Auto Trivia by Jil McIntosh

Advertising guru Terry O'Reilly said one of the most famous car brands in history resulted from an entrepreneurial “fist slam.” O’Reilly, the host of the CBC podcast “Under the Influence,” coined the term to describe the moment when a person slams their fist on a desk and says, “There's got to be a better way.”

“That entrepreneurial fist slam is responsible for so many great companies,” said O’Reilly, “and I think Ferruccio Lamborghini had that fist slam moment.”

Years before Lamborghini’s fist slam, the industrialist and businessman, found he had a knack for tinkering with the machines and vehicles on his parent’s grape farm in Cento, Italy. “He just had a natural ability to fix things and was a gifted mechanic,” said O’Reilly.

With the advent of the Second World War, Lamborghini’s talents saw him drafted by the Italian Royal Airforce, assigned to the Fiftieth Mixed Maneuver Motor Fleet, and stationed in Rhodes, Greece. In 1946, prompted by an Italian economic recovery incentive program, he returned to the village of Cento, where he opened a mechanics shop and identified a new business based on the needs of local farmers, who couldn’t afford tractors to cultivate the land.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-173436" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1989-Lamborghini-Countach-25th-Anniversary-by-Bertone1290411_-scaled.jpg" alt="Lamborghini" width="2560" height="1706" />

“After the war he saw an opportunity to salvage army surplus machinery left behind by the war,” said O’Reilly. “I'm sure there were abandoned tanks and military vehicles. He decided to take all that equipment and see if he could do something with it.”

“Like most successful people, he was driven and I suspect that he was in part, or in all, a genius,” said Bobby Moresco, an Oscar winning writer and the director of the recently released film “Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend.”

“He was able to see things that most people can’t see. That makes him a visionary.”

With his family’s farm as collateral, Lamborghini bought 1,000 engines and began building affordable tractors for the local market. In 1948, on the first day of sales, he sold eleven tractors.

“He started very simply, very humbly,” said O’Reilly. “The tractors became so popular that he ended up opening a plant. That success and the wealth that brought him, allowed him to branch out into other things and with all that wealth, he started collecting fast luxury cars. So that's where he dipped his toe in the luxury car market.”

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-173435" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1969-Lamborghini-Miura-P400-S-by-Bertone829747_-scaled.jpg" alt="Lamborghini" width="2560" height="1707" />

Over the years, as his wealth increased, so did his car collection. In 1958 he purchased the car that would change the course of his life, a two-seat Ferrari 250 GT coupé with a body designed by coachbuilder Pininfarina.

Over time he would purchase several more Ferraris, including two 250GT Berlinettas and a four-seater 250GT 2 + 2. They all had one thing in common, a faulty clutch.

“So, one day when the clutch malfunctioned yet again,” said O’Reilly, “he had his one of his tractor mechanics take a look at it, and they discovered that the actual clutch component was exactly the same component that they used in their tractors.

“And why that drove Lamborghini particularly nuts was because he was appalled they were using a tractor component in a luxury supercar. I think Ferrari was buying the clutch components for his tractors for 10 lira and Ferrari was charging like 1000 lira for the same part.”

Lamborghini confronted Enzo Ferrari, founder of the of the Ferrari automobile marque, about the faulty clutch, with disastrous results.

“Lamborghini is waving the part in Ferrari’s face saying, ‘How could you put such a cheap part in in a supercar?’ And Ferrari just blows him off. He says, ‘It's not the cars, it’s the driver. Go back to your tractors.’ Very insulting,” said O’Reilly.

“I think being the son of a farmer and moving into the world of industry brought with it its own insecurities for a young man who just returned from the war,” said Moresco. “ I think, in the meeting, and no one really knows what happened between Lamborghini and Ferrari, I suspect that whatever Ferrari said, he touched on those insecurities that kicked off Lamborghini’s need to overcome them.”

That meeting was Lamborghini’s fist slam, what O’Reilly calls the “metaphorical slap in the face that started Lamborghini saying, ‘I can build a better car.’”

The reverberations of the fist slam were heard round the world. Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A was officially incorporated in 1963, and their first car, a 350 GT, sold its first models the following year. The company, now owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi, developed into a worldwide brand synonymous with luxury.

Years later Lamborghini saw Ferrari at a restaurant. The creator of the Miura, the Espada and the Countach tried to say hello, but Ferrari turned away, pretending to talk to the person next to him. “He ignored me,” said Lamborghini. “He was a great man, I admit, but it was so very easy to upset him."

How a faulty clutch led to the start of Lamborghini

from BBS upload

Weird Al Yankovic, the curly haired, accordion-playing hit maker of songs like “Amish Paradise” has sold more comedy records than any other artist in history – and his success all began with a song about a car.

“He grew up in California, and California has a car culture,” said Nathan Rabin, the author of books about Yankovic. “If you are going to be writing about pop culture, if you are going to be writing about consumerism, if you’re going to be writing about life in Southern California, cars are a big part of that.

“Not trolleys, and not subways, but automobiles,” he said.

As a teenager, Alfred Yankovic – he wouldn’t add the Weird to his name until he was in university – was obsessed with the “Dr. Demento Show,” a four-hour live Los Angeles radio program hosted by ethnomusicologist Barret Hansen, a.k.a. Dr. Demento. It featured offbeat novelty songs the were deemed too “demented” to be played anywhere else.

The show stirred Yankovic’s imagination, inspiring him to write his own pop parodies and spoofs. “His schtick was to write about popular subject matter like automobiles in the least predictable way possible,” said Rabin, who co-wrote the biography “Weird Al: The Book” with Yankovic.

“Instead of writing, ‘I have this really cool car,’ in the style of groups like Jan and Dean or the Beach Boys – which were all about these nifty automobiles, how cool they are and how they can pick up chicks –when Al does car songs, they’re about his parent’s car,” Rabin said. “Or they are songs about a car that is so bad he gets kicked out of places, and not even for breaking traffic laws. It’s because they’re aesthetically wrong.”

