So you want to see an AWESOME CAR? How about the Bugatti? The original founder of Bugatti was Ettore Bugatti founded in 1909 in the town of Molsheim which was part of the German Empire and after 1919 became a region of France. The modern day Sports Car Bugatti is part of the Volkswagen Group. If you want to read more about Bugatti and its history, check out Bugatti Wikipedia for some great information.

A video from Grand Am showing highlights from the first 6 hours of the Daytona 24 Hours.

Model T Ford Tattoo
Originally uploaded by The Tattoo Studio

This is another cool Car Tattoo. If you have a cool car tattoo, email it to chuckpontiac @ yahoo. com and there will be a contest to see who's car tattoo is the best.

Cool Buick Car Tattoo

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Hi folks -- I had a student come in to my office the other day wondering about doing a term paper on the history of the automotive industry in China. In searching the literature I found this curious Department of Commerce report from 1923 entitled "Automotive Market in China, British Malaya, and Chosen." I promptly ordered this report from Ohiolink, and it had a number of interesting bits after review that I wanted to share with you. In 1923, no cars were manufactured in China, although there was a trade in body construction. The above photo shows an example of what was said to be the very fine work of Chinese craftsmen in body construction, and particularly paint and upholstery.
Secondly, there was a discussion of the corruption associated with Chinese chauffeurs. The term used is "the squeeze" and is discussed on page 11:
"Hardly anyone who has ever done business with the Chinese has failed to come into contact wit the multifarious forms of petty graft known to foreigners as "squeeze" and to the Chinese as "cumshaw." It is the greatest tax which industry and life of the country generally had to bear. Foreigners have tried to stamp it out, but in many lines of activity they have given up the task as hopeless. Wherever there is a transaction in buying or selling, hiring or "firing" is involved, it is almost certain that the squeeze enters. in many cases the acceptance of the squeeze is quite open, and there are many Chinese who regard it as a right. This is especially true in the automotive industry.
Squeeze beings with the sale of the car and follows it through its career until the last of its parts are utterly useless. Owners know that their chauffeurs are constantly collecting commissions, and many are aware that their employees are not above taking nuts and bolts to be sold to the native repair shops which will alter be put the same nuts and bolts back on the car when the chauffeur brings it in for repair, but they are helpless. the owners claim that it serves no purpose to discharge a pilfering chauffeur, for his successor will be no better. one of the sources of revenue to the chauffeur is the dale of gasoline drained from the car's tank and sold to native dealers at one-third its value."

Im Just Looking:
This one has been used by Car Buyers for ages. Everyone is just looking when they come to a Car Lot. If you are new to Selling Cars remember, ALL customers are just looking. Your job is to assist them in the process of looking without being smart about it. Crazy Salesmen Response: "Im just looking too." or "Looking is Free Today." Dont be smart about it, just realize everyone is just looking when they first arrive. I have even heard salesman ask in the greeting, "are you here to buy a car today."

Check with Spouse:
Check with Spouse is one of those excuses that is hard to overcome because if I were making a major purchase, i would have to check with my spouse too. Just give the customer all the information they need so the spouse will have all the answers to their questions. Crazy salesmen response, "I have to check with my spouse to sell it to ya." I have actually heard that one! And, dont assume that a female shopper has to have a spouse to buy a vehicle. Women buy the cars in the household or have the influence of what is bought! Remember this, Women may not like to negotiate, but they decide what is purchased!

Have Doctors Appointment:
I have never seen so many customers that have Doctors Appointments. This is a good excuse because it is hard to overcome or question. I dont know which customer started this one, but its a good one. Crazy salesmen response: "Can you get me some good meds too."

Go To Work:
This one does not work too well because how many people actually leave early enough to look at a car before going to work. The only time this might come into play is when a customer may be on a lunch break. Crazy Salesmen Response: "Are they hiring."

Have 5 Minutes:
All customers only have 5 minutes. This is because they do not like you in the first 30 seconds. They will give you 5 minutes before they go to another dealer. Crazy Salesmen Response: "Thats not enough time, come see me later when you have more time."

Not Ready:
A customer is telling you they do not have enough information to make an informed decision. Do not take this as a customer wasteing your time, give them more information. Crazy Salesmen Response: "Come see me when your ready." That is too funny, call the customer tomorrow and see what kind of vehicle they purchased!

