Author: chuck goolsbee

A little rice with your sauerkraut.

I saw this one a few years back on Bainbridge Island. Something of a parody on wheels n’est pas?

* PVC? Check
* Snowboard/wing? Check
* Coffee can exhaust with real coffee can? Check
* Lime Green paint? Check
* Home made “ground effects package”? Check

All that’s missing is the “V-tec” and “bad boy club” stickers and it will be up for a starring role in “Fast & Furious 4”

A Jagick, or a Buiguar?

This one is up on eBay right at the moment so if this sort of thing floats your boat, go bid now!

It is basically a Buick with an E-type FHC body. Thankfully it was just an FHC tub, saved from the crusher, not a complete Jaguar lumped and chopped. The latter is a crime, while the former… well let’s just call it “inspiration.” If what Picasso* said is true, this guy is an artistic genius. He stole the most beautiful car design ever, and plopped it down on … well… a Buick. So on the one hand it is a VASTLY improved Buick, but on the other hand it is a horrifically ugly Jaguar! Depends on your perspective I guess. So let’s change our perspective and have a look from the front:

Oh my.

* “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” –Pablo Picasso

Stanley Cup Comments

I watched game one. Well, actually I watched MOST of game one. It went like this:

Oiler Goal, Oiler Goal, Don Cherry in an insane suit made of drapery remnants saying that Edmonton would win (did I mention I’m so happy to live close enough to Canada to be able to watch the NHL on HNIC), Oiler Goal. Chuck thinking, wow, these guys are dominating. I had a feeling it would be a five or even four game series.

That is when I had to walk away from the TV and do some things… first I had to carry a bag of rabbit food out to the barn. It took me a while. When I walked back in the house the score was tied 3-3… before I could digest that Carolina scored again… then I noticed Edmonton had switched goaltenders. I then had to make dinner, but kept walking over to the TV to stare slack-jawed at what was happening. I iChat a friend in Vancouver who informs me as to why Roloson was off the ice… his own teammate dumped an opposing player on him and he’s tweaked a knee. That is exactly how my hockey “career” ended. sigh. At least Roli’s happened in a Stanley Cup final instead of a Wednesday night beer league game. :\

(Un)fortunately I was unable to watch game two, but Chuq posted a nice analysis, and this still could be a sweep, or maybe a 5-gamer but not in favor of the Oilers. Oh well.

There have been some legendary Cup Finals where injury-plagued underdogs pull off amazing feats. Ironically, my favorite was in 1987, when the Flyers (a team I hated up to that point) managed to wring seven games from what was essentially the Hershey Bears first two lines, up against the legendary Edmonton Oilers. What got them there was a hotheaded but brilliant Goaltender named Ron Hextall. You can’t win Stanley Cups without goaltending and the goaltender that got the Oilers there is now out. It will be a miracle if the Oilers can pull off a win, much less a Stanley Cup.

I hate to see it go that way, but as Don Cherry says on Coaches Corner “Kids, watch this… YOU DON’T DO THIS: Dump a player on your own goaltender!” I don’t know if Grapes pointed out Marc-Andre Bergeron’s grave error, but he should have.

A fake 356?

I was out running an errand today and stumbled across this car. It is a psuedo-porsche built from a VW… which in a way is ironic because Porsches are just Psuedo-Volkswagens right? =)

Anyway, while I pull on the asbestos pajamas in preparation for the flames from Porschephiles, have a look at this:


Sorry for the crappy phone-cam images… I literally snapped it from my car as I drove by and did not have time to pull my camera out of my bag. Like so many repro-cars, it gets enough of the detail wrong to throw the whole thing off. It is obviously based on a VW beetle or ghia (likely the latter.) Note the 70’s style 911 wheels. I always liked those “flower petal” wheels on 911s, but they sure look funny on a “356”!

The weirdest of all is the roofline in the back. How hard would it have been to get it to consistently slope? That sedan-notch-thing going on is just bizarre.

I can see building a Speedster, or a Spyder from a VW, but a 356 Coupe? Oh well. Let me know what you think.

BTW: for reference, here is a real one (a hastily edited photo from my own collection… Dr. Fisher’s Porsche from the Forza Amelia… I beat this car on our track day driving a 450sl. 😉 )

New Section: “Weird Seen”

I carry a camera with me at all times… a habit I started 20-some years ago. It has allowed me to capture some interesting images. Being a “car guy” one of the things I try and photograph is interesting cars. I have a collection of photos to share and today I stumbled across yet another “weird car” and came up with the idea of populating my web log with this kind of thing. So here it is… “weird seen”… I hope you like it.

I have enough photos, and run into enough vehicular oddities in life to present several a week, but if you have something of your own, feel free to contact me via email or a comment and even you can contribute to the madness.