By the time Dr. Demento visited Yankovic’s high school in 1976, the 17-year-old wannabe musician already had a homemade cassette tape full songs that he recorded while playing his accordion in his bedroom. Demento liked the first track, "Belvedere Cruisin’,” a tune about the Yankovic family's Plymouth Belvedere, with its red upholstery and push-button transmission.

“It was primitive,” said Rabin. “It is an indication of where his art was at the beginning. All these ideas and no polish because he wasn’t a professional yet. He was a kid working out his art in this very safe sandbox of the ‘Dr. Demento Show.’”

Demento said “Belvedere Cruisin'” wasn’t the best song he ever heard, but it had some great lines and caught his ear. In the tune, Yankovic writes about hating small Volkswagens, and big white Cadillacs and their “unnecessary frills.” “In a Belvedere I can really get my thrills,” he sang.

As his first ever radio play, the novelty song was a breakthrough for Yankovic, but it was an original tune, unlike the songs that ultimately made him famous.

Better known is a cut from his 1983 self-titled debut album, “Stop Draggin’ My Car Around.” It is a parody that takes Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ song about a troubled relationship, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” and turns it on its head.

Stripping away the darkness of the original duet, Yankovic, accompanied by an accordion and strange flatulence sounds, creates a goofy ode to his 1964 Plymouth, which gets towed away no matter where he parks.

“’Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ is a very moody song, a very serious song,” said Rabin. “You add an accordion to it and make it about something very silly, and you make it a completely different animal.”

&nbsp;

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-173040" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/wh-WeirdAl-Fame-Nov12-1-scaled.jpg" alt="weird al yankovic" width="2560" height="1920" />

Rabin said that Yankovic’s works can be broken into two groups, songs of inspiration and songs of opportunity. “Belvedere Cruisin',” for instance, is a song of inspiration, an original tune instigated by his love of his family’s car. On the other hand, Yankovic’s parodies fall into the songs of opportunity camp, like “She Drives Like Crazy,” a song about a reckless driver that parodies “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals.

Yankovic’s playlist is stuffed to overflowing with car songs, like his Prince tribute “Traffic Jam” and “Dead Car Battery Blues,” but one stands above the rest. “Trapped In the Drive-Thru,” a parody of disgraced R&amp;B singer R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet.” At almost 11 minutes, it is Yankovic’s magnum opus, the ultimate song of opportunity.

The original song is a dark and moody “hip-hopera,” split into multiple parts, that details the eventful repercussions of a one-night stand. It’s an action-packed work that escalates over each of its 33 chapters.

“Al’s idea, and this is so, so, so conceptual, because there are almost no jokes in the song. What he did was take that structure, the music, that is kind of a slow drip, and changed it to a song where nothing happens,” said Rabin.

“Instead of cramming five seasons of a ‘General Hospital’ melodrama into one song, he made a song where the biggest action is that they forget some of the condiments at the drive thru. It is almost anti-humour, where it is just so dry and conceptual. But it also really, really funny without having any jokes, which is something that no one but Al can get away with.”

More fun with Al 

You can discover more about Weird Al Yankovic by watching “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” starring Daniel Radcliffe and ‎Evan Rachel Wood‎. The movie, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, in now streaming on Roku.

Nathan Rabin and Felipe Sobreiro’s “Weird A-Coloring to Al: Cynical Movie Cash-In Extended Edition,” a colouring book featuring the musician, is available now.

Giving cars the Weird Al Yankovic treatment

wh-Munsters-Hearse-Oct29

When it comes to the classic TV show “The Munsters,” to paraphrase an old saying, it is the car that makes the monster.

This spooky, silly sitcom – which ran for 70 episodes from September 1964 to May 1966 – saw Herman Munster, portrayed by Fred Gwynne, as the patriarch of an “average American family” who just happened to be made of monsters.

As the household’s wage earner, five days a week Herman would drove the family car to his job at the Gateman, Goodbury and Graves Funeral Home.

But this 380-pound, seven-foot-and-six-inch creation of Dr. Victor Frankenstein couldn’t drive just any car. It had to be a vehicle fitting of his frame and his stature. And that is exactly what he was given in the series’ fourth episode, when his wife Lily, played by Yvonne De Carlo, presented him with the Munster Koach.

“It’s so funny in that episode because they think Lily is going to announce for Herman’s birthday that she's having a baby,” said Thea Munster, a Hamilton-based horror fanatic, graveyard enthusiast, hearse driver and theremin player for the band Night Chill. “They get it mixed up because she's talking about a car. So that in itself is iconic because we all call cars our babies.

“Lily sees a dragster and thinks, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ and then she sees a hearse. The salesman says, ‘Oh, you don't want that car.’ But she does, and she has the two of them put together. In the show, it is customized by Lilly, and I love that it's her idea to make this for Herman.”

Lily may have created the auto on the show, but in real life it was legendary Hollywood customizer George Barris, who later also created the iconic TV Batmobile, who was contacted to bring the Koach to life.

“Barris Kustom Studios influenced tons of car designs,” said Jim Wojdyla, marketing director of the Volo Museum in Volo, Ill., which is home to authorized replicas of the Munster Koach and other TV and movie vehicles. “Barris was this larger-than-life character, and you can see that reflected in these vehicles. His cars are outlandish. They just stand out.”

“The cool thing about George Barris is that he could create anything,” said Munster. “He could customize anything. He would also use parts from the hardware store, like weird door knockers, things you wouldn’t even think of. The creativity is off the charts.”

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-172615" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wh-Munsters-Vehicles-Oct29-1-scaled.jpg" alt="The Munsters" width="2560" height="1799" />

Working from a drawing by car designer Tom Daniel, and built at a cost of $18,000, Barris and his team spent three weeks creating the 18-foot-long hot rod hearse from three Ford Model T bodies. The morbid mobile featured a gloss black pearl exterior paint job with gold leaf trim, gas side lanterns, spider web headlights, a skull radiator cap and hand-formed fenders, complimented by a Blood Red velvet coffin liner interior with fancy gold drapes and ermine fur rugs.