Do You Have Other Color:
Have you ever seen a customer look around to see what you have to ask you for a color that you do not have? This is sometimes a defense mechanism to get away from you. You now say you can locate one, but they say they would have to look at it first. The customer is usually one step ahead of you. If you are new to car sales, realize the same excuses come up every time and have a response ready. Crazy Salesman Response: "You want a white one, that is the most popular color. Why would you want what everyone else has?"

Price Too High:
This is another excuse for not enough information. You may have to go over features of the vehicle again and make sure customer test drives the vehicle! Customers already know what you can sell a vehicle for because they have invoices just like you. They know you cannot take 5k off the price, believe me! Crazy Salesman Response: "I am trying to feed my kids."

Not Enough For Trade:
Its never enough for trade, but explain where this number comes from. Just like the price of the car, they know what the car is worth. Crazy Salesman Response: "You want more, its a Piece of sh%#!!!"

Have To Look At Other Make:
Customers always want to compare your vehicle to other vehicles. Just remember this, call them the next day to see they purchased the same vehicle from your competitor. Once this happens a few times, you will quit listening to this. Crazy Salesman Response: "You want to look at that. Why? They are ugly!!!"

I have been in the car business for over 10 years so I have heard and seen it all. Customers have excuses for every situation, but i have found out why they come up with these excuses. They either do not feel comfortable with the salesman or in the situation they were put in. You have to give a customer all the information they ask for and let them make an informed decision. You dont have to be pushy, just informative.

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Fiat Girl
Originally uploaded by Ly Ning

I can see why this Car Show Model is a little nervous. Look at how this guy is looking at her! He is not even looking at the vehicle. This looks like one of those awkward moments for a Car Show Model.

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When you go to a dealership to buy a car, sign all the paperwork in the finance office, drive off, end of story right? Most of the time yes, but what happens if a dealer calls you back and tells you they could not obtain financing for you? This is called "Spot Delivery" as far as car dealer lingo goes or "Spotting the Deal."

It seems when you sign all the paperwork at a dealership that everything should be final, but this is usually not the case. Here is how dealerships operate when financing a car for customers. They have trained Finance personel to look at your credit and determine what rate they believe they can get for you based on the Finance company's standards. The standards set up by the lenders will depend in part on your credit score, type of vehicle you are buying, miles on vehicle, how long you are financing, how much money down, are you trading a car, do you have negative equity? These are just a few factors so you can see how complex these issues can be. Now, most of the time when you sign the paperwork at a dealership, the lender has not given the dealership the final approval or the final interest rate. Many times it may be the next business day before the dealer will know how much the interest will be or if the deal will even be approved.

Many larger dealers will look at your deal and make an educated guess (most of the time very accurately) at your rates. Now realize this as well. When you finance anything, the rate you are given is usually not the best rate possible because interest rates will be marked up just like vehicles. Your buy rate may be 5% and the dealer charges you 7%. The extra money made from the interest goes to the dealer. For anyone in Car Sales, you always get the question on the lot, how much will my Interest Rate Be? Never tell a customer you will get the best rate possible! This will set the dealer up for a lawsuit because a customer usually never gets the best rate possible. Tell the customer: Every customer and every vehicle qualify for different rates and you will be more than happy to figure an interest rate once the application process has been completed.

But, what happens when a dealer calls you and tells you they could not get your vehicle financed? Here is what happens on the dealers side. They believe they can get your deal worked out when you drive off with the car, but lenders are funny sometimes. They may decline a deal that you were sure you could get worked out. The dealer will call the lender back the next day and give them a reason to buy your deal. They may have the General Manager or Owner of the dealership call to try getting your deal worked out. Believe me, they will try every possible option to keep from calling a customer and telling them to bring the car back. This is what they refer to as "Rehashing a deal" and there are some finance managers that are better than others when it comes to "rehashing". This may even be turned over to a Finance Director is some larger dealerships. They will try to find some way to go with your deal. They may even call the customer back and tell them that another $1000 down is needed to secure the deal or the customer may have to resign paperwork if another lender is chosen. It is always a last resort to call a customer and have them bring the car back.

If a dealer cannot get financing worked out for you, take matters into your own hands. Get your own financing. Bad Credit? No Credit? Auto Loans...Contact Us!

