2023: Year in Review | Car-Pinionated
Hi, I’m Doug Stewart and welcome to the year in review for Carp opinionated. We’ve been at this for a little bit more than a year and it’s been great fun. Um I think people are enjoying it and I hope that we continue to grow our audience in the future. And with that, here’s a look back at some of my favorite moments from the past year. I was just gonna say there’s no better example of the every other car thing than the what is now the Mazda three because they had the GLC which was kind of
an ugly little car and then they came out with the protege which is a beautiful car and then they replaced the protege with something really not terribly attractive and then they updated that and it was beautiful and then they came out with the first three which and then they updated it was like the current three. By the way, the sedan is gorgeous car. The sedan huge asterisk there because the hatch back. What the hell just II I, every, every time I see one on the road, I was like, who was on drugs the day they
were designing it, Mazda because the sedan is gorgeous. It’s so sculpted and beautiful and it looks, you know, and then the hatchback looks like someone just took an air hose and stuffed
all misshapen and everything. Yeah. Um, why don’t we move on to the uh Hyundai kind of electric, you know, I, I looked at this and the one, the one that they had on the floor of the show that everyone took pictures of is this, you know, very bright, uh, green, light, yellow, green sort of thing. And I took one look at it and thought, you know, if you got that in white, it will look like a storm trooper. You’re right. It would dear Hyundai. Please make this car in white. I want to be a storm
trooper. Hey, the good news about driving a car that looks like a storm trooper is that you’ll never hit anything with it. Thank you, Star Wars humor. Thank you. So you just made that up. Hey, you don’t need insurance. There you go. Yeah, because if anyone ever pulls you over, you just say this is not the car you’re looking for there. I’d like to talk about the Cadillac Clasique. I think I pronouncing that correctly. I preface this by saying good luck to them. I hope it works out. I hope, I hope that this works out
for you. I don’t have $300,000. I want essentially bespoke vehicle that can be whatever, whatever shade that I want, whatever, anything I want. Like. Yeah, that’s a house, you know, in most parts it’s a decent house in most parts of the country. Um, I, here’s my thing, um, if, if they’re going to pitch a car that’s $300,000 it better be like one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. And this car kind of is until you get to the sea pillar and then it’s like they added on another 12 ft of car. What is
with the back end of this thing? I’m serious. It’s like, it’s, it’s half the length of the car from like the, where the, where the rear door ends to the end of the trunk. It’s just like the old days we are maybe. Yeah, the old days where that, you know, that people who drove those cars aren’t alive anymore, you know, even my dad didn’t drive a big boat like that ever. You know, the big, big, the 30 ft long cars, is that what they’re trying to evoke? I don’t know, but I don’t know what your
market is for a $300,000 car that, and is it a hatchback or not? I couldn’t tell. I’m looking at this car. It’s a beautiful shade of blue. It’s got gorgeous wheels. I don’t get it. I just, I, the, the, the front wheel is two inches away from the front bumper and the back wheel is like 5 ft from the back bumper. It’s just i, it’s just, it, the first thing I thought of was the, it’s the Jetsons hearse. It’s a hearse that they, they drove in the, in the, the, in the space age, Jetsons funeral
home, you know, it’s 6 ft under Met Met the Jetsons and made a new show. There’s some old references. The kids are like, what’s the Jetsons and what’s 6 ft under? Am I right? I mean, think about this, it kind of, it’s a space age curse. It just don’t get that back in. Are we putting Greg? We are, we are never, ever, ever giving any product to just drive from GM after that? No, I know. But it’s, and it’s sad because GM has some good product. They do. This is, I just, I don’t, I don’t
know, like you mentioned, uh, the, uh, the, the previous model of the, of the Cadillac. What’s this, the CT six? Is it? Oh, God, there’s one of them out there that I lose, I lose track sedan. That’s nice. I think the only Cadillac that people could name would be the Escalade. The only one that doesn’t, doesn’t have a numeric alpha numeric moniker. Right. You and I know a lot about cars and we can’t think of the name of the car. I remember the Simon. Um, what do we got next? We got the, uh, the Subaru
