Morning car musings

"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo) 01/03/2019 at 09:43 • Filed to: None

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Driving the Sunchaser yesterday got me thinking. The GTI and the Sunchaser are a study in contrasts between driving a new car and driving an old car. Bear with me, and join me down the road of tortured analogy. We may not end up in the same place, but all the fun is in the twisties. The two cars are pretty close to the same size and weight, so comparison comes pretty natural.

The Celica is 38 years old. As my younger son said to me on the chairlift 2 days ago, “In a year, 1980 will be 40 years ago. You’re really old, Dad “ Thanks, kid. Like me, the car is slow to get started on cold mornings, and it is full of rattles and squeaks. Both of us have been damaged and repaired, and our body panels don’t quite fit like they used to. Up close you can really see the flaws on both of us, but we still do ok from a few feet away.

Also like me, it doesn’t move as fast as it seemed to in its youth, and it’s performance specs, while favorable for its day, are laughable when put up against the modern versions. But yet the old ‘chaser oozes charm, and you can’t help but smile and not care about how slowly you get there or how loud the targa top rattles. I hope to share some of those same qualities, but I can’t hope to trigger the same nostalgia.

Sadly like me, the Celica had a serious health scare this year, and while things are looking pretty good for us, the future remains uncertain. The car is running well now, but the digital clock is not working, suggesting my electrical woes are far from over.

The GTI is brand-spankin’ new. Toby is doing his damnedest to fart away the new car smell, but it gleams with newness. It is one of the most well-built cars I have ever owned, and everything fits together perfectly. It is a hoot to drive, athletic and responsive, quick, but not sports-car fast. Perfect fun car for an old guy with kids headed for college. But you have to be careful - it wants to make you put your foot down. If the Sunchaser is a grin, the GTI is a giggle. I love the adaptive headlights by the way, your next car should have them.

The Sunchaser has a long throw shifter, a 5-speed with reverse down and to the right . I removed the small, worn smooth stock ball with a wooden Celica dragon one my wife got me as a gift from Natural Grains.

Have you driven one of these one Toyotas? I am not kidding about how long the shifter is and how far you go when you throw it around. You really reach and row your gears in these cars. When my older son got his Subie after learning manual on the Celica, he remarked on how damn long the Celica shifter is. They don’t do that on modern cars.

Slow as it may be, it is fun as hell to work the gears to maximize what you get out of the torquey, low HP 22R. You are shifting all the time, and it is a super fun driving experience to learn master driving these cars. On road trips, you have to really drive the car to keep up with modern traffic, particularly when there are hills involved. But the 22R welcomes being worked hard, and when you get the hang of it you can drive the hell out of all (cough) 100 HP (cough-factory in 1981-cough). You have to be careful, though, it does not brake quickly, and the handling is far from nimble. But there is no car better for a road trip with my wife and my dog.

The VW is a short throw 6 speed with a cool leather golf ball shifter. Reverse is up and to the left (push down). The little shifter falls into your hand, and it falls right into place smoothly with a flick of the wrist. My RX-8 remains my all-time favorite shifter, but this one is damn nice. Having gotten used to the Celica, I find myself overshifting at times, and I really have to pay attention.

The little hatch scoots along and eats up miles. You don’t need your lower gears as much as the Celica, and holy crap feeling the boost from the turbo is a kick. The brakes are amazing, and the thing stops on a dime. The hatch is perfect for Toby, and the car makes a fun but practical alternative to the Sunchaser. The choice of what to drive each day has gotten harder.

Of course, after the apocalypse, I fully expect the cockroaches to be driving 22Rs, while we and the turbo 4s are all dead.

Have a good day Oppo. Thanks for reading this long post, my office moves tomorrow, and there are nothing but problems today. This was a nice way to take my mind off of it before I wade into the river of sewage that will be my day today. Ugh.

Have a good day, all.

DipodomysDeserti > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 10:03

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Great read. Really encapsulates the joy of driving vintage machinery. They may try to kill us every once in a while, and frustrate the shit out of us with problems, but it’s all worth it.

