I can't have nice things

And welcome to the New Goddamn Year.

I've not had the best of luck with the Batmobile. I'd wanted an Esperante for years, so when a low-mile one came available a few years back, we jumped on the chance. But it had a few small issues that were a bear to deal with. Because of the extreme heat of the desert, there was some warping of the interior door panels, some of the dashboard trim was curled, and the trunk lid upholstery was loose. Then there were the low-profile tires and deep dish wheels the original owner had put on the car that sapped it of some of its incredible control.

We worked through the dealer from which we'd bought it to resolve some of the trim issues, but their solutions all involved copious amounts of glue. (No, I'm not kidding.)

Finally giving up on the d-bags who'd sold it to us, we moved on. The first real problem was due to those stupid low-profile tires. The wheels were too big so the front tires ended up shredding regularly. We replaced them a couple of times before we finally got around to putting on new, appropriate wheels. (Panoz is now considering using these wheels as their stock ones; they're very slick.) Finally, the car felt like the high performance GT coupe it is instead of my in-laws boat of a Buick. Tight, good control at speed, and closer to its ridiculous skid pad rating.

Some problems with the top still nagged, however. Having gone through top nightmares with the Boxster, every time the Batmobile's top gave me agita I got homicidal. I still remember the perfect, never-fail manual top on my first convertible (a Geo Metro...keep your snickers to yourself) and can't understand why people think slower automatic tops are preferable. It got fixed, but never felt quite right to me. And there were some other small niggling issues as well.

We talked with Panoz and they said they liked to get the cars back to the factory every few years anyway, to do upgrades and give the cars some TLC. Mine's a daily driver, not a show car, and that makes them happy, so we shipped her back to Georgia last August. And waited. And waited some more.

First, there was some miscommunication. Then there was just...Panoz. They build a nice car, but they're not the speediest operation in the world.

The car got back to AZ last Friday, January 2nd.

All the nagging issues were fixed, and Panoz had used the time wisely. They needed to come up with materials and solutions that would work in the extreme heat of AZ, so the car spent a lot of time baking in the garage overnight. They did a great job. My door panels - a cosmetic issue I had never even complained about - were replaced with tight, perfect fitting ones. The dash trim was swapped out for some new suede that looks fantastic. The electrical problems seem resolved. And the car drove even tighter. Like a dream.

I got in her yesterday afternoon to go home and decided it was just warm enough to put the top down and see how it's working. It seemed to be sitting a little high and I was thinking about that as I backed out of my spot in the garage.

Did I mention this is the longest car I've ever owned? And the cab is pushed well back, giving me a whole lot of car in front of me? Oh, and for the last five months I've been driving the Mini and the Xterra and they're both cab-forward with short turning radii?

See, there was this pole I'd parked next to, about two inches away from. That's fine when I'm thinking about parking, but not so much when I'm wondering why my top is sitting high.

CRUNCH.

Honestly, as irritating and upsetting as that was, I wouldn't have minded too much. The fender, as you can see, isn't a complex, honeycomb design as on most cars. As ugly as that is - a bit worse because I pulled the intake vent off before the photo - a new fender, pre-painted in GA, could be popped on in a few minutes. Hell, I could do it on this car. Except...I bumped the tire as well. And now my right front is toed in a few degrees relative to the left. So it's currently undrivable. I'm worried that the incredible tightness the car had when it returned from GA is never going to be replicated.

Worse: I now question whether I can ever be comfortable driving my car again. This is the third time I've hit something at extreme low speed - the other two times did tiny bits of cosmetic damage that have been fixed. The front is so long, I may never completely adapt to it. Now I'm thinking of selling her. Back for four days and undriveable and I'm thinking of selling her. Ugh.

Well, I'm off to call the tow company. More later.

Stuck behind a pace car

Usually I feel like I'm stuck behind lap traffic. I tend to drive a little fast, so when there's too much traffic to bob and weave, or just a few people blocking I get cranky. Most of the time I can squeeze out an opening within a half mile or so, but occasionally it's much worse. Today, I got stuck behind frakin' pace cars.

I left the house a little late this morning (I had to break down and find the wireless card and drivers that I'd never used in my laptop because the built-in wireless was stable enough until last night) and was on the road just past 9am. Very little traffic at that time as most people who are working are there and the schools are battened down for a day of learnin'. I was thoroughly enjoying my steady mile-a-minute pace down one of the fine, broad, east-west streets here in the PHX.

As I'm coming up to a light, I catch a gold 'Vette in my rear view making some serious time. I know this approach. He saw the batmobile and wants to play. I'm all about that. With newer 'Vettes, I've got them up to around 85 or 90mph, but they've got a big advantage in the 90-105 range. I know they're pushing a few more horses than I am, but it's a gearing issue that's really screwing me. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take it much beyond the 105 (maybe once in awhile I should get off city streets) to see if I can catch back up when I get into the power band again in 4th gear.