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hi folks -- there is still much to be done related to women and automobiles, particularly in the period after World War II. Recently Cotten Seiler called my attention to the work of Georgine Clarsen, author of the recently released book Eat My Dust (Johns Hopkins Press). If you are at all interested in the history of the automobile and recent scholarship, this shorter study is a must read. First, the author, a senior lecturer at the University of Wollongong in Australia, has impeccable credentials, in terms of her scholarly background and interestingly enough, in terms of practical experience as a former mechanic. Georgine in her previous life might have been good with a spanner in her hand, but her writing style can be characterized as flowing and damned-near flawless. yesterday I was simply captivated during my reading of a number of sections in this book, including chapter 6, "The Woman Who Does" (on a remarkable woman who owned a repair garage in Melbourne) and chapter 8 "Machines as the Measure of Women (Women on a motor journey from Cape to Cairo). I have more to read, but can say that this title will be used in my next Automobile and American Life senior history seminar, slated for the fall of 2010.

Note that this Slot it Oxigen wireless system works with all the manufacturer digital systems!
Click to see larger version of this photo.

The new A Team movie is coming out in June and with it will follow another wave of home made A Team vans. What's great about this particular art car project is that its easy to make and all you need is a black vehicle to start with. The only painting you have to do is the red stripe down the side and all you have to worry about is getting the angle right at the elbow, easy peasy.








Here is the original A Team intro video to get you psyched

January 28, 2010 - Daytona Beach, FL - Patrick Long qualified the No. 67 TRG/Flying Lizard Porsche seventh in GT for this weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona, the season-opener for the Grand-Am Road Racing Series. Joerg Bergmeister, Johannes van Overbeek and Seth Neiman will team with Patrick in the ShoreTel/Openwave-sponsored Porsche GT3 cup car for the 24-hour endurance race, January 30-31, 2009.

Patrick commented, "We've been totally focused in practice on race balance setup. We decided to make some radical changes before qualifying and they didn't pay off as we had hoped. The Mazdas clearly had the pole in hand. But with the progress we've made today and with tonight's practice we'll have a very balanced car for the race. Seventh is a respectable starting position: we've got a 24-hour race to win and I'm confident that our setup work will pay off this weekend."

Patrick Long and Bergmeister return to Daytona with the goal to repeat their GT win here in 2009 (with TRG). Bergmeister has won three times at the Rolex 24: in 2009, in 2003 (GT and overall) and in 2002 (GT), all with TRG. Bergmeister was also the Grand-Am Daytona Prototype champion in 2006 (with Krohn Racing). Bergmeister and Long are Porsche factory drivers and will be co-drivers in the Flying Lizard No. 45 Porsche for the 2010 ALMS season. With Flying Lizard, the duo won the 2009 ALMS GT2 drivers' championship.

Read more at this link on Flying Lizard Motorsports' website.

News and photos used with written permission from FLMS, no reuse without their permission.

Buick Detail
Originally uploaded by Red Dog Tattoo

Cool Buick Car Tattoo complete with portholes! Do you have a cool car Tattoo that you want to show off? Send me a picture to chuckpontiac @ yahoo. com and I will post to this site. I will also be having a contest to see who wins for the coolest Car Tattoo so good luck.

Model T Ford Car Tattoo

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The MRRC Ford/Chaparral set and the Porsche 904 will be arriving in the US very soon at REH Distributors.

Sam Alito. Did you notice how every other one of your colleagues remained stone-faced by Obama's typical and completely expected condemnation of the campaign finance decision handed down by the Supreme Court last week? It's called "restraint." As a "conservative," you should probably look it up.

In the camera shot for Bob McDonnell's Republican response was a "rainbow of diversity," as Brian Williams called it after. Four people flanking the Virginia governor: two men, two women, including a black and an Asian. I would've loved to have been there for the pre-pro. "No, no, no...can we make the women diagonal in the camera?"

McCain's crabby sniping. We could all read your lips. "Blaming Bush...blaming Bush." Yeah, after only a year in office following probably the worst president in history, I think he still has carte blanche on that angle. Deal with it. It was certainly the foundation of your 2004 campaign, and you weren't exactly begging Bush for an endorsement in 2008, either.

But the biggest stinker of the night was Obama shouting the populist line, "Jobs are our number one priority!" Then why have you been wasting almost an entire year on healthcare "reform", with virtually no action on trying to get Americans actually healthier? Michelle's lip service to childhood obesity isn't going to do squat when former McDonald's and Kraft CEOs are running the Department of Agriculture. If we don't get healthier, demand on the system will not decrease. That is what is broken with healthcare. Fix that, and then maybe we can afford to insure the entire country. Anything less amounts to enabling our destructive lifestyle.