Ash78, voting early and often > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 10:04

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Challenge: Keep the GTI for 40 years and see how much of the electrical and plastic bits have not yet turned into dust :D

My VW is only 18 years old and its reclamation by nature seems to be accelerating. When new ($33k), I could put it next to my MIL’s 1999 Mercedes E-Class ($61k) and you’d barely notice a difference in ride, handling, materials, etc.

FWIW, that Merc died almost 10 years ago, so there’s that...

Also, get yourself an APR chip in the GTI sooner rather than later. Now that chips are all just software reflashes, there’s no resale market, so you have to enjoy it while you can.

( I’m partial to APR because I went to college with those guys)

LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 01/03/2019 at 10:09

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Decomposable materials are environmentally friendly, don’t you know? It’s a feature, not a bug.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > Ash78, voting early and often 01/03/2019 at 10:36

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The interior on my VW is 20 ish years old as well. Can confirm. The black leather on the steering wheel and shift knob are a little flaky, and there are a few burst seams on the front seats (back seat is pretty much mint though). All the leather is super hard now, too. On the plus side, my car is old enough to not have VW’s soft touch materials that broke down after like ten years.

Ash78, voting early and often > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 01/03/2019 at 10:46

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Ohhh, that soft touch. Wonderful for 5 years, then slowly peeling and blackening. It’s a lesson to VW in “don’t try to make things nice if they’ll just fall apart, because then they’re NOT nice anymore”

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > Ash78, voting early and often 01/03/2019 at 10:53

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Give me hard plastics or give me death. I think that in 5-10 years, there will be similar interior problems with all the other cars we have now that tried to do faux luxury on the cheap. Did you pull out any of the interior bits and get the soft touch stuff off? I’ve seen that from time to time.

Ash78, voting early and often > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 01/03/2019 at 10:57

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Not worth the trouble...I do give them a good scrub from time to time, which removes all the “weak” bits. But most of it is still there, at least remnants of it.

A lot of people just clean them down and plasti-dip them, which is basically all they were to begin with.

MiniGTI - now with XJ6 > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 11:15

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This is why I love having the Jaguar in the stable. I love the GTI and I love the MINI even more. What I really love is switching between one of them and the Jag.

The Jag isn’t quick but actually that giant NA 4.2 is a beast off the line - she can keep up with modern traffic just fine.

I hate automatic transmission but somehow that 3-speed B-W doesn’t annoy me too much.

Interestingly, as long as things aren’t too awful (regularly coming to a full stop) I think the Jag is actually more work to drive in very slow expressway traffic. The MINI you can just leave it in 2nd in many cases and there’s enough engine braking you can do everything by just feathering the gas pedal. 

99XJSport > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 11:23

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Man that celica is cool, great write-up too . Its kind of a strange feeling hopping from a vintage car directly  to a modern one. Everything is the same in concept yet so different

RallyWrench > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 12:19

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A topic I muse on regularly. My daily driver is a 22 year old Nissan pickup with a KA24, basically their version of the 22R, and I like it more than most modern client cars I drive. It’s 16 years newer but analogous to the Chaser, with a long shifter, shitty brakes, manual steering, and not a lot of power, but rear wheel drive and fun to keep on the boil. That’s why I like 90's singlecab minitrucks in general, they’re like utilitarian, reliable 70's sports cars in their performance. It and the 911 are creaky and compromised, the 911 particularly idiosyncratic (speaking of cranky shifters...and shitty ventilation... and noise...), but I prefer them to any modern client cars I drive. But... Mk6 and newer GTIs are wonderful little cars, and every time i get in one (a lot) I think of what an ideal daddy daily it would make. Perhaps later in life that will be the case, but for now, I absolutely love driving my cranky old stuff. My wife gets the “modern” car in the fleet, and it’s a 14 year old Sienna. Still feels like a new car to my sensibilities. I’ve gone significantly backwards in automotive age in the last couple years, and can’t say I have any real regrets.  Sometimes I want seat heaters though. 

CaptDale - is secretly British > ImmoralMinority 01/03/2019 at 12:38

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I love this. Thank you for the good read