck giantism vs. the sharp new Canoo pickup.

The Canoo Pickup Truck

 

Every year the brand-newest pickup trucks we see heaving themselves around here in Downeast Maine seem more gargantuan and cartoonish. Massive bogus action-hero toys, Tom Cruise-trucks, Trump-trucks. Make-My-Day-Masculinity Trucks. Like aggressive schoolyard bullies they make our full-size GMC 1500 from 1975 look like something tiny and nimble, maybe handmade, maybe from Italy.

There's so much ersatz masculinity thrown into US truck design. Consider, on the other hand, that Peugeot van from the Fifties we posted a few days ago. Okay, it's a van not a pickup--but form follows function, right? You can't really go wrong following that principle. Today's massive chrome-festooned pickup trucks are dream machine toys, fake manhood machines--every year, it's like  Dumb & Dumberer all over again. 

So it's good to know some people-and not just Elon Musk--have been rethining the concept of the pickup truck as a work and recreation tool. Thanks to Alex Emond for the heads-up on the Canoo truck, above. From Business Insider: "Electric-vehicle firm Canoo on Wednesday took the wraps off of a striking truck it says will hit streets come 2023. Preorders open later this year, but Canoo hasn't yet released all specs or pricing details....The startup initially announced a pill-shaped EV it plans to sell under a subscription model, but has since pivoted to offer commercial vehicles people can actually own. In December it announced a lineup of delivery vans of various shapes and sizes, and now it's moving into pickup trucks, which it's targeting toward businesses and regular consumers. Shares of Canoo rose more than 14% as of Thursday afternoon following the news...."

DeSoto in Oz

 

1975 Citroën SM, Amsterdam

from Guido Golüke, in Amsterdam: a walk in the park near the obsolete gasworks on a chilly sunday afternoon led to an encounter with this sleek machine from the Seventies.

Advancing Design. 1951 Chevrolet 3100

from Michal Moore in the East Bay: "This original survivor pulled in a couple of doors down from me but by the time I put away my bike and grabbed my camera he was headed off…"

Mack R-600 Boom Truck

At the Sedgwick (Maine) Town Landing. Semi-retired. Last Mack we posted was a 1966 B-81. There is an attitude these trucks have.








 

1964 Cadillac DeVille convertible

 

Looking for a summer car? Maybe 'understated' is not a word that applies to this--or any-- generation of Cadillacs, but the '64 is hands-down the sleekest of the bunch. And this one's on the block today at BaT. And here's another specimen AL caught in Cambridge last fall.