It was the perfect eerie auto for the Munster family, except for one thing. Herman’s large frame didn’t fit into the driver’s seat. Barris shop foreman Dick Dean remembers that they underestimated the size of Gwynne’s costume and, “he didn’t come in for a fitting.” To accommodate the actor, the bottom of front seat of the Koach had to be removed, allowing Gwynne to sit on the floor of the cab.

“That made sense to me,” said Munster, “because in all those vintage hot rod drawings, it’s always a big monster in a tiny car.”

The Koach’s 425-horsepower engine, backed by a four-speed transmission, packed a punch, but things didn’t go well when Herman agreed to enter it into a drag race in the episode “Hot Rod Herman.” It wasn’t fast enough and guest star Sandy Baylor, a professional racer, won the vehicle in a bet.

To win it back, Grandpa Munster, Lily’s vampire father played by Al Lewis, built his own race car, the Drag-U-La dragster, a gold coffin on wheels,  to beat Baylor and win back the family's Koach.

Because it was illegal to purchase a coffin without a death certificate in California in 1964, accounts vary as to where the casket, which makes up the vehicle’s chassis, was acquired. “Today we can go to Costco and buy a casket,” Munster said, “but then it was much more difficult.”

One story claims it came from a prop shop after having been used in the film "Some Like It Hot.” Others claim it was obtained legally in Mexico or an under-the-table purchase from a funeral home in North Hollywood. Wherever it came from, the coffin makes up the vehicle’s body.

The demon dragster was an eyecatcher. To drive the car, and pop one of Drag-U-La’s famous wheelies, Grandpa Munster sat in the back, under a plastic bubble dome. Antique lamps decorated the front and rear, the radiator was manufactured to resemble a small brass coffin and, instead of standard exhaust pipes, four gothic organ pipes were mounted on each side.

“This is the only dragster in America that can play the song 'Oh, Promise Me' in second gear,” Grandpa said on the show. A copy of the Drag-U-La  is also at the Volo Museum.

“It had no floor,” said Munster. “Al Lewis was completely terrified to drive it because they didn’t vent the exhaust properly and the exhaust actually shot back into the bubble dome. He was terrified he was going to die in that thing. It was really not made to be driven, whereas you could drive the Munster’s Koach.”

When asked which is her favorite car, Munster can’t decide. “I’m a huge hearse fan,” said Munster who has driven a 16-foot 1954 Pontiac hearse for 20 years. “But I can’t decide. Drag-U-La for a nice afternoon drive and then the Koach on a rainy, dark and stormy Halloween evening.”

These creepy rides helped bring ‘The Munsters’ to life on the small screen

Evel's Challenge

Years before extreme sports stars like Tony Hawke or pranksters like Johnny Knoxville pushed boundaries, there was Evel Knievel – a daredevil who blurred the line between stunt performer and entertainer.

A larger-than-life character, his ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps made him a superstar. Known for his fearlessness and flamboyance. He was like P.T. Barnum on a motorcycle.

“Even when he crashed, he would get back up,” said Mike Patterson, co-founders of the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas. “He made it seem like either he was superhuman, or it wasn't that dangerous, but I think, he was trying to show that he was superhuman. That was part of the whole gig.”

By the time he made his most-successful stunt, jumping over 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 25, 1975, the 37-year-old was already a pop culture legend.

“At that point his fame was right up there with maybe two other figures that had the same level of name recognition, Muhammad Ali and Elvis,” said Patterson.

Although, the led up to that stunt wasn’t all a smooth ride. A few months earlier, in May, Knievel crashed in front of 90,000 people at London’s Wembley Stadium when he attempted a jump over 13 single-deck AEC Merlin buses.

Broken and bloodied, he nonetheless stood and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country, I've got to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will ever see me jump. Because I will never, ever, ever jump again. I'm through."

But never say never.

“The Kings Island jump was only about six months after the Wembley crash,” said Patterson. “Kings Island did a Wallenda tightrope act the year before and they were trying to define themselves as a place that did these theme park events and promotions. Somebody got the idea of bringing in Evel, although he had retired.

“They called his manager who said, ‘Yeah, Evel didn't want to end on that note, and he wants to jump again. He's looking at doing something in San Francisco and trying to set a world record.’ So, they kind of went into sell mode and sold Evel on the fact that Kings Island would be the place to come out of retirement, do this jump and set the record.”

&nbsp;

<img class="size-full wp-image-172449" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wh-EvelKnievel-Evel-Oct22.jpg" alt="Evel Knievel" width="1517" height="2000" />

A reported 25,000 spectators showed up on the cold and rainy October afternoon to see Knievel attempt a jump bigger than anything he had attempted before. Millions tuned in from home for the exclusive coverage provided by ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” The resulting broadcast set a record for the show, with a 22.3 rating and 52 per cent share, equalling roughly half the television audience in the United States.

“You couldn't DVR it. That means everybody had to schedule their day, stop whatever they were doing, sit down in front of the TV and then wait till the end of the show, because it was never on at the beginning. They’d promo it through the whole thing and you’d have to wait until the end of the show to see it,” said Patterson.

Riding a Harley-Davidson XR-750, the showman left the starting ramp at 95 miles per hour to soar over 14 Greyhound buses, lined side to side, a distance of 133 feet (40.5 metres).

“By Kings Island he had crashed 19 times during his career,” said Patterson. “He did about 180 jumps, so that's a pretty good percentage, but still, it's 19 crashes that are brutal. So, he started doing a little practice and at Kings Island he would just keep adding a bus.”

Still, Knievel didn’t jump all 14 until the day of the event, Patterson said.

On October 25, Knievel speed on the ramp, jumped the buses, and clipped the 14th bus when he landed. While he snapped his bike’s fibreglass seat in half, he didn’t lose control.

“I don’t think there was much further that motorcycle could have jumped,” Patterson said. “He didn’t really know how to jump, relative to how guys do it now, he just did it. With technology, guys can now do a flip at that distance, but I know some of the guys that do these kinds of stunts today and they say, ‘I wouldn’t do it on that bike.’”

Technically, it wasn’t Knievel’s longest jump. That was his infamous leap over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. The difference? It was his longest successful jump. The Caesar’s jump left him with a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist, and both ankles, and a concussion that kept him in the hospital for 29 days.

