Classic Cars, Tech Center News, March 26, 2001

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TOP HAT JOHN-CLASSIC CARS COLUMN - Tech Center News, March 26, 2001

BEEN to a lot of races over the years, all kinds. I have always favored drag racing but my all time favorite has been high speed road racing where the driver gets to really ‘drive’ the vehicle. It takes driver input, understanding the car and what it can do and … what it can not do. Knowing the mechanical limitations of the car.

Typically at such races, whether it be Indy, Daytona, Darlington, Road America, MIS, your local roundy-round track or whatever the racing venue, a chosen pace car would lead off the race, carry celebrities and maybe even be utilized during caution laps. Pace cars were almost always a special automobile, usually high performance and typically be a convertible for high visibility.

Last century, it is now the 22^nd Century, if you recall, the first post WWII Indianapolis 500 race-1946- was paced by a V12 powered 1946 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet. A class piece of merchandise that Lincoln Continental was. The original Continental, 1939, actually came about as a design study and personal car of Edsel Ford himself, who was in fact head of the Lincoln-Mercury Division of Ford Motor Company. The car ‘got seen’ in Palm Beach where he vacationed during winters and became a hot item and, to make a long story short ... production.

For 1949, the Indy Pace Car was the first OHV and V8 powered Oldsmobile 88 convertible with special front fender chrome ‘rocket’ accents. V8 Olds cars went on to become the scourge of race tracks around the country. Ah yes, its what inspired "In My Merry Oldsmobile" and Chuck Berry’s song, "It’s Saturday night and I just got paid, don’t be late and I’ll pick you up in my 88".

1951 it was a Chrysler New Yorker convertible with the revered Chrysler Hemi V8-yes basically the same engine design adopted by yesterdays and todays top fuel and funny cars. 1957 it was a Mercury Turnpike Cruiser convertible, 1958 a Bonneville convertible with 3x2 barrel carburetors, 1962 a Studebaker Lark Daytona convertible.

396 powered Camaro convertibles and ‘FE’ engined Ford/Mercury intermediate size convertible cars in the late ‘60s. Oldsmobile 442 convertibles, Buick Turbo V6 cars and L82 powered Corvette’s in the ‘70s. Factory ‘zoomers’ again in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The list goes on and on for special cars as pace cars. Always special and high performance.

A little change of subject here now, just bear with me a bit and I will get to the point. In years past, make that many years past, I have loved going to baseball games, having the traditional ‘ballpark dog and suds’ and watching the ‘game’. What has happened to "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and … Mom". You cannot watch the game and ignore that insidious advertising thing going on behind the pitchers mound. You know, the one that flip/changes in between innings. Oh, and Comerica Park … what was wrong with the old Tiger Stadium name? Something tells me there ain’t a bad seat in the bank. Hockey games are about the same with ‘painted and tainted’ backboards.

Watch racing on television and the first thing out of a racers mouth in the winners circle, after he/she changes hats to correspond to the latest ‘money pit’ sponsor, is a verbal line of … sponsor advertisers. Now, back to the pace cars.

2001, the turn of the millenium, maybe drinking bad milk, stock market slowdown, elections, something has got the auto folks and race car promoters all jinxed up. Why do I suggest that? What in all heck tarnation allowed, caused, provoked and positioned an SUV to become a pace car. Wait, make that two; the Aztec at Daytona and now the Bravada for the "Brickyard"! This is high performance land-not a truck race. I say its bad marketing, a slap in the face at the great Pontiac and legendary Oldsmobile heritage.

I have a wonderful fondness in my heart for all automobiles, both cars and trucks and for all automobile people-be it worker, designer, engineer or top executive. But a bad call is a bad call is a bad choice. Somebody needs to rebalance this. Sorry, but I just do not like the gamesmanship.