Cross Track Wilderness. We can call that up. Um, ok. So sometimes I like cars with the cladding on him sometimes I think. Well, that makes it look really cool. Like every Volvo cross country I’ve ever liked the Audi All Road. Yeah. Yeah. Good examples of good use of cladding. This, nope. Um, it looks like there was a plastic car that they put a metal car on top of like LEGO pieces. Ok. So never own a used car ever again. I mean, just, you know, how catastrophically bad my used cars were, I mean, really, really, really
horrible. So, I, uh, I had a, I, I bought a used Audi when I was a kid. Just not a great idea, but it was a beautiful car on the outside when it was running. It was, you know, hell of a car to drive. It was front wheel drive years before most cars were, but this thing was a problem every single week. Um, II, I had one of those, uh, I mean, every time I fixed it a week later, something else was going and finally the car finally committed suicide though the entire fuel injection system
ruptured off the top of the engine, spraying gas all over the the engine compartment which subsequently burst into flames with me in the car. So, and I don’t know if you remember Audis of, of, of old, but you could turn the radio and the heat on without the, the battery even being engaged or the car being on in any way, shape or form. So, car stalls, I’ve just spent thousands of dollars getting it fixed. I’m cursing the car and suddenly plumes of black smoke come pouring through the vents into the car. I literally barely found
the handle and fell out onto the pavement and crawled across Briarwood Drive on my hands and knees. And when I turned around, I could see that there was smoke coming out from underneath the hood. Silly me. I reach in, pop the hood, open the hood up and it takes me maybe five seconds to realize the hood is burning hot. So, because the car was on fire. So, um, a neighbor alerted my mom. Oh, good. Because little heads. You wanted that? I was, I was at community college. I was all about 20 years old, maybe still
living at home. And one of the neighbors called, called my mom. And can you imagine the conversation? Hi, Inga. It’s Joan. Oh, good. Yep. Yep. Oh, Marv, did get that at the, the, uh, promotion at work. Yeah, he’s a new department. Yeah. No. All good. Good time. By the way, your son Glenn’s car is on fire out in front of my house. So, my mom comes screeching around the corner in her Lincoln. Right when the fire. Exactly. You know, right. When the fire department is getting there, she gets out of the car as the firefighters
are getting out to fight the fire and she goes, no, let it burn. Uh, uh, we all, we all thought, we saw the face of Satan in the flames that his car was just, it was possessed. So, uh, one last little note about the car from hell, um, my insurance agent took a look at the car and thought maybe it should be fixed even though the entire engine had been burnt out. So I had the car towed down to, to Hoffman poor Shi in East Arford and to have them do the quote on the work
and they came in at like double the cost of the new Audi. So my insurance agent called back and went, oh, no, no, we’re gonna, we’re gonna total the car. Um, yeah. Well, tell them, who do you think? Who do you think is gonna buy the cyber truck? I have my own thought about this and I think it’s general contractors in Marin County. Um, 20% of them is gonna buy, you know, I, I think, I think it’s gonna be people who have, um, lots of disposable income. Um, when, when I talked to the, uh, the
owner of the dealership who had the first Hummer ev in the, uh, in New England. And he was very honest with you because this is not somebody’s second car, it’s not somebody’s third car, it’s maybe their fourth or their fifth car. Th this is, this is gonna be something that they’re gonna buy. It’s gonna be interesting and it, you know, they like the attention but it’s not something that they were gonna have to live with every day. So I think that that’s, that’s one of the markets. I think the other market is that is the
dyed in the wool hardcore Tesla fan who has to have the next thing and, and, and when you look at some of these, I saw one Instagram guy who Tesla fan, Instagram guy who flew to Europe to see the new Highland Island model. So the essentially the mid cycle refresh of the model three, he flew to Europe for a mid cycle refresh. So I’m preparing for my honeymoon next spring which will be in the UK and in France and I am trying very hard to sell my fiance on the idea of buying a first Gen
Twingo and shipping it back to the US. It’s not going well, but stay tuned. I’m persistent. I mean, I can just see myself driving around, you know, driving around Edgewater with like Gladiolas and baguettes flying out the back with reckless abandon. Uh, maybe someday per chance to dream. Yeah. Thanks for joining me for this year in review for Carp In. It’s been fun. Glad to have you along and we’ll be back next week.