So we get to the light and there are two cars in front of us - an old Lincoln and an old beat-to-hell ¿Celica?. We make our guesses as to who's going to get off the line faster, knowing that we won't be drag racing, but figuring we'll at least eventually get to it. He's definitely put some after-market work into the 'Vette, because his exhaust and engine sound even throatier than the Panoz's. If we can get around these two, it should be a ball.

The light turns and both cars go slooooooow. I mean, speed-limit slow. Maybe. He's behind the Lincoln and that car is ever so slowly making ground on my guy, so I slip in behind the 'Vette and hope. Then the beater starts to move a wee bit faster and my new buddy pops to the right. The whole time, both of us are laughing and shrugging our shoulders at each other. We can't cut a break today. No race this morning.

The devolution of the soft top

I've owned convertibles all my adult life. No tintops. My first was the first car I bought with my own money, a jellybean blue Geo Metro that I bought in '91.

Piece of crap? Tiny little engine? Sure. But it also weighed about as much as a Barbie Jeep so it was quick. Plus, the wee wheels and chassis arrangement made for a lithe, if slightly skittish car. You'd be amazed what you can do with something that small if you're fearless when driving.

I drove the Metro into the ground, putting about 85K miles on it in five years. As it was beginning its very rapid death spiral, I traded it in on the next convertible - a '96 Jeep Wrangler.

Now, the Jeep's a fun ride, but for someone who likes high speed and agility it's a bit of a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I used to bob and weave with her, but it just wasn't the same. And the top's a pain in the ass. The Metro's manual top I could put up or down at a stop light without getting out of the car. The Jeep...that took considerably longer. Still, it was a manual operation, so it wasn't going to break on me.

A few years and several Bay Area job hops later, my salary had gone up just a skoch. Time to trade in and trade up. So I satisfied my childhood dream of owning a Porsche by paying *way* over Blue Book for a slightly used Boxster.

Let me tell you, there are few cars that handle quite like a Boxster. It's quick - though not super fast - and with the mid-engine design it hugs the road like week-old roadkill. Did I mention the mid-engine design? Because of that, every repair costs an arm and a leg and takes an inordinate amount of time. Ever pay $1500 to replace a clutch? If you've owned a Boxster you have.^* Ever pay $2500 to replace a windshield? Alright, I didn't pay that thanks to glass coverage, but I could have. And the Boxster had the first power top I'd ever owned. A "clever" two-clutch design: one for the soft top; one for the hard cover. The wife and I got to know our mechanics really well, because that shitty, over-engineered design meant it was broken about every nine months.

Last year I got a chance to pick up one of my dream cars. An amazing deal on an '01 Esperante with only 7K miles on it. I jumped. Now, the Roadster is cooler, but the top on the Roadster is a snap-on affair reminiscent of the Jeep. The Esperante's got a nice power top to go with its sleek lines, high power, and great handling. Well, it has great handling now that we've replaced the shitty deep dish rims and low-profile tires with proper wheels and performance tires.

(That one's actually mine, unlike the other photos I culled from the web.)
Oh wait. Did I say a "nice power top"? My mistake. The Boxster should have prepared me. Last week, the top broke. A few days in the shop and it's been repaired. Well, that's what the mechanic says, but I know better. You see, you can't actually repair a power top. You can patch it so it keeps working for a little while, but it'll give out again. That's what they do. My $9K Metro with the manual top - the top that I could put up or down in thirty seconds including the top cover - that never broke. It also weighed a lot less because it didn't need hydraulics, or electrics, or gears. It was just a hinge mechanism with a canvas top and plastic rear window. Cheap, right-sized, and easy. The Esperante, like the Boxster and all other power soft tops is over-engineered. I believe they do that for old people. The wife thinks it's just for the congenitally lazy.

So now, I don't own a convertible. I own a car with a rattly cloth top. I picked the car up this afternoon with the top up, and up is where it'll stay until I sell it. The only way I'll put it down again is if we can get the good folks at Panoz to retrofit the top and make it a manual. Since it's highly unlikely they'll do so, the car will soon be someone else's problem and I'll be looking for a manual top. Of course, since the only new car on the market with a manual top is the Wrangler...and since they've ruined the Wrangler by giving it a suspension built for soccer moms...I'll definitely be forced to go used. And that really pisses me off.

Manual tops are pretty much extinct, as manual transmissions will be within a decade. Idiots.

Remember: technological advancement to solve a problem that doesn't exist, and is prone to failure, is no advancement at all.

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^* No, I didn't burn it out. The previous owner had ridden it.