While there would be other jumps, including a planned vault over a tank full of live sharks, but none matched the pure attention-grabbing razzamatazz of Knievel’s Kings Island record setter.

“I think most people within the culture of extreme sports consider him the inventor of extreme sports,” said Patterson about Knievel, who died in November 2007 at the age of 69.

“The guys that became relevant, the Tony Hawks, Travis Pastrana, Robbie Madison, the guys that became extreme sports athletes, X Games athletes, were inspired by Evel Knievel, and they would be the first to tell you that. He set the groundwork for all of that to what it is today. Not many people inspire a whole sport.”

From Robert to Evel

Evel Knievel, born Robert Knievel in 1938 Butte, Mont., always had a wild streak. He was constantly in trouble with the police for stealing hubcaps and once, at the tender age of 13, a Harley Davidson. The local cops nicknamed him Evil, which he modified to Evel. He later changed it to his legal name. “Evel Knievel made me $30 million,” the performer once said. “Bob Knievel never made me a dime.”

Motorcycle stunt legend Evel Knievel’s 14-bus jump to remember

Mustang Bullitt

In 1968, “Life” magazine called the eye-popping 10 minute and 53 second car chase scene in the movie “Bullitt” a “terrifying, deafening shocker.”

Strapped into a Highland Green-hued, four-speed 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback GT, and going at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour, Steve McQueen raced through the cinematic landscape (and the San Francisco area), changing it forever.

Today, that scene is generally considered to be the gold standard that all other celluloid car chases are measured against. In fact, director William Friedkin, whose wild car chase in “The French Connection” is also a masterclass in action filmmaking, told “Entertainment Weekly” that every time he saw the actor, McQueen would say, “Here comes the guy who made the second-best chase scene in movie history.”

In “Bullitt,” which was directed by Peter Yates, McQueen plays Frank Bullitt, a hard-boiled San Francisco police lieutenant based on Dave Toschi, a real-life member of the force who was the chief investigator in the Zodiac Killer case.

Bullitt is determined to locate the underworld kingpin who killed a syndicate witness that was in his protection. During his investigation, Bullitt finds himself being followed by two hitmen in a black 1968 four-speed Dodge Charger 440 R/T (driven by stuntman Bill Hickman). In the sequence, Bullitt dodges the assassins, speeds over the hilly, narrow streets of San Francisco, and then flips the script to chase the bad guys.

<img class="size-full wp-image-172073" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wh-BullittCar-Poster-Oct8.jpg" alt="Bullitt" width="551" height="746" />

Shot on real streets at real speeds, the cars careen through San Francisco, catching air, as a game of cat and mouse develops until the Dodge crashes, killing its occupants in a burst of flame. It is almost eleven minutes of pure adrenaline. Even today, in the “Fast and Furious” era of pedal-to-the-metal physics-defying car chases, the ferocious scene in “Bullitt” still impresses.

“There are several reasons the chase scene holds up,” said Kelsy Norman, the Calgary-based host of the “Speeding Bullitt: The Life and Films of Steve McQueen” podcast. “I think the biggest reason is that this chase scene is realistic and authentic. It was created without using camera tricks or overcomplicated stunts. Obviously, no CGI.”

The sequence took Yates three weeks to film and was pieced together from multiple takes. As a result, sharp-eyed viewers will notice the occasional continuity error. Damage is visible on Bullitt’s passenger side door before the crash that caused it, and the Charger loses five-wheel covers, and they seem to jump from wheel to wheel. Nonetheless, the Frank P. Keller won a film editing Oscar for his innovative work.

Shot from many angles and scored with live sounds of squealing tires and revving engines, the sequence has a propulsive energy, like watching a car race, only on a street.

“It was made up of all different types of shots,” said Norman, “like crane shots and shots from a cinematographer in the backseat of the car. They mounted cameras on one of the vehicles all around the car, so shots of the drivers were captured from the exterior, which I think helps capture the gritty realness of the pursuit. I think the way they filmed it shows the viewer what it would be like to experience that sort of pursuit without experiencing it firsthand.”

While the movie’s Mustang is now iconic, in 1968 the car was chosen because McQueen didn’t think Bullitt would drive a flashy car. To further emphasize the Mustang’s unglamorous appearance, he came up with the idea to put a big dent in the fender, to suggest the car had been bashed around and Bullitt, on a police officer’s salary, couldn’t afford to have it fixed.

Underneath the chassis, however, it was a different story. For the car to hold up to the demands of the film shoot, mechanics beefed up the suspension, retooled the engine and added an aftermarket high performance ignition system. Even so, by the time the chase sequence was finished shooting, McQueen said the car was disintegrating. “The Mustang was really just starting to fall apart,” he said.

“You can think of other movie cars, perhaps the car that James Bond uses in his in his movies, or the ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ or the cars from ‘Back to the Future,’” said Norman. “These are all famous movie cars, and the ‘Bullitt’ Mustang Fastback is right up there with them as the coolest of the cars. I think it's association with Steve McQueen, probably the coolest actor to ever live.

“There were two Mustangs used in the film and the last one that was available, sold at auction almost three years ago for 3.7 million (U.S.), which is pretty crazy for a Mustang that didn’t actually belong to Steve McQueen, that was driven by Steve McQueen.

“You have to have a look at ‘Bullitt’ to understand why. Not only is it his most popular movie, but it is also the film in which the Steve McQueen persona is at its apex. I mean, he doesn't get any more Steve McQueen – the rugged, silent, cool badass dude, than he does in ‘Bullitt.’”

Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” chase scene still remains the best of the best

Take,Out,Coffee,Cups,Inside,Car,Holder,Between,Seats,,Close

Fifteen years ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers did a survey where it asked what people looked for in a car. The number of cup holders toped the list of features – even beating fuel efficiency. While gas prices may trump it today; the cup holder is likely still an important selling point.

Take for instance the family-sized 2022 Subaru Ascent. It boasts up to 153.5 cubic feet of passenger space, with an astronomical 19 cup and bottle holders, to ensure “everyone’s beverage is secure and close at hand.”