This Urban Trash Art Car is brought to you by Urban Trash Art that I found via my new ACC central follower Rodrigo Machado who posted it on his blog. Not really a street legal art car due to the lack of any front or side impact safety zones. But it is a good use of trash and these guys go around Brazil and reconstruct trash into these amazing sculptures. I guess that means there is a lot of trash laying around Brazil. Nice work guys!!! Here is the video as well of the two gusy in action.

There were two dogs with us the night we went coon hunting. One was an old hound, veteran of a thousand campaigns, who knew what we were up to and who wasted no time in idle diversions. The other was a puppy, brought along to observe and learn; to him the star-sprinkled sky and the deep dark woods and the myriad scents and the lateness of the hour and the frosty ground were intoxicating. The excitement of our departure was too much for his bowels. Tied in the truck, he was purged all the way over to Winkumpaw Brook and was hollow as a rotten log before the night was well under way.

--- EB White, "Coon Hunt"

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I, too, have a dream...

The most telling statistic here is that teenage drivers licenses peaked in 1978 at 12 million, and now stand at less than 10. This got to be effecting the bottom line here. How wonderful to read this. As fucked up as the world can be, these are exciting times we live in, to be standing on the cusp on such massive change.

Thanks to I Go With Fergus for the link.

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I have resolved this year to train harder, smarter, and more focused than ever before, yet when it comes to racing, I only plan on having fun. After last year's near-meltdown in Peoria, I've realized I put too much pressure on myself as an amateur athlete. While the stated, concrete goal is of course racing as a Category 2 cyclist by the end of the season, I won't consider it a failure if I don't make it having raced without regret, knowing I had and used all the physical tools at my disposal along the way.

I went to a New Year's Resolution party shortly after the holiday, and made, among friends, what's known as a visionboard. You might call it a collage, which it is, but the truth of it lies in the process of making it. From Patty360:

3. Make a Vision Board

I have a serious obsession with vision boards. It started a few years ago when I made one at a New Year’s Day party and by the Eve of the following year, EVERYTHING on the board came true. Now it’s a tradition of mine to make a board with each new year and make smaller specific boards to help create positive experiences in other areas of my life (starting a new job, planning a party, designing a wardrobe). What is a vision board? Short version (this deserves its own post): Vision boards utilize The Law of Attraction and are a functional tool to keep your affirmations and visions for the future present in your thoughts. The idea is to create a collage using words or pictures that evoke positive emotions associated with the future you want to live. It allows you to live the future *now* as if you are already there. Some people start with a list of goals they want to obtain and then look for images to capture those. I find it works better to sift through pictures in magazines and pull out what speaks to me and look for themes and patterns from there. This allows the subconcious to detect what the concious mind overlooks. There are times when I don’t even know what an item means when I add it on the board, but I always discover the meaning in the future experiences I have. Give it a try, with no expectations, the first timers often experience the best results.

I have to say my first attempt wasn't totally subconscious, but I made an effort to simply identify the imagery that spoke to me. No surprise that, among many other themes, there are two pictures of Frank Schleck on my board. Success on the bike is a big one. I left the room on sort of a high from all of the positive energy in there. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to take a peek at what I was capable of achieving.

After bringing my creation home and hanging it on my wall, I just went about my January, letting it speak to me, and within days, I'd begun to see why the bike was important to me, how I was blocking myself from having fun, and how the bike will continue to be a part of my life for years to come. I believe this is the first time in my life I have ever given myself such a personal, self-motivating goal. And I find it amusing, even astounding, yet not surprising upon realization, that this approach has eluded me nearly all of my life.

It is no coincidence that I have not missed a workout since, that I feel almost mid-season strong with much form to come, and that I am looking forward to racing more than ever.

The lesson? Publicly state your goals. Sharing them with people who care will help you stay on target.

The Mystery-Mobile, originally uploaded by ianjacobs.

The Mystery-Mobile art car covered in Mystery Spot stickers was unveiled recently, yet it is still a mystery as to who owns this art car.

The young man behind the wheel is the hemophiliac Alexei

Hi folks -- my thanks to colleague David Darrow for these photos of Nicholas II and his Imperial Garage. Before there was cars for comrades, the Romanovs had their own collection of cars to take them from Imperial Palace to visit the lumpen proletariat living in the cities and the recently freed serfs in the countryside.

Anyone able to help with the identification of the cars in the photos?

by surlygrrrl [ELBfoto].

by Delta Niner.

This Volvo is covered in hundreds of bones is called the Mercedes Bobz. Road kill just took a different meaning.