“Even among ski racers, downhillers are a breed apart. Regardless of gender, downhill specialists are typically the swaggering alphas of the sport. The fighter pilots. The emergency room surgeons. Full of confidence and wearing their courage on their sleeves, as much a way of convincing themselves as others that they belong out there on the ragged edge. These are the men and women who put it all on the line, every event, nine or ten times a year, fully understanding that the winner is often the one who takes the most risk, and technical precision can be, and sometimes is, trumped by a willingness to put themselves and their bodies into situations from which they might not be able to retreat…”
“Mine were layered, red white and blue, and I lived in the things. Wayne Wong, hotdogger extraordinaire, was as famous for his all-white versions as he was for his shit-eating grin and “Wong Bangers.” Surfers loved them too, as did mountaineers, because the same full coverage anti-glare design works as well on the beach or base camps as it did in the powder. Yeah, baby. If you were into outdoor adventure, speed and thrills back in the day, these shades pretty much ruled the roost…”
We’ve lately been decidedly uptempo with the tunes around the shop. I mean, there are some more relaxed cuts in here, don’t get me wrong, and this one starts off pretty mellow, but as the season has worn on, more often than not we’ve been kickin’ out the jams to blow the blues away…
“There is nothing flashy about the Vostok Amphibia. Nothing fancy. Nothing luxurious. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s a chunk of relatively crudely finished Soviet-era design, utterly devoid of pretense and which cost me about eighty bucks. But it’s also a watch which has wormed its way into my heart, and the hearts of myriad other devotees around the globe, and has established itself as a cult classic - an icon of rugged simplicity - and a triumph of functionality over frivolity. Bill Murray’s character ‘Steve Zissou’ wore an Amphibia in the movie ‘The Life Aquatic,’ and it was a perfect fit for that quirky Wes Anderson classic. The fact that it can be replaced for less than it costs to take my family out to lunch is irrelevant, because the Amphibia can shrug off an unholy beating on sea or land, from the sandy shores of the Mediterranean to the rocky mountain peaks towering above, and it doesn’t need to be replaced. Or repaired. Or even serviced.…”
“Paint says a lot about a car. It says a lot about the owner, as well. From the chrome-orange Lamborghini parked in front of the nightclub to the murdered out Defender 110 5-door to the hand-flamed T-bucket hot rod, a choice of color speaks pretty clearly to the world what you’re about. It showcases what drives you every bit as much as it showcases what you drive…”
“We’ve been shaking off the cobwebs here in the Den of Adventure, and as the vaccine effort continues to propagate around the globe things are decidedly looking UP. And that hope, that passionate desire to return to normal, has had us kickin’ out the fun-loving sounds of Spring a little early around here. What have we been listening to? Pull up a stool, grab a cold one and enjoy…”
“Coming of age in Virginia in the 1980’s, I had a contrarian streak. I watched European soccer, not American football. I had posters on my walls of Lancias and Porsche 908’s and Barbro Peterson, not Corvettes and Malibus and Farrah Fawcett. While all my friends built muscle cars and street raced on makeshift quarter miles, I built MG’s and Alfa Romeos and street raced on the twistiest roads I could find…”
Technology is great, isn’t it? There is something pretty spoiling about, say… walking around with the entire collected knowledge of all humankind in your pocket. That’s big. But of all the wonderful technology in our lives, maybe my favorite is the new car “configurator.” I configure the hell out of some cars, believe you me. I configure… a LOT of cars…
Why do we buy these cars? Series Land Rovers, Defenders, Range Rover Classics, old G-wagens, Land Cruisers, Jeeps, etc. Why do we own them and drive them in the first place? Why do we want one? Is it because they make total sense as vehicles? No. Is it because they are impossibly reliable? Nope. Is it because they provide a painless and flexible ownership experience? No. Dirt cheap? No. Efficient? No. Comfortable and refined? No. Better than a Toyota Tacoma in off-road conditions? No.
… the car is way too expensive, way too complex, doesn’t work correctly for more than five minutes at a time, and most importantly, probably never will. It is not a “car” at all - it is a black hole of hubris and reckless overreach, all in the name of answering a question no sober person would ever ask. Which brings me to my main point…
The “bumperless” sculpted nose and tail are entirely normal now, but they weren’t normal back then, and the styling was exotic as all hell. The laid-back pop-up headlamps had only been seen before on Gandini’s magnificent Lamborghini Miura, and the punchy V8 engine and dog-leg 5-speed manual gearbox (it’s largely a myth that the available automatic was the overwhelming choice of buyers in the early years) with the latter sitting in the rear for near perfect weight distribution, clearly put a bigger premium on performance than opulence. It was beautifully trimmed inside, with air conditioning and leather, but the car is lower, louder, and vastly more sinister than it tends to get credit for…
Come on. How old are we? Seven? Because if we’re all seven years old, then current automotive design trends make perfect sense. But I don’t think we’re all seven years old. What is going on these days? I know this is just a render, but just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should, and besides, ridiculousness is not confined to the world of digital renders. It exists in the steel and aluminum and plastics of honest-to-goodness production vehicles, too.