Those are a lot of options for your Big Gulp soda, venti caramel crunch frappe or Tim Hortons’ double-double. It is convenient for thirsty drivers and passengers, but how did we get here?

In the early days of car design, cup holders were as important as, say, having a hammock in your kitchen. The 1920s Sears catalogue offered a cupholder attachment for the Model T, but it was designed to be used alongside other accessories, like an attachable kitchenette and a fold-out table. It was mean to be set up roadside when you needed a respite on a long journey.

Luxury brands like Rolls Royce offered picnic baskets as part of its add-ons, and the 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, one of crooner Frank Sinatra’s favorite rides, came with magnetized cups and a pull-out minibar in the glovebox. For practical – and legal – reasons the feature never caught on and was quickly discontinued.

In 1950s America, two events coincided to elevate the car cup holder from a theoretical to a useful piece of equipment in cars. The signing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the rise in popularity of drive-ins and drive-thru windows meant motorists were looking for a spill-free way to house their drinks.

While car manufacturers resisted installing cup holders, just as Sears offered up a variety of accessories for in-car convenience in the 1920s, entrepreneurs quickly made in-car snack trays that could be hung from the dashboard.

Inventors Jack Fazakerley of Los Angeles and Clyde W. Morgan of Dallas both patented prototypes of what would become the modern-day cup holder in 1953. Morgan’s The Refreshment Tray for Automobile Instrument Panel boasted two “wells to receive beverage bottles or the like and retain them in an upright position even during movement of the automobile.”

In 1955 Chevy introduced a cup holder, actually just two indentations on the back of the glove compartment door, that worked if the car was parked, but wobbled wildly when the vehicle was being driven. The 1960s and 1970s saw trays that hooked on to the window-well of vehicles, making in-car dining more convenient, but cup holders, as we know them today, didn’t materialize until 1983.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-171518" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/wh-CupHolder-Acsent-Sept17.jpg" alt="Cup Holders" width="876" height="508" />

It was in that year that Chrysler installed what the U.S. News and World Report called “crannies for drinking cups” in its Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager. Embedded into the plastic of the dashboard these cup holders were sturdy and provided a stable space to place two steaming hot coffees.

Even after success the “crannies” in the Caravan and Voyager, it would take a lawsuit by a 79-year-old woman named Stella Liebeck to make car manufacturers take cup holders seriously.

On Feb. 27, 1992, the British-born Liebeck, who was living in Albuquerque, N.M., was driving with her grandson in a cup holder-less 1989 Ford Probe. The pair stopped at a McDonald's drive-through window so Liebeck could order a 49-cent cup of coffee.

In the parked car, she balanced the hot coffee between her knees to add cream and sugar. As she removed the lid, the drink tipped, spilling its hot contents on her lap. As a result, she was hospitalized and underwent eight days of skin graft treatments for third-degree burns. Left with a permanent disfiguration, Liebeck sued McDonald’s and eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

The case was front page news, inspired jokes on late night television and even a documentary called “Hot Coffee.” It is also said to be the final push car manufacturers needed to make cup holders a standard part of vehicle design.

Since then, multiple cup holders have become de rigor. Even the sleek Lamborghini Huracan, which can hit speeds up to 201 miles per hour, has a hidden cup holder on the passenger side dashboard.

There are many reasons why cup holders are now standard. They offer convenience and safety for people who spend a great deal of time in their car, and new designs, like a gyroscopic cup holder that will keep your drink level, pop up every year to accommodate the various sizes and shapes of drink.

But are we, as the Wall Street Journal suggested, “approaching peak cupholder?” The answer, it would seem, is no.

Consumers want them, and the French-born scholar and marketer G. Clotaire Rapaille thinks he knows why. He said the warm drinks we enjoy as we drive are a replacement for mother’s milk and make us feel safer. “What was the key element of safety when you were a child?” he said. “It was that your mother fed you, and there was warm liquid. That’s why cupholders are absolutely crucial.”

A short history of the cup holder

Sons of Anarchy.JPG

Forty-five years ago, “CHiPs,” the long-running television series starring actors Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox as California Highway Patrol officers, made motorcycles family friendly.

For decades, movies like “The Wild One,” the 1953 Marlon Brando film about bikers who terrorize a small town after one of their leaders is thrown in jail, gave motorcycles an unruly reputation in mainstream culture. Suddenly, motorcycles were synonymous with the outlaw spirit and rebellion.

In the film’s most famous exchange, a local woman asks Brando’s gang leader, “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?”

“What do you got?” he snorts in reply.

The leather-jacketed, lawless vibe established by “The Wild One” dominated biker movies for decades. The poster for 1969’s “Run Angel, Run,” for instance, screamed “raw and violent” in words larger than the film’s title.

Then, on September 15, 1977, the anarchy epitomized by “The Wild Ones” gave way to “CHiPs,” a feel-good crime drama about two motorcycle riding Los Angeles patrol officers. The good-natured antics of the show’s main characters, Frank (Ponch) Poncherello and Jon Baker, were front and center, but for many viewers the real stars were the motorcycles.

<img class="size-full wp-image-171286" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/wh-MotorcycleTV-Chips-Sept10-scaled.jpg" alt="Motorcycle TV" width="2051" height="2560" />

Ponch and Jon rode a Kawasaki Z1-P and a KZ900-C2 in Seasons 1 and 2, and a KZ1000-C1 starting in Season 3, as they cruised Los Angeles’ freeways solving crimes and rescuing people in trouble. The smiling Estrada’s popularity and advice on how to look good on a cycle – “Sit up straight, don’t slouch and smile” – was the exact opposite of the rebelliousness in “The Wild Bunch.”

“These ‘chippies’ never draw their guns,” the Hollywood Reported wrote about the TV show. “They let their bikes do the talking instead.”

Since “Chips” debuted in 1977, motorcycles – ridden by heroes, antiheroes and villains – have rumbled their way into movies and television shows like, “a burst of dirty thunder,” as Hunter S. Thompson wrote in his book “Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.”

One of the grittier portrayals of biker life in recent years appears in “Sons of Anarchy,” the adrenaline-charged TV series starring Ron Perlman as the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club based in Charming, Calif.

