I miss the American Land Yacht :(

"Rock Bottom" (rockbottom81) 06/06/2014 at 10:00 • Filed to: None

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Mr. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , you reminded me of something I haven't thought of in quite a while: where did all the AMERICAN luxury cars go?

I'm in my mid 30s and I'm from the Metro-Detroit area. That means I grew up in the 1980s. It also means I was surrounded by American Iron and a general "keep that little foreign car away from me" attitude that only a Rust-Belt Mid-Westerner truly appreciates. This is my story. Or one of them.

When I was growing up, my mother always drove Buicks. She loved the damn things and that was fine. This was Michigan in 1980s, and Buick was about as middle-of-the-road as a car got back then. My whole family had stuff like that. American cars for Americans, or something along those lines. I remember my grandfather getting a REAL hard time for bringing a Camry rental car to a family reunion around 1990. It was pretty funny, really.

My first car was a 1977 Oldsmobile 98 Royale and it was about as American as a car could be. 350 Olds engine (not a Chevy, but a distributor-in-the-front, painted blue, 170 horse Olds motor), two doors, several tons of curb weight, vinyl top, HUGE chrome bumpers, and it's fair share of rust because Michigan. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but that car was great. It's something that many people my own age and younger will never experience: it was an American car in the American style. It was born of our culture, not anyone else's, and it was great at one thing: eating highway miles as smoothly and quietly as possible.

Photo: Not my car, but you get the idea.

That kind of car, the American Car, is dead. I would say it died with the Lincoln Town Car. That was the last machine that was never meant to be hurried through anything. Ever. For any reason. The barge-car was in it's element when the cruise control was set at 65, AM radio softly reminding you that it's going to rain on Thursday, grandma asking grandpa if he remembered to lock the back door before we left. No obnoxious tach or battery gage to distract you from the only two gages a car should ever need: speed and gas. The only sound the car makes is a bit of wind noise around the mirrors and an occasional distant "thump" of a white-walled-Michelin Radial X over an expansion joint. That's all.

American cars today, and I'm going to pick on the luxury brands, are all chasing the Germans and have been since the late 90s. At some point they decided that every Cadillac has to be proven on the Nurburgring before it can be adorned with the hallowed wreath and crest. A family friend who retired as a vice president at a major American automaker once told me that as soon as someone in the boardroom suggested that they take some luxury car to The Ring for development testing, it was going to be ruined. It would be made to handle and brake, at the expense of that American luxury feel that all too few people now remember. And to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with a well composed luxury car, but some people just want a quiet, squishy, bench-seated, chromed luxury yacht and they can't have it anymore unless they buy a really old car. There's something calming, serene, about an old Cadillac or Imperial. You just slow down and enjoy the ride (literally).

The car companies are not to blame for this. Really, nobody is to blame. The species just died out and was replaced by new creatures. The car companies made more money selling luxury cars that chased the Germans than they did building luxurious cruisers of the US Interstate and that is that. Still, I can't help but feel like we Americans are driving luxury cars based on a European specification. Europeans use their cars differently. They don't commute as far as us. Their roads don't take them straight across great plains for days at a time like ours do. Their countries are tiny. Hell, their whole continent is about the size of our country. Their highways are different, they're curvy. They often have to cope with much higher speeds than us, while also being able to fit into smaller parking lots. Then they have to fill up with fuel with a price-per-pound comparable to silver. We don't have fast freeways (be quiet, Texas), our parking lots are huge (like our land-mass), and our fuel is cheap-ish. Should we be driving the same cars as them, thereby adopting some of their cultural norms? I don't think so, but it would appear that I'm in the minority here.

I just want the Cadillac Deville, Chrysler Imperial, and Lincoln Town Car back. I want to be calmly chauffeured by myself. Sad face.

Jayhawk Jake > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 10:05

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Soon

505Turbeaux > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 10:05

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I want it to come back, wagon style. Here were some of mine I miss

Vimto > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 10:10

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I'm eighteen, originally born in Europe. I bought a Panther because I wanted to experience the American Land Yacht before they were all gone.

Rock Bottom > Vimto 06/06/2014 at 10:29

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Enjoy it!

Rock Bottom > 505Turbeaux 06/06/2014 at 10:33

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Solid wagons. God I love those old bricks!

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 11:43

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I'd say there might be one group of cars that keep the American Land-barge mentality. That would be the FWD LaCrosse, Impala, and XTS. They're all pretty sizeable, have no real performance aspects to them (except the XTS V-sport), and all allow you to eat up highway miles in comfort.

Rock Bottom > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 06/06/2014 at 12:18

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Yeah, they're pretty close, but they don't quite earn "land barge" status. You don't look at one and say "dear god, I bet that thing weighs 5,000 lbs". In fact, most of us don't even notice them at all. I'd call them 80% solutions. They really are huge boats, but they aren't perceived as such. It's all about attitude!

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 12:20

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80% solution is probably about as close as we'll get sadly. Unless we want to make an argument for this new age of un-capable, truck-based SUVs that weigh 3 tons.

Rock Bottom > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 06/06/2014 at 12:33

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Yeah, I'm with ya. An Escalade is a heavy, full framed, push-roddy behemoth that might, if you squint and smoke a bunch of peyote, look a little like the barge wagons of yore.

Still sad I can't buy a new DeVille.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 12:35

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The damn things sit low enough now I'd call them high-roof wagons. My girlfriend's Taurus has more ground clearance in the front than a new Escalade.

It is a shame.

Aloha Milkyway > Rock Bottom 06/06/2014 at 13:42

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I think the lovable land yachts turned into these

Rock Bottom > Aloha Milkyway 06/06/2014 at 13:53

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GAAH KILL IT WITH FIRE!