Tag: HISTORIC

The EPA might have kicked the musclecar down to the ground, but if you want to know when the party was really, truly over, all you need to do is remember October 17, 1973. That was the day that OPEC, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries levied an embargo of oil against any nations that they believed were supporting Israeal during the Yom Kippur War. From that day until March 1974, things were weird. You had to pick and choose which day you drove up to the gas pump and you hoped that you had a prayer of getting fuel at all, let alone what you would be rationed. Thieves? You bet. The double-nickel speed limit? Yeah, thank the the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act. Year-round daylight savings time. The 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring were cancelled, NASCAR shortened every race by 10%, and that was just what impacted automobiles. If the OPEC oil shock was the rock dropped into a still lake, the rings of change were plentiful: smaller cars, a move for different fuels, the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a focus on energy conservation all radiated away from the first shock. It was a political move to weaponize oil to encourage countries to pick a side in a war that was instigated by Egypt and Syria, but for the automotive world, it might as well have been the day the bomb dropped.

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It’s 1973. The party is over, the music has died (except for the shop behind Pontiac’s main office, where you can still hear some early heavy metal blasting.) You’ve got a front row seat for the first oil shock, the 1973 OPEC crisis, and the only thing you stand to move with any kind of hope are your smaller, compact cars. You can’t rely on sporty and powerful anymore, especially when you are now going to have to be better at explaining the virtues of a platform past the common “it’s a good value” line. Good value? How? What makes Car A a better value over Car B? What do you get for your dollar’s worth, and is it worth the effort or time to buy new instead of just holding on to that trusty (if rusty) thing that has been shuttling you back and forth for years now?

The Dodge Dart Sport, the car that had been the lithe Demon before religious groups got their knickers in a twist, was one of Chrysler’s best hits of the 1970s. Plymouth had re-skinned their Valiant into a handsome coupe shape and Dodge had gotten their copy of the bodyshell to use, and they sold. The Duster 340 and Demon 340 were junior supercars that could give you a thrill, but with the 340 gone and the 360 that replaced it was only competent, not as wild as before. So, back to that trick that will bring buyers into the showrooms. How about a fold-down rear seat?

Yeah, that’s no joke. The “Convertriple” option for 1973 and 1974 was supposed to fuse three cars into one: an economy compact that had the open roof feel of the convertible (really, a manually-operated sunroof) and a fold-down rear seat that morphed the car into the station wagon. You can go ahead and roll your eyes, we understand. Just as you can understand why hearing a group of young ladies losing their minds over a fold-down rear seat is smirk-inducing.

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I’m sure I’m gonna hear from a lot of people I used to work with for saying this, but it’s a reality: not every helicopter pilot is a great pilot. Safe, sure. Competent, absolutely. But a great pilot? What does that even mean? To most of us, so long as we can walk away from the landing without wearing freshly-soiled clothing, that’s a great pilot, but I disagree…that is a competent pilot, someone who knows what they are doing, flies with respect to limits, adheres to all safety margins, and keeps the bird in one piece. Or, in other words, unlike most pilots I know. A good pilot can handle basic manuevers. A great pilot knows how to handle manuevers that would scare a standard co-pilot bad enough that they will turn in their wings. They know more than the safety limits. They know the absolute limits of just what their machine can do and are still able to land it on the pad in one piece.

As you watch this video, understand that not all of what you are seeing is to the pilot’s credit. The Bo 105 is a light twin-engine bird that was one of the first helicopters that could pull off aerobatic manuevers like inverted loops, rolls and other trickery. The Bo 105 can be manhandled around with little to no issue. That doesn’t make it any less awesome to see as it weaves through this patch of trees…One tree in the middle of a gravel pit is more than enough, but a whole forest worth of sturdy pine is something else altogether!

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