<img class="size-full wp-image-171285" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/wh-MotorcycleTV-Purple-Sept10.jpg" alt="Motorcycle TV" width="1020" height="1440" />

The members of SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) drive Harleys. There is the 1946 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead, customized for the show using bike parts from 1946 to 1951, and the 2006 Harley Davidson Dayna Street Bob, a true outlaw bike that is stripped of any piece not required by law, like a passenger seat.

Despite admitting that, “Bikes don’t like me and it’s mutual,” Perlman rode the coolest bike on the show. His massive 2008 Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide was an extension of Perlman’s character: big, bold and intimidating.

Musician Prince had a hit with his song “Little Red Corvette,” but it was another vehicle that provided to be his most iconic moment. Loosely based on his own life, the 1984 film “Purple Rain” told the story of an up-and-coming musician balancing life, love and a career on the streets of Minneapolis.

[caption id="attachment_171284" align="aligncenter" width="1566"]<img class="size-full wp-image-171284" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/wh-MotorcycleTV-Wild-Sept10.jpg" alt="Motorcycle TV" width="1566" height="1800" /> 1. Vanity Fair 2. Pleasantville 3. The Wild One (Marlon Brando)4. Scream (Drew Barrymore)[/caption]

Shot on the backlot of Warner Bros. Studios, where a set was dressed to look like a gritty back alley, the movie poster shows Prince shrouded in smoke and perched atop a purple 1981 Hondamatic Honda CM400A motorcycle (its 30-inch seat height modified to fit the musician’s five-foot two-inch frame), as love interest Apollonia watches over him. The image was also used on the accompanying album cover and later on the home video and DVD covers.

The motorcycle featured spoked wheels and pink velour inserts, custom fairing, handlebars and seats, was embossed in red and included an early version of the singer’s unpronounceable love symbol, a combination of the male and female glyphs. New York Times critic Vincent Canby thought the photo summed up the film’s plot perfectly. “(It’s) probably the flashiest album cover ever to be released as a movie,” he wrote.

Motorcycles also feature heavily in “The Matrix” movie franchise. In the first film, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity rides a Triumph Speed Triple when she sees Agent Smith kidnap Neo, the hero played by Keanu Reeves.

Harley Davidsons appeared in the third film in the series, “The Matrix Revolutions,” and a Ducati Panigale Streetfighter is put through its paces in the most recent film, 2021’s “The Matrix Resurrections.” The franchise’s most spectacular motorcycle sequence, however, is the centerpiece of the second film, “The Matrix Reloaded.”

Using a mix of live action stunt driving and CGI, its freeway chase sequence features Trinity on a sleek Ducati 996 as she jumps from the back of a carrier truck, careens through heavy traffic, avoids being crushed against a cement barrier and attempts to rescue a character known as the Keymaker.

Moss, who shared the driving duties with a host of stunt performers, said operating the bike with a passenger on the back was nerve-racking. “I knew that if I allowed my mind one moment of doubt,” she told Entertainment Weekly, “that I could hurt another human being.”

In the end, it doesn’t matter who – the good, the bad or even a Matrix escapee – popular cultural decides to have riding a motorcycle. As “CHiPs” star Estrada once said, “There's only two kinds of motorcycle riders. Those who have been down and those who are going down.”

Revving into popular culture: How motorcycles became mainstream

wh-Transfomers-Main-Aug20

Brian Flinn and his fiancée are currently looking to buy a new house in Vienna, W.Va. Like most house hunters, they have some very specific wants and needs. Top of their list? A space for Flinn’s collection of Transformers.

“We need a basement or a separate building to house them,” said Flinn. “My fiancée, she doesn't collect them, but she’s very supportive. When you find somebody like that, you don't want to let them go. I'm not getting any younger, and I don't think I'll find somebody that goes, ‘Oh, yes, I love Transformers. I love your passion.’”

First introduced by Japanese toy company Takara Tomy under the names Micro Change and Diaclone in 1984, Transformers – thanks to a collaboration with Hasbro – were instantly popular. With a few turns and twists the robots could be transformed (hence their name) into vehicles such as a tractor trailer, Datsun Fairlady 280ZX and Lamborghini Countach.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-171002" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/wh-Transfomers-Room-Aug20.jpeg" alt="Transformers" width="2048" height="1536" />

Along with the toys, there was the cartoon series, which provided the backstory about Optimus Prime, the leader of the friendly alien robots known as the Autobots, and their archenemies the Decepticons, led by the villainous Megatron.

The franchise also featured animated movies, comic books, video games and – starting in 2007 – a live-action movie series, the first five of which were directed by Michael Bay.

Flinn was nine years old when he first spotted Transformers on a shelf at his local Sears store in West Virginia. “I saw Optimus Prime in the box, in all its glory,” he said. “It started the craze and started my addiction.”

While he didn’t have a lot of Transformers to play with when he was growing up, Flinn now has a collection of approximately 5000 of the shape changers. “It’s an insane amount,” said the 47-year-old.

A dentist in Yarmouth, Maine, Kevin Lukis displays his massive collection in what he calls his “wacky Transformers room.” He is a lifelong fan of the toys and also operates Unicron.com, a Transformers collector site. The 49-year-old said stockpiling Transformers is a family affair.

“I have two younger brothers and, even though we were a fair number of years apart, our mom bought each of us the toys,” said Lukis.

“Since then, it’s just something we’ve shared through the years, even in adulthood and living in different parts of the world and the country. It just brings us together. There were other, similar toys that were kind of cool, but they didn’t hit the mark like Transformers,” he said.

Like Flinn, Lukis has amassed a huge collection, but he’s cagey when asked how many he has. “This will give you a slight glimpse into the complexity of what it means to answer that question,” he said. “In 1985, they released the first set where there were six characters, the Constructicons, that would then unite into a single big robot. How do you want to count that?

“They sold the characters individually and they also sold a separate pack where it was all of them together,” Lukis said. “Does it matter if you bought them all at once? I would say no. But do you count each individual personality? There’s six of them, but they all combine into one. That gets a little fuzzier.”

