The Finest of Austria

Longer ago than I care to remember, I was given a 1978 Puch Newport moped (say “Pook”). I said I don’t care to remember because like a lot of things in my life, it became a project “I will get to someday” … (Let me apologize in advance to whoever it is that administers my estate sale). It chased me through a couple of garages yet somehow always found its way to the back, where it would sit and sulk, gathering more patina.

About the time the eldest son was starting to drive, he thought the poor-man’s motorcycle would be cool to have running. He saw it as a bicycle, but faster. He and I both have fond recollection of beating the corroded carburetor apart and trying to sort-out the rest of the fuel system, all in 100-degree heat while being chomped on by mosquitos (they were THICK, like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie). We did get it to sputter and cough on starting fluid, but the 40-year-old Bing carburetor wasn’t drawing fuel, so we couldn’t keep it running.

It languished once more, going back to the rear of the garage to gather more rust, until 3-years later the same kid bought a 25-year-old Lexus LS-400. Antique Lexi have things going for them (remarkably tough), but fuel economy didn’t appear to be one of them. He pulled out the Puch and got busy ordering tires and other parts. I remember coming home and seeing him in the driveway wrestling a new carburetor onto it. He pulled me in on the job, and after some massaging and more starting fluid we managed to get it to running, but it sputtered and coughed like it had COPD. We persisted and eventually got it dialed-in, it was running pretty well and making more power all the time. But it didn’t take the progeny long to realize that we were messing with a 25MPH machine, so he rapidly lost interest and having money saved up, bought a Honda Ruckus.

So, yours truly now had a decent running, complete but ugly 1978 Puch Newport moped. I continue to piddle with it every so often, trying to improve its performance and dependability. It will now bury the 30 MPH speedometer if the wind is out of the right direction, and seems to start with ease. And in my Puching around I’ve remembered what drew me to motorcycles in my late teens; the feel of the air rushing over you, making even hot days feel cool, and the immediacy of the road in front of you.

It’s dependable enough now that I routinely use it for running errands. It has the stylin’ book-rack thingy with the spring-clip on back, so picking up a few sundries at the grocery store is a realistic endeavor. Since it’s resurrection I believe I’ve put about 180 miles on it, and this with a mere 1-1/3 gallon of gas. So yes, internal combustion vehicles can get over 100 MPG (over 120 even!). And it’s also cool not having to hunt and fight for a parking space in our local shopping district. I just ride straight up to the bike rack and jump off. Bonus: in this state, actual Mopeds don’t require registration or a motorcycle license, but are simply a “motorized bicycle”. Yes, it is.

Crude, simple, effective and economical. I’d never ridden one before, but I can see now why these things swarmed all over Europe after WWII, all over domestic college campuses after the oil-embargo in the early 70’s and all over SE Asian countries (Laos, Cambodia, etc.) yet today.

Your basic ‘get’er-done vehicle. If your needs are simple, what’s not to like?      

© 2017 D.W. Williams 

The Little Carmaker that Lost its Way?

I remember thumbing my way through car magazines back when automotive technology first pricked my interest in the late 60’s and early 70’s (yes Lucy, I really am that old!). Then the truth was often more, uhmm, subjective. Once upon a time, product liability lawsuits were only a gleam in mercenary lawyer’s eyes, and there was often more poetry, opinion and yes, even outright fabrication in the stories that went into print. Cars were an emotional purchase for your average American. Many people, then as now, bought vehicles based on the vague promise of gratified need, not cold hard facts and research.

Some marketing used comedy. Volkswagen comes to mind when they introduced automatics in the revered type-1 Beetle; “They used to call us ugly. Now they call us shiftless” the copy read.

Others touted superior roadholding by virtue of preposterous dimensions, such as the infamous “Wide-track Pontiac”. Today we find the promise of good handling being connected to a 2½ ton automobile with its own zip code laughable.

But probably one of the more counter-intuitive campaigns devised was whatever it was the Madison Avenue elite dreamed up for Volvo. No fluff, no humor, no flowery language, just the facts.

You see Volvo had established itself in the North Americas in progressive fashion starting in 1955 with import of the adorable little PV444 (look it up, sort of a tiny 1947 Ford looking thing). Volvos then, and over the next 2-3 decades, were seldom “exciting”, but they were as dependable as dirt and developed a reputation as a superior foul-weather friend. By the late 1960’s Volvo had introduced their shoebox looking 140 series, perhaps the car most associated with the marque (along with the very similar 240 series, an updated version of the same).

With this shoebox Volvo, engineers realized, and admen concurred, that its brutish simplicity combined with solid build quality and dogged dependability had another benefit; safety. And so from the early 1970’s up through the mid 1990’s, the car that the magazine writers dubbed the “Swedish Chevrolet” became the car of choice for the conservative family-man. Volvos had a track record and ad campaigns extoling safety, not style, as a virtue. So a whole generation was brought up with boxy Volvos (loaded down with kids, groceries and harried parents) being as ubiquitous as crossover SUV’s are now.

Flash forward to now. I was looking through a fleet trade-rag the other day and came upon an article about Volvo’s brave entry into connected motoring. Like peer systems in so many product lines it offers auto synchronization with your phone, Bluetooth connectivity and a screen based navigation system, but it one-ups the competition from there because Volvo has added “Skype for Business”. In addition to the typically stupid amount of connectivity cars already have, Volvos can now be ordered with a webcam so that the person (people) on the other end of the call can see you as well as hear you. Not only can you telecommute while you are commuting, but you can attend your board meeting via videoconference while driving to another meeting across town. Volvo says this is in anticipation of autonomous cars. Fair enough, but cars aren’t autonomous yet.

I don’t know your opinion, but the thought of someone swerving around in traffic while they piddle around with adjustments on the center console so they can Skype with their best angle on the big-screen makes me uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s someone else using the built in camera to locate food stuck in their teeth while going down the road. Do we really need more possibilities for distraction in this day of technology? And no Lucy, there are no interlocks that prevent the usage of this feature while you are rolling.

So what are we saying here? This manufacturer that has built its safety reputation on decades of conscientious engineering and practical performance is now trash-canning all that momentum? Certainly this technology “could” be feasible with autonomous cars, but shouldn’t it have waited for those cars to be autonomous? Up next on YouTube: Automotive death-videos?

I really, really don’t want the last footage of me showing the fear in my eyes as I mouth “Oh $h&*” and drive up under a semi, followed by a black screen.   

© 2017 D.W. Williams