With the imminent demise of Pontiac upon us, we ask ourselves “What defines Driving Excitement?” How about a giant screaming chicken plastered to your bonnet? Here is the brief story of one of the most unmistakable symbols of car culture, the hood bird.
In 1970, under the direction of Bill Porter (Chief Designer of the 1970 Firebird), Ted Schroeder was in charge of designing the Trans Am package. To this day he can’t recall who floated the idea, but Schroeder sketched the huge decals for two different 1970 Trans Am show cars. Using traditional racing colors, one was to be white with a blue hood bird and vice versa. Designer Norm Inouye finalized the artwork and 3M produced two unique decals. After catching a sneak peek of the work in progress, GM Vice President Bill Mitchell shot the idea down immediately because of the “Indian blanket on the hood”.
In addition to the hefty purchase incentives Chrysler LLC announced this week, the Pentastar has unveiled another tactic for luring potential customers onto dealer lots: the “Employee Pricing Plus Plus” program (and yes, that is grammatically correct, so stow your pious letters-to-the-editor). Officially kicking off today, January 26, 2009, the Employee Pricing Plus Plus program extends employee lease/purchase benefits to all customers, offering discounts of up to $3,500 on 2009 model year vehicles and $6,000 on 2008 model year vehicles. In addition to the very enticing offer, Chrysler is also offering up to 48 months of 0% percent financing for qualified buyers (which, it is worth noting, is still not generous enough to goad anyone into purchasing a Chrysler Sebring).
In 2009, Citroen will honor its 90th year of existence by giving a new, modern update to its classic chevron logo. Although the new badge has already appeared on the GTbyCITROEN concept vehicle, which debuted at the Paris auto show back in October, the first production vehicle to bear Citroen’s new grin will be the C3 Picasso compact MPV. Intended to represent the herringbone pattern of the helical gear, unlike many other automakers, Citroen’s chevron applique is not applied in a uniform manner to each vehicle in the Citroen lineup. Rather, Citroen takes great pains to ensure each logo gels with the artistic lines of the car (which is not altogether surprising given the French preference for the frous-frous) while still maintaining enough similarity to serve its ultimate purpose.
Yesterday, news of Ford wielding the legal axe upon fan site, TheRangerStation.com, had several “The Man Is Evil, Dude” auto blogs out for Ford blood. Today, many of those same blogs have since published retractions, citing they weren’t aware of Ford’s official position on the matter until today, presumably after receiving clarification from Ford. However, had the aforementioned blogs been enterprising enough to search TheRangerStation forums in their entirety before slapping together a post, they would have found the “whole story” yesterday – replete with 55 pages worth of legal documents from the law firm itself. Nevertheless, many failed to review that pertinent information before going to print, and instead chose to assume that Ford was arbitrarily picking on TRS in an abusive exercise of their corporate omnipotence. Well, as it turns out, they were right.
Vertu, a mobile phone manufacturer and subsidiary of Nokia, has recently added a new luxury cellular device to their exclusive Ascent collection, aimed specifically at upper class automotive enthusiasts. Following in the footsteps of Vertu’s multiple previously released Ferrari-themed mobile devices, the new Ferrari Ascent Ti is styled to reflect the superior design of the Ferrari super car with unique accents such as Ferrari hood inspired battery cover, the obligatory Cavallino/prancing horse logo, and a complimentary 12-month or 12,000-mile supply of tadalifil.
I like the Alfa Romeo badge, it has that coat of arms look you expect to see on a the top pocket of a wealthy man’s blazer. It’s nice. But if you look closer you’ll notice there’s actually a serpent eating a person on there, which is a bit bizarre. I’m down with symbolism and imagery, but I had to know what that was all about.
Apparently, that symbol is called a biscione, and the little guy getting eaten is actually a Saracen or Moor (aka: a Muslim). So the whole serpent motif going on there symbolizes the Crusaders’ defeat of the infidels. Neat.
Testing the limits of the peaceful understanding and blanket tolerance the Pruis fanbase claims to practice, Toyota has released yet another spy shot that summarily reveals absolutely nothing. Like the first teaser shot (pictured above) that hit priuschat.com on Monday of last week, the new 2010 Prius teaser is so ambiguous it could be of just about anything, including what it most closely resembles – the open/close switch for the bathroom door on a commercial airliner.
With no production photos to feed our gnawing hunger for the new, 2010 Ford Mustang, we’re gobbling up even the tiniest flashes of skin. Undoubtedly feeling our pain, last Wednesday, the guys at MuscleCarBlog threw us a bone and revealed the new pony badge the redesigned Ford Mustang will be wearing in 2010. At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference between the reportedly “beefy” 2010 badge and the sleek ‘09 badge, but given the Mustang’s tradition-rich history, you didn’t really expect the new pony to look like a Budweiser Clydesdale, did you?