Lukis said Transformers fans collect them for several reasons, ranging from pleasure to loyalty and nostalgia.

&nbsp;

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-171009" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/wh-Transfomers-Optimus-Aug20-2.jpg" alt="Optimus Prime" width="1268" height="951" />

&nbsp;

“Probably the simplest answer is that I maintain a great appreciation for the artistry,” said Lukis. “How many times do you think you can take something that is a flat square, like a car shape, and turn it into a humanoid thing? You think you’d get bored with that. How many variations can there be? The truth is, it’s endless.

“I’m not bored with it. The engineering that goes into them, to make it go from one thing to another, was always a source of wonder for me as a kid – and it remains so to this day. When I was a kid, it was a lot more basic and just that you could do it was cool. As you get older, they get more and more complicated. It never ceases to amaze me.”

Flinn has taken his passion for Transformers one step further than simply collecting them. “When I tell people that my kids are named after Transformers, they don't believe me,” he said.

“Everybody has trouble thinking of names for their kids, but when we found out we were having a daughter, I said to my wife, ‘I'll make you a deal. You can name our daughter anything you want as long as the initials are R.C.’

“I said, ‘There's a female transformer that was introduced in the 1986 movie. Her name was spelled Arcee.’ She said, ‘Okay, you actually thought about this,’ and came back with Regan Cadence. I thought, ‘Well, that’s perfect. I’m getting my initials. She’s getting the name.’”

Roughly a year later, they found out they were going to have a baby boy. “She looked at me and she said, ‘You are not naming him Optimus Prime,’” said Flinn.  “As cool as that would be, I said, ‘No, I actually have a name for him already picked out; Orion Pax.’”

For the uninitiated, Orion Pax was a dockworker who worked on the Transformer’s home planet of Cybertron. Admired for his stronghearted nature, he was deceived by the Decepticons who severely injured and nearly destroyed him. When he was rebuilt, he emerged as Optimus Prime.

Flinn’s partner agreed to the name. “If I have to prove that I named my kids after Transformers, I show their birth certificates,” he said.

Not just toys: Transformers are collected for their artistry and design

wh-InspectorGadget-Car1-Aug20

Where would we be without Saturday morning cartoons? They entertained us, helping to pass the time on weekends, and, if that wasn’t enough, often ignited our imaginations with a glimpse into the future.

“Star Trek: The Animated Series,” for example, forecast Federation Credit, an electronic form of currency similar to Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Almost 60 years ago, “The Jetsons” introduced viewers to a futuristic videophone that looks similar to today’s Zoom or FaceTime.

“Animation has always had the potential to do things that would be a lot harder, and take a much bigger budget, to do with live action,” said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of TV, radio and film.

“With animation all you have to be able to do is draw it. With live action, you actually have to be able to make it, and make it look like it is actually functioning. Animation is one of the richer places where you are able to do all that stuff.”

Universal currencies and videophones are only two examples from the world of animation that started as the stuff of science fiction but is now part of everyday use.

“The culture one grows up with becomes part of the stuff that’s in your head,” said Thompson about the influence of cartoons on technology. “If you go on to become a tech developer or whatever, that’s part of what you draw on.”

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-170843" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/wh-InspectorGadget-Car2-Aug20.jpg" alt="Inspector Gadget" width="848" height="423" />

In the realm of future technology predictions about cars, an unlikely animated series looms large, “Inspector Gadget.”

The cartoon, which debuted on television in late 1982, introduced viewers to a bumbling cyborg police inspector (voiced by “Get Smart” star Don Adams) fighting crime using a series of outrageous gizmos, including the Gadgetmobile, a transforming car with a mind of its own.

“The Gadgetmobile was a hybrid, but hybrid meant something very different from what it means now,” said Thompson. Rather than a vehicle that ran on gas and electricity, “It was a hybrid in that it could be different kinds of vehicles.”

The original animated Gadgetmobile, which premiered 40 decades ago, was a boxy minivan, reminiscent of a 1980s Toyota TownAce, that could transform into a police car that resembled a Lotus Esprit S2 or Toyota Celica Supra P-Type.

With a shout of “go-go Gadgetmobile,” Inspector Gadget would summon his police car to do battle against the evil work of M.A.D., an acronym for “Mean and Dirty.”

Among the Gadgetmobile’s cool features were the ability to disperse hilarious gas to make the baddies laugh uncontrollably, and a battering ram and glue rockets that fired out the police car’s hatchback. Neither have become common in the real world of automobiles, but several of the vehicle’s other abilities have.

For instance, in the episode “Art Heist,” Inspector Gadget and Penny, his niece and the real brains behind their investigations, arrive in Manhattan to prevent a robbery at the Museum of Modern Art. But art thieves aren’t the only enemies they need to battle, they also need to deal with New York City traffic and tight parking.

It is a problem until Gadget orders “go-go gadget car” and the vehicle raises itself on extended, stilt-like legs to driver over the traffic. When it finds a parking spot, the car’s wheels turn 90 degrees, allowing it to roll sideways into the space.  In the real world, automated parking wouldn’t be available until the Lexus LS 460 sedan was unveiled at the Detroit International Auto Show in the mid-2000s and included a self-parking feature.

GPS mapping became consumer ready in 1994 but was predicted nine years earlier during the cartoon’s first season. In the “Monster Lake” episode, Gadget and Penny make use of GPS while on assignment in Scotland. Later in the same season, the device is used to track down Gadget when he goes missing in “A Star is Lost.”

When “Inspector Gadget” made the leap from animated show to a live-action movie in 1999, changes were made to the vehicle. Designed by Brenda Bradford, the big screen Gadgetmobile was built by modifying a customized, white and chrome 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible.

The movie mobile couldn’t morph like its cartoon version, but it had the ability to speak. Voiced by stand-up comedian D.L. Hughley, it was now a lively conversationalist. “This car has only got two speeds,” it advises during the movie. “’Fast’ and ‘WOW! What was that?’”

While talking cars are nothing new in entertainment, “Speed Buggy” and “My Mother the Car” featured verbal automobiles, the new Gadgetmobile could also drive itself. This was two decades before Roborace’s Robocar broke the Guinness World Record as the fastest autonomous car on earth, reaching 282.42 kilometres per hour, in Yorkshire, England, in 2019.

“That was technology’s solution to having your own personal chauffeur,” said Thompson about the 1999 movie version. He said that no matter how cool these cartoon innovations are, many of the ideas weren’t so much futuristic as they were obvious.

“I think we should tread lightly on the idea that the technologies we see in ‘Inspector Gadget’ and ‘The Jetsons’ wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” Thompson said. “The reasons those things show up in these pop culture places in the first place was because they were such obvious ideas.

“They were aspirational ideas of, ’Wouldn’t it be cool if our technology would allow us to not only talk on the phone but have pictures as well?’ And because they were writing fiction, the creators could make this stuff exist, and it just took a while before technology caught up.”

From animation to reality: ‘Inspector Gadget’ featured a cool vehicle that gave us a look into the future

AMBULANCE

To make ourselves feel better during the pandemic, we leaned into old favorites. We binge watched “Seinfeld” and “Fraser,” listened to classic rock and reread our favorite books. Those creature comforts made us feel better and helped pass those pandemic hours.

And while that pop culture equivalent of comfort food was good at the time, you can’t eat the same thing every day. With that in mind, we have suggestions for a car-themed TV show, book, movie, podcast and documentary to whet your appetite for something different.

If you like “Baby Driver”

Try “Ambulance”

Edgar Wright’s exhilarating “Baby Driver” is a wild ride, fueled by a tank full of adrenaline, that is worthy of multiple viewings. If you’re looking for another movie to provide that same kind of amped-up action, check out Michael Bay’s “Ambulance.”

Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II play stepbrothers Danny and Will who, after a heist gone wrong, attempt to outrun the police through the streets of Los Angeles in a hijacked ambulance. If “Ambulance” was music, it would be a solo by neoclassical-meets-heavy metal Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen; fast and heavy, it bowls you over with technical skill.

The movie is all forward momentum, with pedal to the metal speed and editing so fast it is like Bay had his finger on the fast-forward button the entire time he was in post-production. But it’s not all “Bayhem.” Bay does milk the excitement with his getaway scenes, but he also focuses on the interesting family dynamic between Danny and Will.

If you like “Christine”

Try “Rivers of London Vol. 1: Body Work” 

Stephen King’s 1983 novel “Christine” was once described as “The Exorcist” meets “My Mother, The Car.” This story of a jealous, homicidal auto is the perfect popcorn read for lovers of the killer car genre. If your copy of the book is too dogeared to read again, pick up the graphic novel “Rivers of London Vol. 1: Body Work” by Ben Aaronovitch instead.

Set in a world that mixes and matches Harry Potter-style wizardry with the police procedural drama of shows like “Criminal Minds,” it puts a new spin on the genre. A detective constable with the London Metropolitan Police – as well as an apprentice wizard – Peter Grant is called upon to investigate a driverless BMW on a killing spree. This story of the most-haunted car in England has it all; great characters, cool artwork and, best of all, a four-on-the-floor take on eerie autos.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-170506" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/wh-WhatWatch-Dale2-Aug6.jpg" alt="What to Whatch" width="2048" height="1620" />

If you like “Car Stuff”

Try “Past Gas!”

From affordable garage updates to the letter outlaws Bonnie and Clyde allegedly wrote to automaker Henry Ford thanking him for his fast, reliable getaway cars, the popular podcast “Car Stuff” is a fun mix of practical advice and storytelling. If you want to listen to something similar, but with a twist, try the “Past Gas!” podcast.

Like its title suggests, this is a funny look at some of the wildest stories from automotive history. Hosts James Pumphrey, Nolan Sykes and Joe Weber go inside Japanese racing clubs, ask if the Yugo is the worst car ever made, and find out why 1973 was the annus horribilis – horrible year – of car design. Each podcast episode features well researched, long form storytelling with a fresh and funny edge.

If you like “Jay Leno’s Garage”

Try “Car Masters: From Rust to Riches”

Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno brings together humour, big celebrities and deep car knowledge to his long-running show “Jay Leno’s Garage.” Since 2015, Leno has ridden motorcycles with Keanu Reeves, played superhero for a day in the Batmobile and taught Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten how to drive. But with no new episodes planned for 2022, check out “Car Masters: From Rust to Riches” instead.

A Netflix car restoration series based out of Temecula, Calif.’s Gotham Garage, the show is a mix of entertaining characters, souped-up hot rods and unusual challenges, like season one’s construction of a life-sized working model of the Hot Wheels Splittin' Image car. (The car has two side-by-side cockpits.)

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-170507" src="https://wordpress.wheels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/wh-WhatWatch-Dale1-Aug6.jpg" alt="What to Watch" width="1920" height="1080" />

Mixing reality television-style drama with outlandish car rebuilds, “Car Masters” may not have the street cred of other restoration shows but it is still one of the most entertaining series on four wheels.

If you like “Framing John DeLorean”

Try ”The Lady and the Dale”

Everybody loves a good true crime documentary or docuseries, and car lovers are no different. “Framing John DeLorean,” a documentary full of re-enactments, delves into the business life of the legendary carman, who is part cutthroat criminal and part innovative genius. (He is also the creator of the car that rose to fame thanks to its role in “Back to the Future.”)

It’s a wild story that can easily sit on the shelf next to the four-part HBO docuseries “The Lady and the Dale,” streaming on Crave. It tells the larger-than-life story of automobile executive and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Carmichael and contains all the twists and turns a true crime fan hopes for.

During the 1970s fuel crisis in the United States, Carmichael came up with a viable and cheap alternative to gas-guzzling cars being produced by Detroit. Her fuel-efficient, three-wheeled vehicle called the Dale attracted investors, carmakers and eager customers. Its success also piqued the interest of a TV news team, an investigation by the California Corporation Commission and the emergence of surprising revelations about Carmichael’s past.

It’s a little known, edge-of-your-seat story that touches on subjects still relevant today.

Richard Crouse

Articles by Richard Crouse